Cabaret: 'Chloë Hart - Redesign'

I didn't hesitate in booking a ticket right away when I found out Chloe was organising another cabaret. I had enjoyed the last one immensely and this time it would be even better because I had become better acquainted with the "regular" attendees to these sorts of events (promotion: Twitter is great for meeting people with similar interests as well as for finding out about smaller scale cabarets you might wish to attend) and therefore I would have people to chat with at interval rather than being that loner in the corner.

Date: Sunday 22nd July 2012
Location: Union Theatre, London
Featuring: Lucy May Barker, Gina Beck, Liam Doyle, Chloe Hart (surprise!), Charlotte Scott, Thomas Sutcliffe, Rebecca Trehearn

Charlotte Scott and Chloe Hart. Photo: Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker

I was reading the diary entry I had written right after this cabaret and it seemed to be mostly about what people were wearing (there seemed to be a strange fascination when it came to shoes...) but since Fonsaca's lovely photography provides a taste of that aspect of the night, I'll talk about the songs instead. Don't take any of this as a review though: wrote this mainly for all the people who did not have the chance to attend.

Now, Chloe was supported by Charlotte and Rebecca in the opening number, I'm A Star. I thought it sounded perfect. Chloe was not happy, however, because she had messed up some of the lyrics (I bet no one noticed!) and asking we would not put that performance on YouTube. She added another rendition of the same song at the start of Act 2. The funniest thing was that by the time we got to the start of the second act, I had forgotten about Chloe's promise to perform that first song later on and I wondered why the song sounded freshly familiar. For anyone who noticed me having a quiet laugh halfway through: that was why. Stunning harmonies and Chloe's got such a gorgeous, clear voice.

We heard several Kooman and Dimond songs. Chloe's a massive fan of theirs. "They deserve to be more famous," she says and readily shares her enthusiasm for their compositions. In general, Chloe tends to go for a lot of new writing - she says she is a bit of a geek that way - so many of the songs were unfamiliar to me. However, some of the songs I had most certainly heard in cabarets before (what would a Chloe cabaret be without her signature song: Stagey and Proud?) but I just did not know the titles or the composers. That goes for Chloe and Thomas's The Temp and the Receptionist (such a great song) and the "die, die, die" song Lucy sang (sounds very obscure but anyone who has heard the song will know what I am on about - that's the section of the track that stays with you!). To comment on the latter: it really made me realise what a difference the singer can make. I have heard Jacqueline Hughes sing the same song in the past. A brilliant, humorous performance in both insteances but just very different in terms of the voice. Liam Doyle sang a song from the Catch Me If You Can musical. I think that was the first time I heard a song from that show. I might need to go away and have a proper listen.

Charlotte sang Scott Alan's beloved Never Neverland. You hear that song at just about every cabaret: it's such a beautiful song people want to perform it and audiences are always happy to hear it. That I may not have been able to find a recording of on the generally omniscient YouTube but I just discovered this from Chloe's previous cabaret. I think Charlotte does an incredible job of this Cheno song, hence the sharing:

Because Gina Beck ("My next guest doesn't need an introduction") was there, how could they not sing For Good? Gina also performed a song called My Prince by Alexander S Bermange. Rather Glinda-y that one.

Gina Beck and Chloe Hart singing For Good.
Photo: Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker

Gina Beck singing My Prince.
Photo: Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker

And look, I found Gina's rendition of the song. Just listen to the lyrics (not that you can actually miss the beautiful voice):

                             

And this is what we were treated with to finish off:

I love Smash (the TV series about making a Marilyn Monroe musical in case someone's been living under a rock) and I love Chess so I was very content to have experienced both of these songs live. I was surprised by how deep and powerful Rebecca's voice was. This video doesn't really do it justice but live it was incredible to listen to, especially the belt in Let Me Be Your Star and when she performed With You from the musical Ghost in which she currently understudies the female lead. I have much love for the video clip above because it captures some of the lovely atmosphere of an intimate musical theatre cabaret. It's informal (I'm sure we all noticed Liam checking the lyrics on his phone) and both the performers and the audience get to have a bit of a laugh. I have absolutely fallen in love with these kinds of events. One thing on my life list: to perform solo in a cabaret like this. 

