Performing duo Austin Pendleton and Barbara Bleier, return to NYC’s Pangea nightclub in the East village with a brand new show, Bits and Pieces. Like life, itself, this show is made up of bits and pieces of song and stories that sometimes seem to fit together, and sometimes seem random. There will be songs the pair have never done before, and songs that have been done and loved. Pendleton and Bleier promise leaps into the unknown, roars down memory lane! and, of course, there will be the odd story. After all, they say, it, it’s these random moments that create the arc of our lives.
The show plays on Tuesdays, January 14th and 21st, at 7:00 PM. Musical Director is Paul Greenwood. The show is directed by Barbara Maier Gustern with special guest Richard Maltby, Jr.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) celebrates Austin Pendleton (AP) and Barbara Bleier (BB) with Six Questions.
NiteLife Exchange: Austin, you’re an actor, director, playwright and teacher of acting, who was recently seen onstage as the King in Lear at The Secret Theatre. When did you realize you wanted to pursue a career in acting and how did you get your start?
Austin Pendleton: I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was about seven or eight years old. My mother became involved in a community theater in Warren, Ohio (our home town). My mother had been in the acting profession before she married my dad, and now, after World War 2, there were people in Warren who wanted to start a theater and they came to her. The rehearsals for their first productions were conducted in our living room, in the evenings, after dinner. We would re-arrange the furniture to accommodate the ground plan of the play they were rehearsing and then my brother and I were sent to bed. But we stole our way back down and watched these rehearsals. I was enchanted. The whole house seemed to be enchanted. And I thought that I must become an actor. So I held to that all through school and through college—acting in school plays and so forth—and with some friends began a theater group of our own, put ting on plays in the basement of our house. I was in all the plays in college. And when I came to New York I got a job within a few months, through what can only be called a fluke, in an off-Broadway play (Oh Dad, Poor Dad….). It was directed by Jerome Robbins and ran for a year, which led to a part in the next musical Robbins was directing: Fiddler on the Roof, in which I originated the role of Motel, the Tailor.
NLE: Barbra you’re a singer, actor and playwright who has appeared on stage, in film and on TV, as well as in solo shows and revues in national and international cabaret; when did you realize your talent and who were some of your early influences?
Barbara Bleier: I started learning classical piano as a toddler. I read music before I read English, and I read English at 4. At 4, I also played at Carnegie Hall. My mother was determined that I become a concert pianist—but, in my spare time, because, as a girl, I was supposed to be a housewife and mother! While at Music & Art High School (now Laguardia) I discovered that I could sing and became the singer for the school jazz band. I loved singing, and worked my way through college and graduate school doing clubs, folk clubs, weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, etc. My early influences were classical pianists such as Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubenstein, Dame Myra Hess, William Capell, and, of course, my piano teacher, Vivian Rivkin. Also, Paul Robson, Billie Holliday, Sara Vaughan, Carmen MacCrae, George Shearing, to name just a few. And Gene Krupa. I had a crush on Gene Krupa. I also grew up going to a lot of concerts and a lot of opera and musical theater.
NLE: How did the two of you meet and eventually get involved in cabaret?
AP: Barbara and I have known each other for years. We first did cabaret together twenty or so years ago. This present series of cabarets began, at Barbara’s suggestion, in the spring of 2016.
BB: I was in Austin’s acting class and had been doing cabaret. I was taking acting class to help me with the story songs that I love to sing. I had a show coming up and there was a Maltby & Shire duet with a man that I was dying to sing. I asked Austin if he’d do a guest spot with me in my show. His answer was, “You’re offering me ONE song?” I replied, “Would you like half a show?” and the rest is history!
NLE: How many shows have you previously presented together?
AP: We’ve done three or four a year, all at Pangea; since then, each cabaret giving maybe three or four performances.
BB: I’m not really sure. We did one show in several venues in 1999-2000, some spots in different shows from 2000 to 2016, and, from 2016 to the present, we’ve been working at Pangea (our artistic home) on a pretty regular basis. We’ve done five or six shows, each running four, five or six times. We love creating new shows. We’ve also performed in Chicago and Philadelphia.
NLE: What can audiences expect in Bits and Pieces?
AP: In Bits and Pieces the audience can expect a lot of love songs: some totally joyous, some angry, some rueful and beautiful, some unreservedly tender.
BB: Bits & Pieces sort of wrote itself. Usually, Austin and I have a theme for our shows, an arc, so to speak. For this show, we picked songs that we love… both songs that we’ve sung before and songs that we haven’t, and, oddly enough, when we ran the show with the help of our wonderful director, Barbara Maier Gustern and Musical Director, Paul Greenwood, it became an arc, or, perhaps, different arcs for different people. Like all of our lives, the show is made up of moments and those moments comes a life.
NLE: With regard to future shows, do you have anything in mind—either together or solo?
AP: We expect our next cabaret, which will begin its performances in a few months, to take its theme from politics. Word has reached us that this is going to be a year in which politics is very important!
BB: We’re planning to do a political show in the near future. After all, there’s more drama in politics lately than there is on the stage, and the musical canon is rife with wonderful songs that touch on politics.
NLE: You have both been great supporters of other cabaret artists over the years; what has that experience been like for you?
AP: When you do a lot of cabarets, and realize the work and the passion and the exhilaration (and the terror!) that goes into the making of them, you feel a real comradeship with other people who do cabarets. You go to see their work when you can. You learn from them. Mostly, though, you just want to show your support for them. And you always have a good time. You have a good time when you go to a cabaret. You learn that no… life is not maybe a cabaret, but that maybe it should be.
BB: I find that I really learn from watching and listening to other cabaret artists. I loved watching the great Julie Wilson, with whom I had the honor to study at the O’Neill Theatre Center. She really helped me to “get inside” a song and to try to make every word count. Some of my favorite cabaret artists are also songwriters, such as Amanda McBroom, John Bucchino and Michele Brourman. I am fortunate to count them among my dear friends, and they have been generous enough (and trusting enough) to give me some of their unpublished songs. I also love seeing alt cabaret artists like Taylor Mac, Tammy Faye Starlite and Penny Arcade, who make me “stretch” my own style and limits.
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