Developing a Thesis for an 8-minute Cabaret Show

Okay, so much time has come and gone since my last blog entry...

In the midst of developing an 8-minute Cabaret Show for my performer's workshop at ANMT in Los Angeles. Been in the class for over 10 weeks now. I'm in session 2 - Creating your own cabaret. The first session was about developing and honing audition skills.
Learned a lot of good things in session 1 which culminated in a show of our 3 audition pieces organized by Joshua Finkel, our instructor.

So on to cabaret...you would think I would be at ease and at home with this section of the workshop. It is where I started in this iteration of my performing. It is what I know....or is it?

Learning the art of creating cabaret from Josh. It is clear I haven't been putting in the work I need to and the attention to detail in the details of developing my cabaret. Class this last Wednesday made that very evident to me...and the rest of the class. Let's say that as soon as I got up there to run my rough draft of "my" show it was down hill from there. Or maybe it was "uphill" is a better description because that is what it felt like to me as I was going through it.

I was ill-prepared and had about the lowest energy one could have running a show.
Okay, so we are our own worst critics. Unfortunately, it's also pretty accurate.

It has been a bit frustrating for me in the little bit of time I have spent on developing this what appears to be a very "short" show to build. But therein lies some of the difficulty. Trying to make an interesting show in the time span of a fleeting 8 minutes.

So, after watching some rather brilliant run throughs, albeit rough drafts, that others had put together I have to ask myself "am I spinning my wheels too hard" in coming up with something.

I was amazed and entertained by the simplicity and funny wit that some of the other acts had in their show. When I went up and did my "show" I felt like every sentence fell upon deaf ears with lead boots tied to them.

Of course, this only makes me more resolved to work harder to get to the place I want to be with the show. That's my nature. I want excellence. I expect nothing less than that. At the very least, I want to feel satisfied with my efforts.

So, had three songs picked out for the show. Thought they would work well together. Now, I am fairly certain that 2 of them will not be in the show. One, which was an attempt to be funny has felt so unfunny in presenting it and the other is not strongly relevant to what my first attempt at a thesis turned out to be.

The third song, I like, for it's potential but as I go back to the drawing board...who knows?
It's Sondheim...it's difficult in that it has a lot of words in a very little time like "Everybody says don't". (It's Putting it Together.)

I have exactly one month to get it right.

First off, I need to come up with a STRONG and TIGHT thesis and then get creative over the story line and then pick songs that will most strongly and hopefully surprisingly tell the story with humor, some irony, and a bit of intelligence.

I need to sit with it and play. Don't over work the thesis. The simpler the better.
I need to look at a wide variety of music.
It would be nice if I already know the music, but if not, LEARN the music and have good sheet music for Jake to read.

Deep breath. Positive attitude. Dive in.
I am good at this. I will succeed.

Okay, enough talking...it's in the doing.
;-)