If anyone is interested in hearing additional tracks from the cabaret (this one and also Chloe's first one), you can find more video footage on Chloe's own YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ChloeXxXHart

And Rukaya's uploaded some stuff from this cabaret too including a great capture of Chloe and Gina singing For Good: http://www.youtube.com/user/RukayaC 

And thanks again to Fonsaca for letting me use her photos for this :)

My West End cabaret experience

As a part of the 12-week Sunday intensive musical theatre course I took at the American Musical Theatre Academy of London, known just as AMTA, my course mates and I got this amazing opportunity to perform in a cabaret at Charing Cross Theatre (i.e. actually in the West End) with an ensemble and four West End soloists.

Insane About Broadway at Charing Cross Theatre
On 29th April 2012 at 19:30
Main soloists: Kenneth Avery-Clark, Mark Goldthorp, Alice Fearn, Kirsty Hoiles


Our call was at 10:30am. It really wasn't my morning: Not only did I succeed in getting lost while changing tubes at Earl's Court underground station (note to self: never change there, however desperate you are) but I also had trouble finding the theatre. It is slightly hidden from view with the entrance in an alleyway underneath an arch which read something like 'Arches Shopping' over it. In addition, it was still down on the maps under its former name: The New Players Theatre. Obviously I did successfully arrive in the end, otherwise this blog post would cut rather short. 
Charing Cross Theatre is one of those gorgeous, old-looking venues. You know when you think of the word 'theatre' as a building, you probably think of the interior as something like Charing Cross Theatre. It seats 275 people so it is decent size as well: very nice for a cabaret.

Fave! Me with Elaine and Bronwyn in Skid Row. 

Alice's gorgeous shoes.

Kaisla's Dorothy shoes.

We only had the theatre for the day of the cabaret so we did all the tech and finalised the blocking then. Of course we had blocked all the ensemble numbers previously but we did not actually know whether it would work on the stage we had or not (mind you, we did have to make a fair number of changes due to things like the stairs on either side of the stage not being lit enough for people to stand on them during numbers). The best you can do is keep track on all the changes. Preparing for this cabaret really made me realise what a huge responsibility each ensemble member has. A group of people put on stage together does not automatically transform into an ensemble but each person needs to put in maximum effort in order for the ensemble to function.

Alice, who had a matinee to do at Shrek the Musical (she in in the ensemble playing the Sugarplum Fairy and Gingy as well as understudying the role of Princess Fiona), rehearsed her solo numbers and duets first. I decided to sit and watch. Alice was on as Fiona when I went to see Shrek last August. She was brilliant in the part and I absolutely loved her voice. While I was sitting there listening to the rehearsal progress, the realisation that I would get to be a part of all this finally hit me. I smiled and snuggled deeper into the comfortable, cushioned seat absorbing in that special theatre atmosphere which I have grown so very fond of. It was great watching the professionals work, you can really learn a lot by doing that although sometimes they make you roll your eyes by saying how badly they did even though it sounded perfect to you. Obviously Kenneth, Mark and Kirsty also had fabulous voices (go Google them all!). I listened with particular interest to Kirsty's rendition of Somewhere That's Green from The Little Shop of Horrors as that is one of the songs I have recently learnt but have not had the chance to perform anywhere yet. 

Interval photos, with Michelle, Elaine,
Bronwyn, Claire and Rachel

Everyone shared one small dressing room which, as I am sure you can imagine, ended up hot, stuffy and crowded. I took forever getting ready as usual. Apparently I also looked too pale on stage and I was trying to figure out how to dispose of the problem without ending up looking orange. Clothing-wise I had only brought one dress with me: the only one I own which could be considered vaguely "glam" (I think I need to get some more nice dresses) and which was not extreme in terms of the colour. Some people had brought several outfits and were trying to decide which one to wear for which number.
There were five group numbers: Skid Row from The Little Shop of Horrors, 'Til We Reach That Day from Ragtime, Seasons of Love from Rent, One Short Day from Wicked and In Whatever Time We Have  from Children of Eden as well as a group of six girls (Claire, Michelle, Elizabeth, Irina, Elaine and Chiara who all deserve to be mentioned by name because they did an amazing job) singing and dancing to Cellblock Tango from Chicago and most of the boys sang What You Own from Rent as a group number. Some of the students on the full-time programme at AMTA performed solo songs. Incidentally, one of them happened to be Finnish - very surreal but it was nice to chat to someone in Finnish for a change. We also had some of the full-time students doing stage management. Thanks for being such a great help! 

