Long considered a master storyteller on the New York City cabaret scene, Rian Keating received the 2022 MAC Award for Best Special Production for his musical memoir, Time Stamps: Life Fragments in Story and Song. His current cabaret 
is a revival of a show constructed when he first heard the songs of Jacques Brel as a twenty one year old living in the dangerous, pregentrified Hell’s Kitchen. The lyrics immediately made an impression, bringing into sharp relief the humanity he would see daily in the New York City of the early 1980s; forty years later, Keating takes a look backward and brings to life Brel’s kaleidoscope of human experience. All performances will benefit the Golden Door Scholarship Fund to help aid an undocumented immigrant pursue their dreams of an American college education. The socially conscious Keating, who is also an English teacher, early on in his career hosted an interview program on cable television in which he attracted A-list celebrities. You can view some now, with the likes of Gwen Verdon, Kathy Bates, George Rose and Bebe Neuwirth—see below for the YouTube link.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Rian Keating (RK) Six Questions:
NLE: Your current show is a return of your Jacques Brel cabaret. Why now?
RK: I wanted to bring back Brel for two reasons. I think with the world topsy-turvy and the future uncertain, our senses are heightened and Brel’s songs bring the human condition as we know it in 2020 into sharp relief. The songs remind us that life is both cyclical and temporal and allow the listener to reflect and possibly have a catharsis. I think with the pandemic, school shootings and the world on brink of war they are more timely than ever. I first discovered the cast album of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well . . . in the original cast record bin at Sam Goody’s when I was twenty-one and a upon hearing those songs for the first time I had a eureka moment and realized I had to sing those words. But what does a twenty-one year old really know about such adult things? Forty years on, from the vantage point of early-late middle age, I have the experience to fully invest in the lyrics.
NLE: You’re acknowledged as a master storyteller and have no fear about relating your deepest personal experiences. Was this difficult to do initially? What’s been the effect for you—and your audiences? RK: Early on I discovered that the patter was what the audiences responded to most and for them most of the songs were secondary. When Steve Ross came to hear me a few years ago, he said that the talking was a gift that I shouldn’t take lightly and I should do some writing and take it to “The Moth.” But the patter had always been used to set up a song; I wasn’t interested in just telling stories without music. But his encouragement did make me formalize the writing and commit it to memory.
And I decided to hire Tanya Moberly to direct because I knew her reputation was one of no-nonsense and she wouldn’t mollycoddle me. She created a very safe space for me in which my confidence grew and the intimate nature of the stories took on a life of their own. So much of bad cabaret is revelatory in an exhibitionistic way and Tanya instinctively knew what would be palpable for the audience. While that ameliorated a lot of the fear I had about the personal nature of the material, at first it was hard to share some of the stories because they were painful memories that didn’t necessarily have a resolution. But the response from the audience was so overwhelmingly positive, I realized this kind of opportunity to move people in a profound way doesn’t happen very often in life and I had better damned well embrace it. And then I began to enjoy bringing these ghosts back to life in a way that allowed me some closure.
NLE: You arrived in New York City literally from the day you graduated high school. What were your goals and aspirations on that day? Have they changed? been realized?
RK: My immediate goal had been realized: I escaped the small town where I had been known as “that Keating boy.” On that day I wanted friends more than anything. I was painfully shy and had no social skills and to find someone who was as crazy about Cleo Laine or Judy Collins was the top item on my agenda. I wanted to have access to the theater and the arts and come out of my shell. By the end of my twenties, I had enough confidence to finally go to college with the goal of becoming a high school English teacher. I’m now in my 27th year of teaching at an alternative school for at-risk American students and recently arrived immigrants.
NLE: Obviously, your altruistic interests are important parts of your personality: your cabarets are and have been fund-raisers for charity especially the Golden Door Scholarship Fund. What motivates you most deeply in this pursuit? Have these efforts been successful over all? RK: When I started in cabaret in my mid-twenties, it was the worst time in the AIDS epidemic and the storefront in my tenement was rented to an organization called Streetworks, which helped homeless people with HIV. I volunteered there and when I did my first show, I made it a fundraiser to raise a little bit of money. But some of my friends wanted to give more than the cover charge and what I discovered was if you make the initial effort, people will often be generous. I started the Golden Door Scholarship Fund when a student at my school who was very bright but undocumented was concerned about how he was going to pay for college. It is in its eighteenth year and all told we have been able to give away over $75,000. I hadn’t thought about the motive, but I think because much of my childhood was spent in isolation because I was hearing impaired and very much an outsider, that might have given me a sensitivity to people in need.
NLE: What are the greatest life lessons that you’ve learned to date since arriving in New York and launching a successful career path, which includes deciding to become a teacher. 
RK: The greatest lesson came early—when I was 22 my building was wired for cable television and I discovered the public access channel and learned anyone can be on TV. I thought I could be the poor man’s Dick Cavett and interview the theatrical celebrities of the day. I would lie in wait at the stage door with my press kit and very few people said no. An it was a real lesson in “can do.” Just to ask for what you want or need and ignore the naysayers. Why shouldn’t the world be your oyster?
NLE: We imagine you have many more stories you’d like to tell. What’s the most pressing of these now—what’s next?
RK: Truthfully, I am fresh out of personal stories, so all the stories I want to tell next are in song, particularly the songs of Noel Coward. What could be more fun than a marvelous party with Nina and Mrs. Wentworth-Brewster?
Click here to go to Rian Keating’s YouTube Channel.
