To an entire legion of forty-somethings from the New York metropolitan area, the name Carole Demas evokes some of the most cherished memories of childhood; as co-host of the children’s show The Magic Garden on WPIX Channel 11, she and true-life best friend Paula Janis took their young audience on an educational romp that included music, stories, learning other languages, and a supporting cast brought to life by the puppetry of Cary Antebi. What most of those children couldn’t have known was that Demas was also starring on Broadway at the time, as Sandy in the original cast of Grease, alongside Barry Bostwick. Since that time, she’s gone on to success in all manner of media, and most recently opted to return to cabaret with her show Summer Nights, which proved a smash when it debuted at the Laurie Beechman Theater in 2011 (one critic likened her to a cross between Judy Collins and Betty Buckley), and will return to the space for a 7 PM performance on Wednesday, February 15th. And though it’s always a very busy time for the lady (she spends a sizeable portion of the year touring with Paula Janis in concerts), The Andrew Martin Report couldn’t be more honored that she’s granted us an interview in preparation of the show.

ANDREW MARTIN: What made you decide to return to cabaret after such a long absence?

CAROLE DEMAS: I realized I was growing older, and I felt strongly that singing songs that speak to me and sharing that experience with an audience is an integral part of who I am. At this point, opportunities to sing don’t necessarily come your way. You have to make them happen; it’s a use-it-or-lose-it situation. Cabaret is about putting your own performance together–the songs, the dialogue, the flow–it’s a very creative process, and I want to tackle it while I still can. I have so much to sing about–more and more, as time goes on–and I have the perspective now that comes from being in my seventies and, thankfully, still able to sing. Cabaret, as we see it in various cities in the USA today, is becoming a flexible genre. There are those who prefer to preserve it in what might be seen as its purest form–singers presenting their personal view of The Great American Songbook. These classic, timeless songs never get old. They are forever witty, enjoyable, beautiful, and certainly deserve their highly-respected place in our musical history, but even many of the purists are open to the idea that the songbook is growing as time goes by. Songs from Broadway (which has always been married to the classic songbook material), jazz, some ethnic music, folk, certain pop songs and other material are being successfully embraced by the intimacy and personal interpretation of cabaret. So there’s a range of choice, and there are lots of ways to succeed or fail. A singer’s choices are a reflection of the singer–what moves you, what suits your vocal abilities–all kinds of things come into play. It’s also a collaborative process, with a musical director, often a director, too, and sometimes other musicians. Challenging. Defining, in a way. It takes a lot of discipline and creative energy, and mostly it takes a lot of passion. Without that, it’s just too difficult. It isn’t generally lucrative, either. You’re lucky to break even, but the passion keeps you going. I told my husband today that although I look younger than my years, I’m physically and emotionally feeling the changes that time brings about at this point in my life. It comes to me that to deal with the forces of nature, you kind of have to be one–or at least try! 

AM: You speak in the show about your childhood in Brooklyn, but don’t tell us much about what drew you to a life in the theater. Can you illuminate us about how and why that happened?

CD: I was born with the gift of a singing voice. My parents both had beautiful natural singing voices, and all four of us got the gene. My parents encouraged me and made sure I got good training when the time came–but I was a shy child, slow to physically mature, and extremely insecure about singing in front of people. We were not a showbiz family. Singing at assembly in school, or in church, terrified me to the point of feeling ill, but still, the drive was there. In my secret heart, I imagined a career as an actress, but I didn’t believe I was good enough to actually do it. I planned to be a writer, or a teacher. I loved children and it turned out I was a good teacher. In college, at the University of Vermont, I auditioned for a few shows and got leading roles. I found it was easier to sing in musicals where I was playing the part of a person other than myself (even though I brought a lot of myself to the process). This was so liberating! Out there on the stage, singing roles in operas and musicals, I felt a resounding “yes” filling me up inside and got the message–this was really who I was.

AM: Was The Fantasticks your first major show?

CD: No, my first major show was Morning Sun in 1963, Fred Ebb’s first book musical, with an earlier writing partner, Paul Klein. It starred Patricia Neway and Bert Convy. I had worked with the Champlain Shakespeare Festival in Vermont, playing small roles and singing with Roy Kelly, and guitarist Chuck Eldred, in a concert of Shakespearean music before each show. After college, I went to NYU Graduate School of Education to earn teaching credentials so I could survive, and I began teaching grades 1-6 in the New York City school system. It’s a long story, Paula Janis  and I ended up teaching kindergarten together, in a double-enrollment classroom in a what was a very rundown area in Brooklyn in the early 1960s. We did a lot of singing with the children, and then, based on the work I had done in Vermont, we formed a quartet with our brothers, Jonathan Rosen and Alex Demas, and found we had a blend made in heaven. We sang as minstrels, The Festival Line Singers, for the NY Shakespeare Festival at The Delacorte in Central Park, for several seasons. How that happened is a crazy story in itself; it was a gig we created and brought to them, they liked it, it was a huge hit, many agents saw us there and a number of them called me about representation. Agent Eva Slane sent me up for the ingénue lead in Morning Sun, and after an audition that scared me silly (my first one ever for a real role in New York), I got the part. Every girl waiting to audition in the alley looked like Brigitte Bardot in false eyelashes and a low-cut sundress. I had worn no makeup and my younger sister’s clothes–my wardrobe at the time consisted mostly of my teaching outfits, selected to make me look at least old enough to be in charge of a classroom! The show was an enormous experience, full of talent but too dark for the critic’s taste, and closed quickly. I did some substitute teaching and some regional theatre, including playing Luisa in The Fantasticks at what became the Milwaukee Rep. To play that role in New York was a dream of mine, and it came true in 1966. It was an opportunity to do eight shows a week in a long run of a successful show (for forty dollars a week, at first, and later a big fat eighty dollars!). I learned so much. My fellow actors were brilliant, good people. It was a golden time.

AM: You’ve spoken of how you and Paula first met when you were fourteen. How did that happen? And did you both always know from the start that you wanted to work together on something like The Magic Garden?

CD: Paula and I met as sophomores, singing in the Mixed Chorus in Midwood High School in Brooklyn, in 1955. We’ve been friends now for fifty-seven years! We had no idea that we’d be creating and performing together as Carole and Paula of The Magic Garden in 1972! Some of the seeds of that partnership were sewn in our teaching together ten years earlier. The show happened because WPIX auditioned me to be the host of a cartoon show as part of their effort to satisfy The Children’s Television Act of the time. I suggested something different, with Paula and me as a team, and it came to be!

AM: The stories of No No Nanette prior to Broadway have become legendary, up to and including the fact that you were cast in the title role and then replaced unexpectedly. What was that experience like? Do you have any regrets about not having gone on to do the show?

CD: Getting Nanette was totally thrilling! I remember waiters at Joe Allen, who had heard the news, dancing around my table there to congratulate me! A Broadway show!! WOW!! The title role!! WOW!! The musical director wanted a different spin on the role, not a typical soubrette, and while I was certainly a soprano, he lowered the keys of the songs, looking for a slightly different sound. I gave him, he said, exactly what he wanted. I was in heaven! The director, Burt Shevelove, had been ill and hospitalized during the auditioning and casting. On his return, working with a cast he had not personally chosen, he found me–a strong singer but not a real dancer, which is apparently what HE wanted (I was studying tap like a madwoman and I did learn to walk on a ball–a skill I never used again!). They had seemed happy with what I was doing with the role. I adored Ruby Keeler and Patsy Kelly. The cast was wonderful, but there were various problems not having to do with me, and the second act wasn’t coming together very well at that point. We were opening in Boston, and they fired me as I was packing to leave. It was a shock, a heartbreak, and my first horrifying look at how tough the business of show can be. The whole story is described in gory detail in The Making Of No No Nanette, by Don Dunn. Ruby and Patsy both called me to say how sorry they were and that they had no idea this was about to happen. Susan Watson was lovely in the role, and I spent a long, long time in emotional recovery. The presence of the old-time movie stars had inspired a lot of press and excitement about this show, so my firing was a widely-known horror story; I had no hiding place. My agent negotiated a settlement for me, since the show was shaky at that point, and the future of it was in doubt. It turns out I’d have been better off continuing to take my run-of-the-play salary for the duration of the run, which was long and profitable. It was a very painful time. Of course I wish I could have gone on with it, and I deeply regret having lost that chance. This can be a devastating business, and I learned that the hard way.

AM: What were your initial thoughts about Grease, and about Sandy as a character? Did it ever surprise you that it became the longest-running show on Broadway at the time? How did you feel about the film version?

