Over Cynthia Crane‘s long, esteemed career, she’s been a fixture in New York clubs both here and gone (Tavern-On-The-Green, Eighty-Eights, Don’t Tell Mama, Danny’s Skylight Room, Barney’s Mad 61, Jan Wallman’s, Royal Roost, Palsson’s, the Fives, Panache, and more). She returned to a singing career in the 1980s after 10 years (and 100 shows) as the founder/ producer of the Impossible Ragtime Theatre (IRT). Crane has performed Cabaret Concerts in French at the American Embassy on the Place de la Concorde and the Musée de Montmartre in Paris, as well as played Helen Morgan at the Russian Tea Room, sung for the Dutch Treat Club, the National Arts Club, and the Players and the Friars clubs. Cynthia Crane performs, This Is A Changing World, My Dear at Don’t Tell Mama, tonight, Saturday, September 29th at 7:00 pm.
1. NiteLife Exchange (NLE): You’re a 3rd generation New Yorker, with family ties to the commercial world of businesses. When was the first time you knew you wanted to sing, and realize you had the gift of singing? What were your early influences?
Cynthia Crane (CC): As a lonely, second child growing up during the war, I immersed myself in the music of the day—Ginny Simms, Jo Stafford, Margaret Whiting and later Ella and Billie. Today we call the wealth of pop music from the 20s to the 70s the Great American Songbook. I inhaled the songs every chance I got and found comfort in the wonderful lyrics.
2. NLE: What has changed in your many years in cabaret? How have cabaret audiences changed during your career as a NYC entertainer?
CC: I find little change in audiences. It’s a niche market, but audiences always respond to the personal qualities inherent in one performer taking the stage for an hour, up close and personal.
3. NLE: How did you eventually get involved in cabaret? Which is the most memorable experience you’ve had in your career?
CC: I started out my career singing in nightclubs after a double major of English and Theater at Emerson College. We were paid by the clubs and they did the PR, etc. While co-producing 100 shows in four theatres under the banner of the IRT (Impossible Ragtime Theater), I started a Cabaret Series called In One. Then, when we ‘burned out’ and closed the IRT, I returned to my first love. By then cabaret was a “different animal” with covers, minimums and the onus on the performer to fill the room.
My most memorable experience was probably the shows I did way back for the USO, touring a Europe still recovering from the war. It was staggering to visit Dachau with its dreadful history and then to do a show for the soldiers.
4. NLE: After such a full and rewarding career, is there anything on your bucket list you’d like to accomplish?
CC: My shows are very personal and expressive of my views on life. I hope I remain strong enough and creative enough to keep performing anywhere I can. I miss acting and theater, but my weakness is the business side of it. It’s years since I ”made the rounds,” and the business is completely different today.
5. NLE: You have been a great supporter of other cabaret artists over the years. What has that experience been like for you?
CC: There is always much to learn in observing others at work. When a show works, when the performer really connects with the audience, it is a thrilling experience.
6 NLE: With regard to future shows, how many others do you already have in mind? What are the ways you go about sourcing material for your projects/shows?
CC: My shows grow out of something I want to say. My current show is about the constancy of change in life; there’s no avoiding change and it is the hardest thing to deal with. To make a point while still shaping a show (not too many ballads or downers, enough up tempos and some humor), finding material that is upbeat while fulfilling its thematic role in the show is hard. Both my last two shows took a long time to germinate. John Denver, Bernie Madoff and Me took over a year and this latest, This Is a Changing World, My Dear, a good bit longer. I tend to be tuned into the issues of the day. In my show The Time Has Come I was fixated on the Iraq War (Frishberg’s My Country Used To Be) as well as gay marital rights. In my show I’m Confused, Therefore I Am I was actually dealing with the meaning of life—“Concrete is the Answer” and so on. But the toughest part of cabaret is true of everything in life, “getting butts in the seats.”
For more information and tickets for tonight’s show click here
Don’t Tell Mama is located at 343 W 46th St (between 8th & 9th Ave) New York, NY, 212-757-0788
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