Lila Day, a self-confessed “middle-aged gal,” is making her cabaret debut at Pangea on Wednesday, February 9. The show is entitled Getting Happy, but, according to Day, it’s taking a lifetime. Under the direction of 
Kristine Zbornik, she explores her ups and downs with help from Judy Garland, George Michael, Gene Autry, the Bee Gees and other musical influences. More than that, Day comes to grips with the prognostication of her high school choral director, who said, “she could have been good.”
With 40-plus years in show business, Kristine Zbornik, actor, director, and performance coach has developed Zen Singing, which incorporates yoga, breathing, and mindfulness techniques to open the body and mind. This approach encourages full, integrated expression in singing and performing. Her acting credits are many, but her current focus is on performance and audition coaching. Zbornik also develops and directs shows for cabaret performers and comedians.
You can catch Lila Day in Getting Happy at Pangea on Wednesday, February 9 and Saturday, February 12 at 7 PM at Pangea. For more information and tickets, click here.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) aska Lila Day (LD) and Kristine Zbornik (KZ) Six Questions:
Lila Day:
NLE: What brought you to this point in your life that you decided to perform a cabaret show?
LD: Unfulfilled dreams, fear of the mundane and a dead soul. Honestly, I have always been scared to death to speak in public, never mind sing! I was in a variety of choruses all my life, but struggled to sight read music and I strained my voice to blend with the other members. I finally quit when I realized I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. My voice teacher helped unravel the damage (emotional and vocal). Then, one year a neighbor threw a holiday get together. We all stood around the piano caroling. After some liquid encouragement, I soloed. It was magic. I had this feeling of togetherness, friendship, and joy that I had not experienced in a long time. I began to wonder how to get more of this in my life. I guess that was the inkling of putting on a cabaret.
NLE: What’s been the most rewarding part of the process of putting this show together?
LD: The collaboration. Kristine Zbornik is brilliant. There. I said it for all the world to see. From the moment I met her, I knew this was gonna be tough. She was not going to let me phone it in. She unfurled stories out of me that no one would ever want to hear. She allowed me to find my own voice and encouraged me to trust myself.
Every time we met, we’d come up with some new twist. Poor Brian. Brian Holman is the very talented musical director to this ride of a show. Talk about a guy who can roll with the punches. True to an artist, the more we threw at him, the more creative he got. We became a comedy duo, sometimes I’m the straight man and sometimes it’s him. I’d encourage anyone seeing the show to pay attention to his smart adornments on the piano.
There were times when none of us knew how to solve some dilemma. The three stooges lost at sea. I thought I had no business trying to figure out how a medley was stuffed together or how to land some awkward phrasing. I sort of assumed that Brian and Kristine would just figure it all out for me and I could just chill in the wings. Guess what? That’s not how it works! We are a team, one for all and all for one. Experience or not, I was expected to bring a chair to the table and I was glad I did!
NLE: As a “middle-ages gal,” exploring happiness, what’s the core message you want to leave your audience with?
LD: Get happy already, dammit! Nah. I don’t mean that, but wouldn’t that be nice? To put on a musical cabaret and a self-help talk all rolled into one? Frankly, I have no business doing that. It’s hard enough to try and make oneself happy. I had a professor at grad school who found me bawling on a bench after I gave a crappy presentation on my 25th birthday. Her advice: “Don’t worry. It gets better at 30.”
True dat. Onward and upward.
If I am lucky, the audience will feel exactly as I did that evening at my neighbor’s holiday soiree: thrilled to be surrounded by wonderful people enjoying music together.
Kristine Zbornik:
NLE: You’re a performer who’s turned to coaching and directing. What are the challenges and reward of this shift in career?
KZ: I prefer teaching and coaching to performing these days. Teaching, directing and coaching are about problem solving and that’s what creativity is, problem solving. I love trying to figure out the puzzle and the key to help someone access their creative self-expression and not have to be the one doing it. The challenges are to meet people where they are at and not where I think they should be. I get better and better at that. Also, not always knowing how to fix something that doesn’t work. Sometimes I know something isn’t working, but I’m not sure what the answer is and I feel stupid. I usually leave it alone, let it be and the answer arises in the collaboration with the performer and musical director.
NLE: What’s been your process in working with “newbie” Lila?
KZ: None of your business. Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s been an honor to help expose all of the nooks and crannies that she has in her story and in her ability to execute it both musically and from an acting p.o.v., also, she’s naturally very funny and if I give her a direction, or suggestion, she always figures out how to make it her own and it never feels stale or repetitive, it keeps evolving and it’s different every time because she’s always striving to be in the moment.
NLE: What do you hope audiences will experience at Getting Happy?
KZ: Truthfully, I’m not concerned with that, I’m concerned with this story being told honestly with a minimum amount of preaching/moral instruction so that people can be entertained and draw their own conclusions about it.
Leave a Reply