CD: Grease was a leap of faith for all of us. As actors, we were happy to be cast in a show. We were working! Grease was very different, the audience appeal of the 50s had not been fully explored on Broadway, many of the characters were tough–the Chicago production, where it all started, had different music for the most part, and less of it, and was darker and too foul-mouthed (although authentic) for Broadway. Its transformation to a Broadway show was a process we were all working in the middle of. The cast was amazing–they made those characters live, and audiences really cared about them. They were inventive and often hilarious, full of energy, teenaged angst and charisma-strong singers and actors. We pulled together, and have loved each other ever since. The camaraderie was palpable. Every single cast member made a huge professional and emotional contribution, and none of us had any idea if it would survive. Everyone worked so hard–director Tom Moore, choreographer Pat Birch, musical director Louis St. Louis, the designers, the tech people–all under the watchful eye of producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox, who took a huge risk with this unprecedented piece. Changes came and went until we were dizzy. Jim Jacobs grew up with the Grease characters. He idolized them. He was their friend and their mascot–the “Doody” with his guitar. They were a rowdy, irreverent bunch, bent on survival despite their lack of privileges. He told me that by the time he and Warren Casey began working on the Chicago version, many of Jim’s “greaser” friends were headed for dead or in jail, but still he adored them, and Grease was his tribute to them. You can imagine how complicated it was, keeping the genuine grit of the characters, preserving some of the rough language, while constructing and deconstructing something appropriate for a Broadway audience. There was a fair amount of healthy upheaval. Tom Moore wrestled with the language and got the balance just right. Naturally, Jim and Warren were reluctant to jettison some of the harsher reality that had made the earlier version a kind of cult hit in Chicago. In the film, and in many future productions (and there have been endless numbers of them!), Grease became softer, but our first Broadway edition was purposefully edgy, yet extremely appealing. Previews were a blur of new numbers, new scenes…we just hung on and gave it our all. As for the film, it reached out to a huge audience all over the world. It was an absolute smash, well cast, well done, and full of changes. Like many films based on Broadway shows, it was not a simple film version of the stage show. The iconic status of Grease owes a lot to the popularity of the film. The cast was largely made up of really talented stage actors and singers, who enhanced the film and continued to have terrific careers in film, television and on stage. As far as the character of Sandy, I was THERE in high school in the late 50s. I WAS that girl. Even back then, there was something exciting and mysterious about those good-looking bad boys in the leather jackets. I loved them from afar. I knew Sandy inside out. My personal goal was to make her shine, so you could understand why Danny would jeopardize his “king of the hill” position for her, when he could have any girl he wanted. The other kids were a colorful bunch. I was fearful Sandy would be mild and pretty and not very interesting compared to the rest of them, so I gave her everything I had. I wanted her to have a kind of innocent passion that threw off Danny’s cool and drew him like a magnet. I think I managed to do that; I was thirty-two years old and finally got the boy in the black leather jacket! The audience wanted those kids to be OK, and they wanted Sandy to triumph. In the end, everyone wins–a good story. Unfortunately, the critics, for the most part, didn’t like it or didn’t get it. A few had some good things to say, but most of them didn’t think much of it. Our opening night party, as the reviews came in and were read, was pretty dismal. However, the audiences loved it. They were screaming, shouting, excited and having a fabulous time. Word of mouth, and some clever promotion, brought them our way and audiences began to build. Grease is clever and funny and heartbreaking all at once. Those kids were so lost, struggling to find themselves–but you had to love them.

AM: Can you describe the process of doing both Grease and The Magic Garden at the same time? Was it particularly grueling? Particularly fun? A little of both?

CD: I’m certainly not the only actor you know who was working two jobs at once–and many work day jobs along with their performance schedules. I have known actors who played roles in shows at night and in soaps during the day. That takes incredible stamina and devotion. I was also auditioning for commercials while Grease was running, and sometimes even shot one as long as they were prepared to get me out of there in time to get to the theatre! I did about two hundred commercials over maybe twenty years. Most of them were good ones, national spots–they kept me going through the harder times. There were long stretches without a single day off, but I committed myself to being entirely present in everything I did–giving it my all. Fortunately, although it was difficult at times, I think I was not guilty of doing a sloppy or careless performance. Energy was key, and I had a lot of it in the 70s (no drugs–honest!). There’s a lot to be grateful for if you can manage to make a living doing what you truly love. That said, my dual roles in Grease and Magic Garden were difficult, because when Grease began, we were working on a Broadway contract at the Eden Theatre, which was off the Broadway grid. We played a five-show weekend from Friday night through Sunday night–a typical off-Broadway schedule at the time. Monday was my only day off. I got up at 5 AM, arrived at the WPIX studios at 7, and Paula and I (and our amazing puppeteer and friend, Cary Antebi) spent the day in The Magic Garden. We completed one show a day at first. There was an outline, but no written dialogue. The shows were shot in real time, with almost no cuts. We rolled along for ten minutes and more at a stretch–a freewheeling, improvisational visit that extended our real friendship out to all of those children who joined us. You had to be on your toes. I was pretty tired sometimes, but the joy of it kept me going, and Paula and I had such a great relationship–we were able to bring ourselves, our lives, our talents together in a way that really worked. It was a labor of love. We joined the two writers for meetings and brainstorming, provided the station with some program ideas and lists of songs, stories we could perform and childhood memories we wanted to share, rehearsed and put together musical arrangements in the basement of the Eden Theatre. Paula brought me something to eat and had her first baby, Victoria, in a carrier on her back. We made a hundred dollars a week each, and never had the brains to protect any of the material we actually created. After awhile, we shot up to two-and-a-half shows each Monday, and when we had completed enough of them, the show went from once a week to every day. We made fifty-two of them. They ran and ran, children grew up and others came along, and The Magic Garden was on the air for twelve-and-a-half years. The Children’s Television Act was rescinded by the Reagan administration, and a new station manager decided that the construction of the show, which had almost no commercial blocks built in, wasn’t earning enough income, and yanked it from the schedule. We still had a big audience–as big as Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. People mourned and called and wrote, to no avail. Paula and I had been performing live for years by that time. These live shows and our recordings kept the garden growing and here we are, forty years later, with old fans and new. Amazing!

AM: What can you tell us about The Baker’s Wife, and what that experience was like, as well as how you feel about the show never quite making it as the success it was predicted to become?

CD: Well, I introduced “Meadowlark” to the world. In a way, I’ve laid my claim to it (inasmuch as any performer can do that), and have had the joy and challenge of it ever since. It is gorgeous, multi-layered–I find new things in it all the time. I suffered terribly at the hands of The Baker’s Wife, but I have my way with “Meadowlark,” critically-acclaimed recently, as “fully realized…an astonishing interpretation,” “thrillingly sung,” “spectacular,” “…transported the entire room,” “I’m obsessed with her version,”etc. It’s almost hard to live up to, but this is one of Stephen’s most brilliant gorgeous songs, and I hope to keep singing it for a long time.

AM: Does it ever surprise you to have become a star of children’s programming in the eyes of so many people who are now in their forties?

CD: Yes! It surprises both Paula and me–and delights us and fills us with endless wonder and satisfaction. I used to tell stories to my sister and brothers and the younger kids on the block when I lived on East 39th Street in Brooklyn. I made up tales that continued from day to day, as we gathered on my front stoop. I never imagined that this was fortuitous! Paula and I have the best fans in the world; people from every corner of life, many who share their love and memories of our show with their own children now. The constant emails are astonishing testament to how The Magic Garden changed people’s lives, gave them comfort, made them feel safe, developed their love of music, remains a part of them in the most vivid and deeply-affectionate way. We don’t do as many live performances as we used to, but we keep on trucking as well as we can. We’ll be doing two shows on April 1st at Boulton Center in Bay Shore–part of our year-long celebration of the fortieth birthday of The Magic Garden. Meeting our fans and their children after these shows (hundreds of them stay to talk to us) is a revelation. They are full of things they have saved up to tell us–they are all smiles and tears–they are a gift. They are thrilled to find that our friendship was real and continues to be. We could not ask for more than the inspiration we receive from these amazing fans. We aren’t Madonna or anything, but our fans have built Carole and Paula and Magic Garden Facebook sites of their own, and we are surprised and thrilled to find that there are something like thirty-eight thousand friends out there. We can’t possibly keep up, and we’re grateful to the hosts of those sites. Their enthusiasm is astonishing!

AM: How did you come to choose your song selections for the new cabaret show? Was it strictly your own ideas, or did (musical director) Ian Herman have any input as well? And how did you and Ian first come to work together?

CD: My song selections are things I have grown to love over fifty-two years of a career, and life before that! Changes in the business–in the kinds of shows that appeared on Broadway over the years–presented vocal challenges. How to keep the “line” of a well-trained legit voice, and still sing the shows that were coming along without destroying your voice; I learned to do it. I no longer sing legit material, but I still have a big range, which gives me a chance to sing a variety of things. I sing what I love, what is meaningful to me. I bring that to my audience. It’s eclectic, to say the least. Ian and I became friends and collaborators when he accompanied a class that met weekly in my apartment. We were actor/singers who had all studied with Warren Robertson, so we had a mutual approach to our work. We were mostly people who were teachers as well as actors, or had starred on Broadway. We took no prisoners. It was the most difficult work. I learned more in those two years, from my fellow actors, than at any other intense time of study in my life. Most of the songs are things I want to sing because of what they say. Ian tends to make choices that are more musically based. It’s a good combination. Over the past thirty-five years or so, Ian has become a dear friend. This kind of intense creative work encourages, in fact, almost demands, an emotional as well as professional intimacy. It’s very open–can even be very raw. There are laughs and tears, mistakes and pleasures. You get to know each other pretty well, and the mutual respect, the love of music, the explorations, the arguments, the “good finds” lead to a special bond. Ian is a brilliant pianist, composer and arranger, and he also has a good heart and a wicked sense of humor. He accompanied my lifelong extraordinary voice teacher, Felix Knight, and understands the vocal technique that is the basis of my singing. We learn from each other. He brought the wonderful Sean Harkness on guitar to our collaboration and that has begun a whole new chapter of friendship and creativity. Paula is always there, her fine-tuned eye and ear looking out for me. I am so lucky to have her–to have them all–in my life. MAC has helped me, as have other willing members and singers. There’s a lot of support in New York City if you know where to look for it (I’m learning). You can’t do this alone–or at least, I can’t.