Mark (left), Alice, Kirsty and Kenneth in the last number:
In Whatever Time We Have

Was I nervous? Of course I was. Excited-nervous though, and only just before the show began. I am one of those people who just tends to go into calm-mode. Once I got on stage, I enjoyed being there too much to have any second thoughts. With the number of times we had rehearsed all the songs, there really was no reason to panic. Everything was in muscle memory.


Special thanks to all the people I had the privilege of meeting and working with over the 12-week course, our teachers Duncan, Ross and Alex and Kenneth and Christie for giving us this fantastic opportunity to perform :) I had such a great time on the course and on the day of the cabaret and I suppose it goes unstated that I would love to do something similar again in the future. (Such a sloppy way to end the post...)

I was on a post-show high or something... My "cousin", Lumi, was in the audience :)

Chlöe Hart & co in cabaret - Ensemble Power

Chloe Hart, who is currently in the ensemble of the London production of Wicked, put on a cabaret to raise money for a lung cancer charity. Some of her fellow cast members as well as a few drama school students came and joined her on stage during the night and if there was one thing the average audience member gained from this night I should imagine it to be respect for the ensemble. 

Michelle Pentecost (2nd cover Elphaba)
Photo: Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker

Chloe Hart
Photo: Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker

Each and every one of the performers (shame on those people underestimating the ensemble) was not only perfectly capable of singing solo, they were fantastic at it. In a way that should not come as a surprise considering they are trained musical theatre actors but it seems to me that the ensemble does not always get much credit. It is also very rare to get to hear them sing individually. That's why I thought the cabaret was such a great idea. Big thanks to Chloe for organising it!


The theme of the cabaret was new writing so all the songs had been taken from new musicals or they were new songs from current musical theatre composers. The only major song that really did not fit into that category was one Thomas Sutcliffe had decided to sing: Bring Him Home from Les Misérables. 

Thomas Sutcliffe
Photo: Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker

Lauren Samuels
Photo: Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker

I won't go into all the songs that were performed but here are a few of those that stood out to me:

Charlotte Scott (1st cover Glinda)
Photo: Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker

Girl in 14G
Regardless of the massive amount of love I have for this song, I always become weary when I am told someone other than Kristin Chenoweth is going to sing it. It's just one of those songs you associate too strongly with one person. However, I have to say that Charlotte Scott (1st cover Glinda) definitely did justice to it. What an amazing voice! And the acting and comic timing were spot on. I am now determined to try and catch a performance of Wicked with her as Glinda.


An Old-Fashioned Love Story from The Wild Party
When I heard this song for the first time about a year ago, I was certain that the lyrics had been tampered with. I was proven wrong there: the lyrics actually are not what you would expect at all. This is a brilliantly funny song and I was laughing all the way through because I anticipated the comedy.
I actually found Jackie Hughes's performance from that night on YouTube:

The Wizard and I from Wicked
Well, I suppose there couldn't not be a Wicked number in the show. Chloe performed this song as one of the final numbers of the cabaret and she did it justice. 


Stagey and Proud with music by Chris Passey and lyrics by Amy Caroll
This brand new song had been written especially for Chloe and this is the first time she has performed it. Have a listen. it is funny, especially if you know Wicked. 

Some other songs we were treated to:

• Mama Who Bore Me from Spring Awakening
• Beautiful Disaster (performed by Lauren Samuels)
• I'm Not Pregnant
• Never Neverland (Fly Away) by Scott Alan - I love this song

Conclusion: It was such a nice night. The atmosphere friendly and supportive, we got several good laughs. In addition, it was great to meet some fellow musical theatre fans as well as exchanging a few words with the stars of the evening. More of these kinds of cabarets, please :)


A special thanks to Fonsaca Malyan-Brooker for letting me use some of the photos she took!