AM: What is an average day like for the Carole Demas of today, if there is such a thing?

CD: That’s a question with a lot of answers! My husband, Stuart Allyn, is a sound engineer/acoustician/audio-visual designer. He does a lot of work on location, and his designing is done in his office here. Paula and I each have offices at home, but our main office is here. We live on a property with many trees and a pond, on the edge of a woodland nature preserve, have two dogs, two cats, and my turtle, who has been with me since 1964. I clean the cat pans and scoop the poop, and do what everyone who lives with animals does–and our lives are richer because our animals are a part of every day. I am a passionate gardener; I work long hours all summer on our three acres of property. It’s very physical. and I love it and groan and moan when tackling the rocks and the roots and the clay is difficult. I do cooking and cleaning and laundry. Sometimes I have part-time help, but not always. I feed birds, and contribute to the Great Backyard Bird Count every year. We are active in our community, especially in environmental preservation efforts. I sing for benefits here and in New York and elsewhere, and do other kinds of volunteer work. I research songs, and rehearse in a terrific setup Stuart has made for me, with a mic so I can tell where I am vocally, and what it might sound like in a venue with tech. We sometimes have little performances here, so he has lit an area by the piano with a few stage lights! He mixes much of what I sing. I am so lucky to be with this wonderful man for over thirty years now! All this activity is good for me and keeps my motor running, although sometimes I think what I really need to do is shut it off now and then! We have no children (not how I dreamed it would be, but we’re OK). We are very involved with our large families. This house, which Stuart designed, is a place where big family gatherings are very much at home. We have friends for dinner outside all summer long. Our friends and family are blessings we cherish. Our home is big, beautiful and rustic, celebrates the beauty of what is outside, and hopefully nourishes the people we are lucky enough to share it with. It’s an ongoing project for twenty-five years now. There are daily chores, obviously, but no two days are ever the same. I do get tired, and wish I were maybe fifty again sometimes, but I can honestly say that I have never been bored in my life.

AM: Are there any additional frontiers you’d still like to conquer, in terms of show business or otherwise?

CD: I’d like to write books–a novel or two, a memoir–I have so many thoughts. This is no small fantasy, but it takes much more focus and discipline than I have to give it right now, and of course there’s no way to know if I’d be any good at it. My cousin, Corinne Demas, is a college professor, and a superb and successful writer. Being close to her and her lifelong dedication to her craft has made it clear to me that one does not become a good writer just by wishing it were so! If I am blessed with a very long life, I hope to try–I can do it sitting down! I wish I had done roles in film. Too old now, alas, unless some unexpected chance comes along. I did a fair amount of television and a film or two of no great import. I’d like to study and become a master gardener. But I’m running out of time!

One can’t more strongly express how important it is to make the time to catch Carole Demas on Wednesday, February 15th at 7 PM at the Laurie Beechman Theater, 407 West 43rd Street. Those who can’t should visit her website. Be there or be square, as they might say in Grease!

Almost exactly twenty-two years ago tonight, after submitting some samples of my skills to John Hammond at That New Magazine, Inc (the parent company responsible for TheaterWeek, Opera Monthly, Christopher Street, the New York Native weekly newspaper and the then-soon-to-be-revived Night & Day Magazine), I got THE phone call at the office where I was serving as staff support for my day job in the music industry at Warner-Levinson on 68th Street and Broadway. Mr. Hammond informed me that I was officially hired by Night & Day. I was to have a weekly deadline of no less than three cabaret reviews per week, but I was also being given carte blanche to submit any feature articles and interviews I so chose if they passed muster with the editorial staff for acceptability, and also to consider any features or interviews they might wish me to write. They explained the financial arrangements, which were hardly in the millions, but I was twenty-one years old and I didn’t think I should argue with such a thing, especially after having toiled in cabaret since I was a teenager and finally being given the blessed chance to move up somewhat in the community ranks. So I took my first gig, which was writing a small feature about that year’s MAC Awards at Symphony Space. It was published on March 5th and, I’m happy to say, caused a small stir among the cabaretfolk, who were pleasantly surprised to learn that I actually had any talent for anything that could be of use to them besides merely being “that little crazy boy from Queens who used to do bad drag and sang like a histrionic.” For the next two weeks, I reviewed my first cabaret show ever (Peggy Lee at The Ballroom), followed quickly by writing my first feature article (about the show Heart Strings at the Beacon Theater and the big party that followed at the Citicorp Center), my first interview (with Rupert Holmes, just prior to the Broadway opening of his murder mystery Accomplice on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers), and reviewing Judy Carne at the Duplex, Mollie Taylor Martin at Don’t Tell Mama, and various and sundry others. Not to mention being welcomed at a MAC meeting at the Trocadero as though I was the latest Bright Young Thing in town, and soon finding myself on every possible A-list that cabaret had to offer. I also just happened to be dating a certain lyricist at the time who was already extremely well-known on the cabaret beat, so of course he was joining me for every show I had to review and I guess we made a decent-looking couple. And then all of a sudden, I got a phone call from Terrence Womble at David Rothenberg’s office, asking me if I could possibly see it in my heart to review Steve Ross’s new show at the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel.

OK, now, wait a minute. The ALGONQUIN? THE Algonquin? Like, home of the Round Table? Like, one of the most legendary showrooms in New York? Like, a place where even my parents, who had been major cabaretgoers since I was a child, had never been? Really? ME? Little Andrew from Queens? But what came out of my mouth was, “Sure, Terrence, I’d love to. Please put me on the list for a party of two. Jay and I will be there on time and looking forward to it. And please thank David for us.”

So…after a few days spent with trying to figure out what the hell I was gonna wear, how to wear my hair, etc., we went. We got there early enough to have a drink in the lobby first (because apparently, that’s what one DID at the Algonquin), and then the spectacular Arthur Pomposello (who was the best thing to ever happen to the Algonquin when he managed the room in the 1990s) graciously ushered us in. The staff couldn’t have been more fantastic, Steve couldn’t have been more fantastic, and it was the first night I got to meet people like Jeff Harnar and David Staller and KT Sullivan and the very late lamented Buck Buchholz. And there wasn’t one person in that room who could have made me feel more welcome. I was HOME. Jay and I broke up shortly thereafter over a silly misunderstanding, but my invitations to the Oak Room continued quite unabated for several years. Among other things, I was present when Tovah Feldshuh made her cabaret debut there, entitled Tovah…Cross Ovah! I was there to watch KT Sullivan (looking like a diamond in an elegant jewel box) make her debut in the club. I was there to watch Jeff Harnar do one of his first-ever performances of The 1959 Broadway Songbook. I was there when Mel Roy presented a benefit concert featuring Lainie Kazan, Julie Budd, Terri White, Mike Burstyn and a plethora of others. I was there to watch such cherished friends as Tennie Leonard and Angela LaGreca make their first Oak Room appearances. Needless to say, I was there to watch Karen Akers, Andrea Marcovicci and Julie Wilson appear many, many times. I was there for numerous occasions when the radio show New York Cabaret Nights would broadcast from there on WNYE radio, hosted by Steve Ross and featuring such guests as Phyllis Pastore, the Manhattan Rhythm Kings, Angelina Reaux, and the late Anne Francine. And unfortunately, I was NOT there to see such friends of late as Maude Maggart, Emily Bergl and Kat Gang, but I was fully aware and thrilled beyond words.

Several hours ago, we all received the news that the Oak Room is no more. The Algonquin is being renovated and the room will not re-open. And I am desperately saddened. There are entire aspects of my last two decades that are embedded into the glorious oak paneling of that room as though crocheted there personally by God’s almighty hand. These are the moments where I have no choice but to simply (I hate saying this) be a “big boy” and accept that things change.

But it’s unfair. It’s really unfair. And I’m not gonna like this.

God bless you, my darling Oak Room. I loved you well, and I’ll miss you always.

It’s interesting to think that as recently as ten years ago, the word “viral” had the same connotation as a death sentence. Today, of course, in the age of the YouTube phenomenon and Webseries springing up like carpets of mushrooms, the adjective has become cherished by those who choose to spend their time producing video displays; in modern parlance, it denotes attention by tens of thousands on the Internet. One such clip, which was filmed in March of 2011 and enigmatically titled “An Example of the Prolonged Effects of Exposure to Musical Theater,” somehow has managed in the last two weeks to reach officially viral status, going from a few hundred hits to nearly one hundred thousand in the space of a few days. It features a downright adorable young gentleman in a hoodie, lip-synching his way through snippets of no less than ninety songs from sixty-seven Broadway musicals in the space of five-and-a-half minutes. More than this, though, is the brilliance with which this clip was edited and pieced together, and his obvious gift for comedy and facial expression. Thousands were suddenly talking about it on social networking sites and theater-chat message boards, and while the clip has its detractors, fans of musical theater far and wide have embraced it. The big question that emerged, however, was “Who IS this guy??”

Well, it transpires that his name is Kevin Harris. He’s a twenty-four-year-old graphic-design student currently living in Seattle after growing up in Richland, WA. And he graciously granted The Andrew Martin Report a most intelligent and insightful interview.

ANDREW MARTIN: What draws you to theater music/musical theater?

KEVIN HARRIS: I grew up watching classic movie musicals like The Sound of Music, West Side Story and Bye Bye Birdie, but I never really understood that they were originally stage shows. I guess I was always a little bit of a performer. I enjoyed being goofy and making people laugh, but most of my interest was in drawing. When I was in elementary school I participated in some small plays, but didn’t do anything else until my sophomore year of high school. My sister kept trying to get me to audition for shows, but I never thought I would be very good at it. I finally gave in and auditioned for Bye Bye Birdie, and ended up being cast. Ever since that first show, I was hooked and practically lived in the school auditorium until I graduated. I also participated in my school’s musical theatre class. My teacher, Lynn Morin, introduced me to the music of Sondheim, Schwartz, Kander and Ebb and all the other greats. It was because of that class that I really started to delve into the wonderful world that is musical theatre. Sadly, I have not been on stage in about three years. As for right now, I’m just studying away in school.

AM: Was making faces and being comical something you’ve always done? Were you the class clown? Did you ever have any aspirations to go into comedy (standup, sketch, improv, etc) as opposed to theater? Do you have any particular inspirations or heroes in comedy?

KH: I think I’ve always had a knack for contorting my face. I remember when I was very young, my mom would ask me to do my silly faces and she would crack up at her crazy little boy. People may say differently, but I don’t really think I was the class clown in school when I was growing up. I did joke around a lot when I was with my friends, though. Now that I am older and in college, I am definitely more vocal and will crack jokes in class, and banter with my professors. I guess you could say being in theatre made me a bit more comfortable with “performing” around people I don’t know. When it comes to performing, I have always been drawn to live theatre. I have been told that I should try standup, but I’m not really interested in it. I’m not so much about telling jokes as much as I am about creating characters. Sketch comedy and improv do interest me, but I haven’t had much opportunity to do either. I have been wanting to write a one-man show for a while, so I could have the chance to play multiple characters. I have about four plays I have been brainstorming over the years that would involve the actors playing multiple parts, and could include some improv as well, but who knows if I will ever finish them? I love a lot of the old comic greats like Jerry Lewis, Abbott and Costello, and Danny Kaye. But I would have to say that my absolute favorites are Paul Lynde and Jack Lemmon. Paul’s snarky, campy style, and Jack’s reactions and mannerisms, have really stuck with me. I also admire Tracey Ullman and Carol Burnett. They are so amazing at transforming themselves into different characters. I love that!

AM: Where did you get the idea to start doing these videos? What was your first? How many have you done so far? Which one(s) is/are your favorite?

KH: When I first got my laptop, I decided to play around with Photo Booth one night. My friend had shown me some videos she had made, and I decided I wanted to try doing something too, just for fun. I was going through my iTunes, and decided to try lip-synching to some of my favorite songs. I posted it on Facebook and my friends seemed to enjoy it, so I decided to make some more. The first one I did is called “iTunes Craziness and Such” (and that is pretty much what it is!) and I have done ten lip-synching videos since then. I would have to say my favorite is the first Broadway one. Musicals give me a chance to act and tell a story a lot more than normal everyday songs do.

AM: Have you taken particular inspiration from others who do these kinds of videos? I’m thinking specifically of Gary Brolsma, aka NumaNumaGuy, or what Seth Rudetsky does in his “Deconstructions.”

KH: I really enjoy Mirandasings, Kid History, Liam Kyle Sullivan, SororityDORKS and yes, of course, Seth Rudetsky.

AM: What’s the process behind doing one of your lip-synch medleys towards a YouTube broadcast? Do you first decide what music to use and then what facial expressions/physical actions go with it, or does it all sort of come together at the same time? Do you have a specific order in mind for which songs will play? Is the editing process ever frustrating?

KH: When it comes to just a regular video, I go through my iTunes and pick a few songs that I think would be fun to “sing”. Sometimes I know what part of the song I want to record, and other times I just do the entire song and then pick one part of it during editing. I don’t really have much of an idea of how I will act during a song beforehand, and I just jump right in! As for a themed video, I usually have an idea of which songs and parts I want to do before I start. Once I pick some of the songs, I look for ways to lead into other ones with the same word or topic so as to tie everything together. When everything is recorded, I start the hardest part, which is synching the video with the original song so the sound is of good quality. This usually takes a long time and can be a little frustrating to get it matched up just right. Then I start fitting all the clips together like a puzzle. I arrange it, watch it, rearrange it, watch it again and so on until it feels just right. I know that if I start laughing, then it’s good.

AM: Are you particularly surprised that the Broadway video has gone so viral in such a short amount of time?

KH: VERY surprised! I woke up one morning and had over sixty e-mails saying people were commenting on the video, and subscribing to my channel. I made it so long ago, and just for fun, that I never thought it would get noticed. It still surprises me how much people seem to enjoy it.

AM: Obviously you’ve become a topic of conversation on some of the theater-oriented chat boards that exist online. What do you think of some of the feedback you’ve gotten, whether positive or negative?

KH: People have been very kind and supportive. They really seem to relate to my love of musical theater, which makes me very happy. Some really amazing things have happened because of this, namely getting e-mails from Marc Shaiman and Jim Caruso. Finding out that people you respect and admire all of a sudden know who you are, is crazy! Some people have been rude with their comments, but I just think it’s funny that they feel the need to say those sorts of things. I’ve also had some marriage proposals, which is pretty darn silly. I would have to say my favorite feedback are ones where people say they were having a horrible day and then watched my videos, and they were able to smile and forget their troubles for a little while. If my videos are able to help people laugh and be happy, then I am doing my job.

AM: Aside from your lip-synch medleys, there’s also the very funny short film where you play the artist. Do you hope to be doing anything else like that as well in the near future?

KH: That was so much fun! My friend Ashley Wasson was making a film for class, and had the idea to do an interview with an artist. We pretty much just improvised the entire thing on the spot. I love creating eccentric, weird characters and just letting them loose! So, yes, I would LOVE to do more videos like that. Very soon, I hope!

AM: Do you plan to do a sequel or second volume to the Broadway video? Or any of the other videos, like your Glee medley? Whether you do or not, do you have anything else in the immediate works?

KH: I made a second Broadway one not too long ago. I have been considering doing a third and people seem to be all for that, so that will most likely happen at some point. I am currently working on another Disney video and am having a lot of fun thinking up things for that. I’m also considering maybe doing some vlogs, and I have an idea for a Broadway-themed video series.

AM: Those who watch the video get a sense that you’re probably endlessly joking, and somewhat hyper and high-energy (in a good way). Is that accurate? What can you tell us about yourself that might surprise us?

KH: According to my friends, that is a very accurate description. Like I’ve mentioned before, I love to make people laugh and try to help them forget their troubles for a little while. I’ve found that being hyper and high-energy seems to do the trick. Even though people don’t believe me when I tell them this, I am actually very shy. I know it seems hard to believe, but it’s true. I get really nervous when it comes to meeting new people, or being in a room with a bunch of folks I don’t know. I also hate watching my videos with other people, because I get so embarrassed. But I’ve found that if I am really crazy and goofy when meeting people, it makes it a lot easier to break the ice and start up a conversation. I think I have become friends with a lot of people I know because I made them laugh right off the bat.

AM: Do you want to find a way to turn this into something lucrative? If so, what’s your vision for that?

KH: I never really considered my videos anything more than fun, little ways to release my desire to perform on stage. If anybody thinks it could become lucrative, let me know! But if I could choose anything to come out of all this, it would be to have more characters that I could eventually perform on stage.

AM: Do you have any advice to offer to others who want to make similar videos for broadcast?

KH: I would say just have fun, and stick with things that bring you joy. I have learned from experience that if you enjoy something, you will be led to other folks who also enjoy it. I would also say don’t try to copy other people just because they may have found success in what they have done. Be inspired by them, but be sure to put yourself into what you create. You will enjoy it so much more if you do.

It’s a sure bet, therefore, that a hungry worldwide audience will continue to enjoy the work of Kevin Harris for ages to come. If you’re still unfamiliar, watch his work and be ready to laugh!!

A native of the Uzbekistani capital of Tashkent in the former Soviet Union, Astanova began studying and performing in recitals by the age of six, and from the very beginning her course was clear. “I knew right away,” she said in a recent radio interview, “that being a musician and having a place on stage was what I wanted out of life.” Her earliest mentors include the renowned instructor Len Naumov at the Moscow State Conservatory, whose own pedagogical lineage traces directly back to Franz Lizst. Clearly established as a musical prodigy by the age of nine, it was at this time that she and Naumov visited the United States and she experienced Carnegie Hall for the first time as a spectator; she knew inherently that she would one day play on its hallowed stage.

However, she had quite a way to go before she got there. After concertizing extensively throughout Europe, Astanova made her official American debut in 2007 at the Kennedy Center, as part of the Neiman-Marcus Christmas Catalog concert alongside the Kirov Orchestra and Valery Gergiev besides Regis Philbin (and in the process received a Steinway piano as a gift for her incredible performance). She relocated to New York very shortly thereafter, and has since proudly become what she calls with a chuckle, “just another regular American girl. I love New York, I love to shop, I love going out…I just happen to have a job that’s a little bit different than other girls my age.”

Capitalizing on the “broadcast yourself” idea made so popular in modern culture by such Internet factions as YouTube, it was the mere blink of an eye before Astanova was camcording her performances of classical compositions and displaying them across the information superhighway. Always impeccably dressed in high fashion and looking scrumptiously beautiful only added to her allure, and before long her videos were garnering hits in the hundreds of thousands. And it isn’t merely older aficianados of concerti and sonati who have happily joined her fan base; indeed, legions of younger people across the globe are jumping on her bandwagon and admitting, begrudgingly or otherwise, that classical music can be cool. But, not to be outdone, she has also begun transcribing contemporary pieces and giving them a classical spin (one in particular, Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music,” has garnered well over one million YouTube views, and this is just one of several).

It is a sure bet that a star will be born in the personage of Lola Astanova before this week has concluded. The Carnegie Hall concert is almost completely sold out at this point, but keep a very careful eye on her name. To merely say she’s “goin’ places” would be the understatement of the decade.

Leading off with Bricusse and Newley’s “Feeling Good,” West appears not merely sultry but a delicious departure from the customary “Broadway glamour” so many theater entertainers display in their initial cabaret outing. “Something’s Coming,” though perhaps a tad “lounge-y” at times, works to the hilt, and he follows with a parody of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” with a lyric by Hawbecker that easily takes its place among the very best work of Gerard Alessandrini and the Forbidden Broadway canon. From there, a trio of songs that would be considered extremely risky pickings (“On the Street Where You Live,” “Why God Why?” and “Some Enchanted Evening”) are simply transformed into wondrous mastery. What follows is a selection of songs from upcoming Jerry Orbach tribute It’s Nice To Remember, including “Lullaby of Broadway,” “Razzle Dazzle,” “Everybody Likes You,” “Promises Promises,” and a medley of “My Time Of Day,” “Luck Be a Lady” and “I Can See It.” He even makes it a point to mention Orbach’s non-musical theater efforts, including the sizzling play Scuba Duba, and it’s more than obvious that West has done thorough homework. And he goes so bravely far as to introduce material not from the Broadway catalog or the American Songbook, among them a delectable “Stray Cat Strut” by Brian Setzer and the Stray Cats, and by the time he finishes the evening with “Try to Remember” (accompanying himself at the piano, no less), West is a winner on each and every count.

Please, won’t you take this advice I hand you like a brother? If you are finding yourself later this evening with no plans and wish to indulge in a brand-new and extremely exciting cabaret discovery, truck on down to Don’t Tell Mama to catch Charles West. You’ll be very glad you did, and by all means, tell them I sent you.

Whereas the Marcoviccis and Masons of our day, however resplendent standing solitary on a stage with merely a microphone and a piano, are always better served with a band of at least three pieces, Jungr is dynamite in her ability to provide the illusion of a symphony orchestra behind her even when accompanied only by the sensational Tracy Stark at the keys. And with the Dylan catalog at her own nimble fingertips, Jungr is no less a slouch at the miraculous pictures she paints with her vocal cords as the overwhelming earthiness of her patter between songs. A gorgeous “Tangled Up in Blue” mesmerizes the crowd from the get-go before an other-worldly arrangement of “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” which in turn gives way to an awesome delivery of “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” The title number of the show is even more astounding than when it was recorded by Joan Osborne in 1995 and is clearly made Jungr’s own here, and by the time she hits the crowd with a slow-waltz version of “I Want You” she’s more or less pulverized the audience to a man. In addition, a gorgeously-narrated “Like a Rolling Stone” only serves to make one feel privileged to write reviews of someone so glorious. And her interpretation of “Forever Young” is so definitive as to place her in the same category as Linda Ronstadt executing the Smokey Robinson ouevre so masterfully in the mid-1970s.

Precious little more can be said about Barb Jungr and The Man in the Long Black Coat except that she is THE reason why cabaret continues to find a new audience. And if that’s an overstatement, it gives her a goal which she will unquestionably accomplish. In a reasonably short amount of time, she has emerged as one part educator, one part icon, and all parts made of static electricity that will never cease to crackle across the wide oceans.

Our protagonist, Ilene Hart, is everything we’d expect from an Assistant District Attorney so devoted to her work with the sex-crimes unit of a small town in New York State; she’s a barracuda in the courtroom and always makes sure justice is served. However, the private Ilene is battling personal demons right and left on the homefront by way of her long-term love relationship with police chief Matt Bingham and strong conflicts from her past regarding her parents, plus her struggles with nineteen-year-old son Sam, a high-functioning victim of Asperger’s Syndrome besides a statistical genius, and the slightly younger Frankie, at the textbook throes of adolescent behavior whenceupon entering sixth grade. Ever the crusader in the area of pedophilia and prosecution of same, Ilene finds herself drawn into an investigation of what might well be a serial murder of convicted sex offenders, further complicated by local unrest within the school district, by a public who seek vigilante perpetration on behalf of the youth of the community with a blind eye towards anything more or less than abject punishment. As if these particular highways and byways of her life weren’t complicated enough, Sam suddenly finds himself a victim of controversy when accused by two local youngsters of molesting them sexually, which leads Ilene onto an entirely new and unexpected battlefield. Though the charges are eventually dropped, Ms. Hart soon discovers herself at her most challenged on every level…and at her most vulnerable.

What Lamont has done here with her narrative is really quite astonishing for a novice author; every single character, from the most in-your-face to the most virtually-invisible, simply bursts off the page at every turn. It’s at times almost impossible not to love Ilene Hart or at least feel her unthinkable plight, and at other moments extremely difficult to warm to her. What the reader will feel on every single page of the book, however, is complete and utter respect for her, and possibly wish we could know her in real life just to say a kind word or offer a friendly hug when times are particularly tough. Which, in this book, are copious but necessary. And once the pieces fall into place about exactly who is at the evil center of this seamless tale, the reader is certain to feel nothing less than utterly gobsmacked, for want of a better term. The story leads to a climax which is utterly chilling, and necessarily so. And that is absolutely to Lamont’s credit; she literally grabs us by the throat and doesn’t let go, even long after the last syllable of the last sentence.

If Thy Right Hand can be ordered via Amazon by clicking here, or by visiting finer bookstores everywhere. It makes for not only a worthwhile read, but an important new step on the journey of life for the woman many only knew for being the voice behind the hit song “Day by Day.” You simply can’t go wrong by ordering a copy, or several to pass along to friends. Yes, it’s THAT good.

Greedy, perhaps, but with absolute qualification. The prodigious Wilk, who hasn’t even turned thirty, has been a leading reviewer of theater for Nite Life Exchange since the website’s inception. But also an accomplished pianist, he’s begun performing every other Monday at La Mediterranee Bistro, 947 Second Avenue, and just picked up another regular gig at the posh Walle Restaurant & Lounge, just a stone’s throw from La Med. As if none of that was enough, he’s co-written the music and lyrics for a modern retelling of Alice in Wonderland, this time with an urban Black girl from the Bronx as the protagonist, and his collaborator is the multitalented music-and-comedy legend Marilyn Michaels. Who, as it happens, is also his mother. But make no mistake; this kid is hardly getting by on the coattails of mom and the impressive entertainment family from which he hails. Wilk is very much a happening event all on his own.

One would imagine that a childhood of such circumstances, in Wilk’s case on the Upper West Side, would come with oceans of pressure to strive for excellence or constantly be ‘on.’ After all, he’s not just the son of Ms. Michaels, but the grandson of Metropolitan Opera star Harold Sternberg and Yiddish theater star Fraydeleh Oysher, and the great-nephew of world-renowned cantorial artist Moyshe Oysher. But he is quick to dispel that myth. “Being born into such a distinguished lineage, there’s not as much pressure as you’d think!” he says. “So many of my family are entertainer-extraordinaires that I’ve been afforded the luxury of flying under the radar, so to speak. And so much attention has been given to mom–and she knows how to hold people’s attention, lemme tell ya!–or my late grandparents or my late great-uncle Moishe, that I’ve been able to watch and observe and learn.” He continues, “I guess it’s taken me a while to work up the gumption to put everything I’ve learned over the years into practice. Since I’m a natural observer, and mom’s a natural entertainer, I learn something new from her pretty much every day, as I did from my grandparents when they were still with us. She’s the toughest critic I know, so when I do something right, it’s a mini-triumph!” But naturally, even such events as his Bar Mitzvah came with a degree of flash. “In a family of entertainers,” he says, “any time there’s a stage and an audience, it’s a performance, so we all treated the Bar Mitzvah like I was on the finals of “American Idol.” My grampa, grandma, my mother–and yours truly–were really selling the material. And man, that Haftorah was one tough sell,” he chuckles. “Really, though, it was an uplifting experience. Fifteen years later, people are still reminiscing about it, and it was the only time in my life where I was the ‘lead’ on stage and the rest of my family became a supporting cast.”

Wilk opted to attend Vassar for college, not necessarily a first choice for some but a natural fit for him. “At Vassar, I liked my professors more than I did my fellow classmates,” he says. “I was a film major, you know.  Most people are surprised that I didn’t major in music, but how much can someone teach you about music after you’ve been taught by Marilyn Michaels for eighteen years, eh? But anyway, I was a film major, and my classmates were on a whole ‘nother level of pretentious. Can you imagine three hundred twenty-one-year-olds walking around with their heads held high because they’ve seen La Dolce Vita and Umberto D and are convinced they know everything about the history of cinema? And oy, the theater majors were no better. If I were to have admitted that I didn’t like August Strindberg, I don’t think I would’ve survived the night. Ultimately, though,” he continues, “my professors were too smart and knew too much for me to up and leave. And the place really was gorgeous. I have fond memories of lounging on the quad with some of my dormmates, or practicing on any one of the sixty-five Steinway pianos in any one of the dorms. There was never a day there when I wasn’t at a piano.”

Clearly he was on a career path towards doing something in the business of show, even if an actual goal wasn’t completely realized. And whereas some offspring of the famous become stars by association or, as is more common, simply laze about on their trust fund, nothing could be further from the truth in Wilk’s case. “I’ve been a salesman at Tiffany’s in their Silver department. I’ve been an online poker player, where I caught a few lucky river cards, that’s for sure,” he laughs, “I’ve been a ghost writer, kind of like in Roman Polanski’s movie The Ghost Writer except without any of the political intrigue, and I’ve been a PR rep at an athletic league. Oh, and don’t hold it against me, but I was a production assistant at FoxNews. Such nice people, and such awful politics.” Since his father, Peter Wilk (long divorced from Ms. Michaels) is a renowned colon surgeon, did he ever also entertain the idea of a career in medicine? “Oh, this is an interesting one,” he grins. “When I was six, I had the misfortune of walking into my parents room while they were watching a videotape of one of the gastric-bypass surgeries my father performed at Beth Israel. They could have been having sex and it would have been less traumatizing. So to answer your question, no, I never considered medicine after that. But I’ll admit there’s always been a curiosity about medicine.” He sighs, “Maybe in another life.”

And of course, writing the new Wonderland musical has been a priority of Wilk’s for several years. “What a journey!” he says happily. “When I was twenty, at Vassar, my mother’s neighbor Karlyn Ferrari gave me an idea for a movie about a contemporary Alice in Wonderland. Instead of England, it would be New York. And instead of a rabbit hole, it would be a sewer cover, etc. Well, my mind just went in a thousand different directions, and faster than my fingers could type, I was writing out this story of an African-American girl from the Bronx who winds up in Wonderland. The first draft was pretty much unreadable,” he continues. “I was twenty, knew nothing, and thought I knew everything. Oy, that’s a bad combination. I showed it to my mom looking for advice, but she saw a lot of potential and began to write it, too. Suddenly, I had a co-author. And I swear, I fought her tooth and nail on almost every single change she made. It took me three years to get my ego under wraps. Originally, I didn’t even want it to be a musical comedy! I wanted one song, and that was it, a la Magnolia, the Tom Cruise movie. But she was writing some splendid melodies, and every now and again I’d come up with a lyric. Once we’d written four songs, we were committed to an entire score! So now we have a madcap musical comedy on our hands, and we’ve had three readings: one in ’06 in mom’s house that was dreadful but informative; one in ’09, a ‘table-read’ with several Tony Award winners (Lewis J. Stadlen, Dick Latessa and Capathia Jenkins!) that was stupendous; and one last year that, unfortunately, did not see the light of day because several of our cast members fell prey to illness. Yikes! But,” he finishes, “I’m happy to say that we’ve made it even funnier since then, and I’ll pit her score up against any Sondheim, Rodgers, or even Jerry Herman’s any day of the week! Looking into next year, or possibly early ’13, we’ll be putting it up. We’re using Little Shop of Horrors as the template for how we want to produce the show–a small off-Broadway theater, and then have it catch on!”

Mother Marilyn did play a small role in his employment at La Med as well. He says, “My mother talks on the phone all the time, and she’s always looking to win friends and influence people. On a lark, without ever actually having been to La Mediterranee, she looked it up online and then contacted the owner, Ernesto, saying that she knew a gifted young pianist, etc. Can you imagine such a thing? This is why she’s survived in show business for fifty years. Traveling salesmen wouldn’t have such guts! In any case, Ernesto got in touch with me, I auditioned for him, and we haven’t looked back. It was my first time at a New York City bistro, but I’m already also a regular at Walle. And I do hope this is a start to something bigger. People have been telling me for a number of years that I’ve been keeping my voice and piano-playing too much under wraps, but I’ve only recently started to believe them. Funny, that. But really, I sing in the shower so much, my vocal instruments are in prime condition!”

Where does Wilk see himself ten years from now, in both a best-case and worst-case scenario? “Worst case?” he laughs. “‘Please, sir, c-can I have some m-m-more?’ Best case? ‘Thank you, oh, thank you! I’d like to thank all the little people who…’ No, really, nothing will ever stop me from watching plays and movies and offering my opinions about them, so whatever the worst case is, critiquing will always be alive and well in me. Nor do I ever see myself away from a piano for more than a day. But if somehow the good Lord foils my plans, artistic expression always finds a way out, in one way or another. The best-case scenario is really for me to live up to my potential, however much of it I have. And I’m really too biased to accurately gauge that.”

Finally, as a young person, what advice can Wilk give to other twentysomethings who seek a similar career path? “In show business, talent always takes a back seat to good old fashioned gumption,” he says. “Now, that’s the toughest lesson I ever had to learn, and the toughest with which to reconcile. It shouldn’t be that way–people should be able to spot talent like a light in a dark room–but for most people, it’s tougher to spot than Waldo. So it’s the people who are out there every day, plugging away for themselves, who thrive and survive, and if they happen to be talented, what a break it is for the world!” He sums up, “My mother always says ‘nothing comes easy,’ and she’s dead right (she usually is). As with pretty much everything, I’ve been a slow learner. But I’m learning, always.”

Thus, the time is now for the public at large to learn a thing or two about Mark Wilk and what he has to offer, be it journalistic, compositional, musical, vocal or otherwise. Because it can only be a matter of time before this bright young thing has the world at his feet. Be there.

Courage Campaign Flash Mob Protesting Michele Bachmann, September 16th, 2011, Los Angeles

Just like flagpole-sitting in the 1920s or marathon dancing in the 1930s, cultural fads will usually enter a stage where they appear to be everywhere, but like many phenomena will fade away and only be remembered as a historical blip. The latest cultural fad which seems to have been popping up within the last two seasons is that of the “flash mob,” in which a large group of people appear at a location as if from nowhere, usually breaking out into song and dance, sometimes for purposes of political protest but also for entertainment. Improv Everywhere became one of the first-known creators of the flash-mob phenomena, when they staged a spontaneous musical that burst forth at the food court in Los Angeles’s Baldwin Hills Mall in early 2008 which went viral after placement on YouTube, and since that time they’ve staged both musical and non-musical flash mobs in cities all over the world (a notable one was when Grand Central Station froze in place, and the reconstruction of a scene from Star Wars on a New York City subway).

Since that time, the “flash mob” craze has extended itself to political causes, such as a spontaneous musical event to boycott Target stores for their support of anti-gay political candidates, and earlier this week on September 16th in Los Angeles, when a flash mob from Courage Campaign protested Michele Bachmann’s support of gay reparative therapies (among her other disturbances) by executing a high-energy group routine to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” There was also one to remind everybody of the importance of the holiday spirit, set once again in a food court. The beauty of it seems to be the surprise element; even Oprah was the recipient of a major flash mob scene when she hosted a Black-Eyed Peas concert on her 24th Season Kickoff, in which the outdoor crowd broke out into a choreographed routine with perceived spontaneity during the song “I Gotta Feeling,” to Winfrey’s visible delight and amazement. This was, without a doubt, the modern flash mob’s highest moment of visibility since the craze began.

But is it just a craze? Has it been around longer than we realize and is only just getting recognition as such because communication is so much more heightened? And will this really go the way of flagpole-sitting and marathon dancing and just disappear as a thing of the past? Or is it possible that it will continue on and on as long as there are participants and an audience?

Devoted "Flash-Mobster" Amada Anderson

Amada Anderson has been a devoted “flash mobster” since 2009. A critically-acclaimed and highly-visible actress, singer, poet and performance artist on the current Off-Off-Broadway scene in downtown New York, she fell backwards into the movement. “I’m not normally a ‘dancer’ dancer, I just like to dance,” she explains, “and that January I ordered a DVD that showed me how to dance ‘Thriller’ in the comfort of my own home. I then learned that in addition to learning this dance, it was part of a worldwide event called Thrill the World that started in ’08. Mobs from other countries were organizing to be part of it, with everybody dancing to the song at the exact same time all over the globe. And I wanted to be part of that; I figured I’d get a group of people together and register it as an event in New York and host it in a park somewhere. Then, that June, Michael Jackson died.  It was very sad to find out that this huge awesome tribute, which he actually knew about and watched from his helicopter in LA the first time, was going to be even bigger and better and he wouldn’t get to witness it. I found out online that there were other people who had the same passion about it that I did, and through the online MJ Community, I reached out to the leaders of the Halloween Parade people who teach ‘Thriller’ to the crowd every year. We decided to join forces and promote Thrill The World NYC with a combination of ‘Beat It’ and ‘Thriller’ all over mid-town. So I created this flash mob event; I basically used my networking skills and charismatic charm to get others to join me. After we danced, we all celebrated at Webster Hall, and it was just a lot of fun.”

What does Anderson consider the most important requirements for someone wanting to begin “flash mobbing,” and how to get started? “I personally feel that it’s just like going swimming,” she says. “You have to sometimes just jump in, to get over the cold-water syndrome. Or even doing karaoke for that matter. If you’re shy, it’s OK, but after you realize that everyone is dancing the same movements you are and backing you up, it feels really freeing. If someone wants to try a flash mob-like feeling, I suggest joining the mailing list of Improv Everywhere. I’ve personally volunteered more than once with them, and it’s a lot of fun. And you’re with hundreds, if not thousands, of participants just in New York City alone. Since my first time, I teach ‘Thriller’ every weekend and I’m always looking for people to join me to help promote Thrill The World NYC, which this year will take place on October 29th at 10 AM at IS52  in Inwood and 10pm on the Boardwalk at Coney Island. You can check here for a schedule of classes, and the entire thing is a benefit for my favorite charity, The Pajama Program.”

Which begs the question, are there any downsides to “flash mobbing,” either as organizer or participant and whether it’s for politics or strictly entertainment? “It’s funny you ask that, ” Anderson responds, “but yes. In New York you have to have a sound permit to blare music, or have large numbers of people just show up somewhere and do something. But when I have my flash mobs, which happens every Saturday at 1pm before my ‘Thriller’ Class, I always advise people that our idea is to promote the event and entertain. So what happens is we show up, get into costume, I bring my boombox already cued up to dance the short version of ‘Thriller,’ and then I tell them to look for cops. If we see them, we don’t go dance in front of them; in fact, we will find another spot to dance altogether if I don’t have  the sound permit. But I tell them that if a cop does come over and ask us to stop, we STOP, hand them a flyer, and move on.  But it’s usually is over very quickly, in three minutes or less, and people really get entertained and motivated or inspired. I’ve had people follow me all the way to class because they were so excited to learn the dance. Again, it’s fun!”

Cultural phenomenon? Unquestionably. Momentary craze? Anyone’s guess. But as long as even one person out there is coming up with new and inventive ideas for the flash mob that can easily be executed, it’s a fair guess that fans of the movement will very happily continue tuning in to watch the fun and enjoy what they see. Ditto those who love to participate and organize. (Note to self: the local mall does have a food court with pretty good acoustics…)

But 9/11 for me will always have a far greater significance, and that significance is strictly personal. It was the day, in 2010, that I learned I’d have to have my son euthanized.

Let me start by explaining, for those who don’t know, that by my son I mean Buddyboo. My Rat Terrier. Buddy, aka Buddyboo, aka Buddyroo, aka Poochiepoo, aka His Highness Prince Buddy the Duke of Dogdom. I know people who’ve lost actual children who sprung from the fruit of their loins, and there is nothing to say to them by way of consolation.

But I don’t think losing your first dog is any easier.

I suppose his adoption was inevitable. My then-husband and I had started hitting our first rough patch, which ultimately led to our initial separation. So this one day in 2003, October 4th to be precise, out of a clear blue sky he said to me, “Let’s go to North Shore and see about adopting a dog.” Now, I had hoped that would have happened eventually. For the holidays in ’02, he asked me what I wanted as a Hanukkah present, and I said, quite without hesitation, “A puppy.” He replied, equally without hesitation, “No dogs. I’ll go to the ends of the earth with you, but no dogs.” So I said, “OK, then take me to Disney World.” And I want to first say something about Disney World. I not only love it there, but I would live there if I could. So he took me to Disney World in January of ’03, and we had the most incredible week anyone could imagine. Even if his crumb-bum of a sister had to crap all over my vacation by saying after we got back, “You spent a whole week there and all you did was go to the PARKS? You DID it wrong!” Screw her. I had a ball.

OK, so…October 4th of ’03, we got in the car and drove to Port Washington to go to the North Shore Animal League. And on the drive there, he kept saying to me, “We have to make sure it’s a small dog. I know you, you’re gonna fall in love with the first Labrador puppy we see, and we can’t have one. They grow too big for our apartment.” And of course like any good dog person, I would have loved a Lab. But our place really was too small for one. So we got there, we parked the car, we walked in, and the clerk (a lovely gal named Dina) said to us, “Do we know what we’re looking for today?” In unison we said, “A small dog. The smallest you’ve got.” She smiled and said, “Well, let me take you to see Yoda. He was named that because of his ears.” All I could think was, “I am NOT having a dog named Yoda. I am NOT a Star Wars geek and that name is out of the question.”

In any case, she took us to see Yoda in his little cage in the corner. He was this adorable Rat Terrier, just shy of three years old, skinny and weighed about fourteen pounds, was nervous and shaking like a leaf. He looked at us, we looked at him, Gary and I looked at each other, we looked back at him, and that was it. He was ours. Dina asked if we might like to have a little visit with him out of his cage, which we did. So she put a little leash on him, we went over to the sitting area, and he took to Gary right away. Me, not so much; he sniffed me and seemed singularly unimpressed. Gary was already very much the proud papa, picking him up and snuggling with him. And kept calling him Buddy. “How ya doin’, Buddy? You OK, Buddy? You don’t have to be scared of us, Buddy. We’re Mommy and Daddy, Buddy. We love you, Buddy. We love you already, Buddy.” Then he handed him to me and I tried doing the same thing, but Yoda wasn’t having any of it. Dina came back over and asked what we thought, and Gary said, “I love him. He’s ours. Now. Quick, before I change my mind.” So she put him back in his cage for the moment while she went off to do the paperwork, and I really wasn’t sure about this being my dog. But she had us sit in the waiting area, and before we even sat down I said to Gary, “What are we gonna name him? I’m not having a dog named Yoda.” Dina said, “Oh, that decision is for the car ride home. Don’t discuss it now.” Once she was gone, I said, “He seemed to like when you called him Buddy. I’d love to call him Chaucer, but he’s such a little Buddyboo.” Gary said, “Then he’s Buddyboo. Or Buddy. Or whatever you want. I’m getting him for you.” So he became Buddyboo. Buddyboo. MY dog. They brought him out to us and presented him like he was a queen’s crown (little did he know), gave us a leash, and I sat with him while Gary went across the street to the pet store (and not only bought food and two bowls but an avalanche of toys like I never even saw on my birthday when I was a kid), we walked him (and he REALLY had to go), and we got in the car with him on my lap. Which made him very nervous because he had no idea where he was going and kept scratching at the window, but he settled in soon enough. I had Gary put on a Three Dog Night CD, which was no pun intended about getting a dog, and I chair-danced with him a little to the tune of “Play Something Sweet.” Which relaxed him enough, I guess, because he finally started to kiss me with his tongue and then put his little head on my neck and his little paws on my shoulders. I just hugged him and then I knew he was mine. First we stopped at Gary’s parents’ place in Jericho, where Buddy delighted me by taking an enormous pee on one of their living-room chairs and then made a big doody under the piano while my former MIL screamed, but she still wasted no time in throwing him a half a pound of smoked turkey she just happened to have in the fridge, for his immediate comfort. Then he became her best friend, if not mine yet. We drove home to Forest Hills, and once he finished sniffing his way around and realizing that this was home, he climbed up on the day bed in the den and slept for fourteen hours. He was home. He was mine. And I loved him with all my heart.

The first thing we realized was that he had kennel cough, which wasn’t uncommon for animals who’ve been at North Shore. But this was BAD. He was keeping us up all night with the coughing and the wheezing. We drove back to North Shore with him the next day and they gave us some pills for him, and also suggested that it wouldn’t hurt him to have a few doses of Baby Robitussin. Now, those of you who are reading this and know me also know that I am NOT, under any circumstances, about to force open a dog’s mouth and make him take a pill or a syrup syringe. So I ran to the store and bought some sliced roast beef from the deli counter; I’d wrap the pill in it and then hand-feed it to him. And I’d dip the syringe in a little bit of grape-flavored sugar a few hours later so that I could get it down his throat and make him think it was a treat. Which he loved, and was quickly becoming my best friend. At the beginning, though, he really loved Gary much more than me; I guess I was the beta-male at that point. Then, a few days into this, Gary got it into his head that the dog might be deaf, because other than coughing and wheezing he honestly wasn’t making a sound or responding to stimuli. So Gary took a big spaghetti pot out of the cubby and threw it on the floor. Buddyboo acted like the world was about to end and ran for me, jumping into my lap and crying on my shoulder. What we didn’t know was that as a baby he’d been used for hunting and had major shell-shock, but more on that later. In any case, he definitely wasn’t deaf. Then, later that day, I took him out for a walk and it was the first time he ever saw a squirrel (at least around me) and he went INSANE. I have never in my life see a dog go so pathologically crazy. He was barking so at the poor squirrel, which made him cough and wheeze harder, and I had to remind myself that this was a Rat Terrier, and they were inclined inherently to go after any quick-moving small animal like a squirrel. Then he saw another dog and went completely nuts. I finally got him upstairs and said, “Well, he’s definitely not deaf and he definitely responds to stimuli, but this baby is CRAZY!” At which point Gary called North Shore and it also turned out that he’d been used as a puppy for dog-fighting, which not only meant he wasn’t socialized properly but that his instinct was to go after every dog he met. It turned out that Rat Terriers also have to be very carefully socialized from puppyhood, which he wasn’t. It ALSO turned out that Rat Terriers are size-blind, meaning that everything they see appears to be their size. If he came up against a Great Dane or a Mastiff, he was absolutely certain that he was the same size they were. He could have taken them in a fight with one paw tied behind his back anyway, but I digress. Obviously I had my doubts about him. But by that point I’d fallen completely in love.

I was basically unemployed other than freelance projects, so Gary was very much the breadwinner and continued going to his job every day as a Senior Court Reporter at Bronx County Supreme. As a result, for the first couple of months of Buddy’s life we settled into a routine, whereby I would wake at about ten, scramble three eggs, of which he’d have one and I’d have two. Then I’d work at the computer for a little while (I was designing websites at the time), get dressed, leash him, and we’d walk over to my mother’s place and spend the day. He adored my mother, and he loved the walk over; it was like we were walking through a gilded forest to a glen in the woods where his Grandma was the queen of all she surveyed. And they adored each other. He later bit her a few times, which was terrible, but always knew when he’d done something wrong. He even bit me once, and I still have a little scar on my face because of it, but he REALLY knew he’d done something wrong. (For some reason, he never bit Gary). The day I knew he really loved me back was about a month after he started living with us; I was at my computer in the den designing a website for a client after we had breakfast when he suddenly came in, stood in the doorway for a minute looking at me, then walked over and lay down and put his little head on my foot. THAT was the moment when my heart melted. I said, “Oh, look! I have a visitor!” and we horsed around on the daybed for about an hour before I took him to my mom’s.

The other thing about Buddyboo was that he was definitely a male dog. He played like a boy, he barked like a boy, he wrestled like a boy, he ate like a boy, he was a boy. Gary and I used to joke that he was the butchest one in the house.

Then, in January of ’04, Gary broke up with me in the midst of a nervous breakdown, which is a whole other story unto itself, and it was the first of two divorces from him, which is REALLY a whole other story unto itself. Doggie and me had to hit the road, and because of my situation, I packed up and went home to mother, with my son in tow. He was confused for the first few days, but seemed very happy after a fashion, and our apartment is so much bigger than Gary’s that he had a lot more room to run around and spread himself out. And he really was a very good boy, he didn’t destroy furniture or anything.

The first time I had to board him at the vet was REALLY traumatic for both of us. We had a wonderful vet here in Queens, Dr. Robert Raider at the Maspeth Animal Hospital on Grand Avenue (and for those of you in Queens who are reading this, I couldn’t recommend him more highly; I have never in my life seen a better bedside manner with animals. And his nurse Donna is totally cool; I’d literally make her one of my bridesmaids). I wasn’t worried about him not being treated well, I just hated for him to think that I was never coming back or that he was returned to the shelter system. But I had to fly to Mississippi for some personal business for a few days, and it had to be done. He cried, I cried, even Donna the nurse cried. But I had to run to LaGuardia and catch a plane. That Friday morning when I returned, I took a cab to Maspeth and went in to reclaim him; Donna went into the back kennel to get him for me, and I heard the little clip-clop of his paws. Then I heard him stop, sniff the air, and he said (I mean, he literally said) “Wheeeeeeee!!!!” and came running around the corner through the office and right into my arms. We all cried again, and I loved him more than ever. And I think he felt the same.

His birthdays were always fun, too. November 4th. Mom and I both really love McDonald’s, although we don’t eat it often, partly for economy and partly for cholesterol. But every year on that day, I’d go get her a Big Mac meal and me a Filet O’Fish meal or a Chicken Club meal, and a regular burger for him. We’d have ours, then I’d cut up his burger (bun, pickle and all) on a paper plate and he’d chow down while we sang “Happy Birthday” to him. The end result was a lot of ketchup-flavored kisses, as you can imagine. I wish I had pictures.

And there was the night I almost lost him altogether. Our lobby was blocked off for some reason, and I took him out for his late walk at 2 AM but I had to take him through the service entrance in the basement. I walked him back, and I always let him go ahead of me, but because he didn’t know the service entrance, he waited for me to go first. In that exact second, the door to the service entrance started to close and he somehow got himself off his leash and took off running towards Queens Boulevard. I ran after him, but that only made him run faster. And it was 2 AM, and this is a residential neighborhood, so I didn’t want to scream his name (my neighbors would have thought someone was being killed). So I stood there just clapping my hands at him, crying my eyes out, hoping he’d come back to me or, if he didn’t, that he wouldn’t be hit by a car. He came to the edge of the corner, stopped, then ran back to me and jumped into my arms. And, in a move I’ve only ever seen executed by mothers of pre-schoolers who break loose from them and run out into the street when traffic is coming, first I held him and continued to cry, and then clopped him in the head. Then continued to cry again all the way upstairs until we were in the apartment.

August 31st, 2010 was a milestone of a day; it was my first night on the radio on WPAT. The next day, mom went to the hospital for what would be eight months out of our home; the first ten days were at the hospital itself, and then a stay at Dry Harbor until April of this year. And for the first few days, Buddy couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t here or why I’d sent her away. He was very depressed about it, and spent a lot of time clinging to me. But this too would pass, or so I hoped. On September 10th, I transferred her to the nursing home, and when I got home, Buddy was absolutely not himself. Where an energetic puppy had existed just hours before was now an old man. Something was very, very wrong; he was walking slower than he ever had, he wouldn’t eat or drink, he wouldn’t go, and he spent the whole day sleeping at my feet while I was at the computer in my room. And he screamed if I put his leash on him. Thinking it might be a twenty-four hour bug, I decided to give it a day. The next day, September 11th, he not only wouldn’t let me put his leash on him and all he did was lay under the piano. When I knew he was REALLY sick was the fact that he wouldn’t clean himself, and he was a fastidious little boy, always. I finally borrowed forty bucks from my downstairs neighbor, called a cab, and got him to the ER at Animal Medical Center after trying to clean him up with a soapy washcloth and trying not to hurt him in the process.

Well, they informed me that what he had was degenerative disease in a spinal disc, which had manifested itself in a rapid onset. I wasn’t completely surprised; I knew when Gary and I adopted him that he had a bad joint in his left hip and that it might manifest itself in the form of a spinal difficulty one day. What I wasn’t prepared for was that he would have gotten so old in a few hours or be in such terrible pain. The choices they gave me were twofold; I could either pay eighteen thousand dollars for an unguaranteed surgery (I barely ever have eighteen bucks to rub together, let alone eighteen thousand, so surgery was a laughable notion especially if it came with no guarantee) or I could…well, you know what I could.

So I could, and I did, because I just couldn’t bear the thought of him being in such pain. It kills me to this day that I made the decision, but he would have had no quality of life. And he was young; he would have been ten last November. But it was over and I knew it. And he knew it.

On that very last night, exactly a year ago tonight, I picked him up very gently so that I wouldn’t hurt his back, and put him in bed with me so we could have one last sleep together. On his pillow, like always. I climbed into bed at about 1 AM, which is early for me. And he literally purred like a kitten once I was there. And then, at about 5 AM, somehow he found the strength to get up on his little elbows and sidle his way over to me. He put his face on the pillow next to mine and fell back asleep with his nose against my forehead. And I’m extremely ticklish, so his whiskers were irritating the hell out of me, but I didn’t dare move for fear of breaking the spell. We slept like that until about noon, and then that was that. It was the day and it was all about to be over.

Maspeth and Raider’s office were closed that day because of the Jewish High Holy Day, so I had to take him to Boulevard Pet Hospital to have it done. And they had the nerve to tell me they’d only do it if I’d be present in the room. I said, “Absolutely not. I am not going to stand there and watch my son’s soul leave his body. This is my baby and I WILL NOT watch my baby die. I don’t give a rat’s ass what your policy is, I am NOT DOING THAT. You goddamn well let me have twenty minutes alone with him to say goodbye, and then I am OUT of here. End of story.” Well, I guess I must have sounded rather resolute, because they said, “All right, but this isn’t our way of doing things,” but they gave me twenty minutes.

I leaned down and started softly saying into his ear, “Buddyboo, you’ll always be Mommy’s angel. I hope you know that. Mommy loves you so much, and even though Daddy doesn’t love me anymore, he always loved you and always will. And Grandma wishes she could be here right now to say goodbye to you too, because she loves you so much. Aunt Barbara loves you, all our friends love you, even all the dogs and squirrels love you even though you hate them.” He picked up his head and licked my eye, and then I started crying so hard that I had to leave. I watched them wheel him into a back lab, I waved goodbye, and that was it. I had him cremated and scattered over Field of Dreams on Long Island, because I wanted him to finally be at peace with the other dogs and not bite them.

I’m not over it. I don’t know that I’ll ever be over it. That’s not to say that I don’t want another one, or that I can’t love other ones. But there will never be another Buddyboo.

And if all of this talk of the Rainbow Bridge is true, he’d better be there waiting for me when the day comes that I kick. Or he’s not getting his burger from Mickey D’s.