Six Questions With Pianist-Singer and Piano Bar Stalwart, Joe Regan

A well-known performing artist in the cabaret community, Joe Regan is a pianist/singer who not only plays in a host of Piano Bars and Cabaret Rooms, but is an especially familiar presence at Don’t Tell Mama.  He’s also a Musical Director, with credits ranging from individual and group Cabaret shows to revues and benefit performances. Regan has played in the pit for several Off-Broadway shows, and opened for Steve Ross at the 75th Anniversary of the Chrysler Building. He’s a 2007 MAC Award Winner (Manhattan Association of Cabarets) for Best Revue (“Johnny Mercer Sings,” with Ricky Ritzel and Leslie Anderson) and a 2009 MAC nominee for Piano Bar Instrumentalist.

NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Joe Regan (JR) Six Questions:

NLE: Presuming you, like all performers, were gobsmacked at the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, how long did it take you to formulate a plan of action to get back to some kind of performing?

JR: After everything shut down during the week of March 15, All of my live performance gigs were canceled. The two Piano Bars (Don’t Tell Mama NYC and 16 Prospect in Westfield NJ) that I worked in were both closed; And all of my other live performance gigs and venues were cancelled (corporate events, private parties, special occasions, etc.).

I teach at the Performing Arts School at The MAYO Performing Arts Center in Morristown, NJ and during the first couple of weeks of the pandemic we were able to switch to an online format for teaching our Musical Theatre  classes.  We used “Zoom” for classes, and Dropbox for music and script updates.  The classes all have a Director/Choreographer and a Music Director. I was the music director for four shows in the spring semester and amazingly, we were able to do online performances in mid to late May!

My first opportunity to perform again was when I was offered a position with an online performance venue called “Virtual Piano Bar.”  It was founded in April by a colleague of mine from Provincetown named Jon Richardson. He realized that there was a possible audience online for Piano Bar performance and he asked a number of people that he had worked with in Provincetown to come on board and set up a schedule of Piano Bar performance. The Virtual Piano Bar shows all stream live on YouTube and Facebook live.

My first Virtual Piano Bar show was on Friday, May 8 and I have been able to do a show every Friday since then. I set up an isolation booth for a guest performer at my house in New Jersey. The isolation booth is really me playing piano in the dining room and the singer standing at the microphone in the living room about 20 feet away. We are Socially distanced but still in the same location so that you can overcome the lag that you would get trying to record or coordinate sound remotely.

NLE: Did you have hopes early on that outdoor performances options were going to come into play? Were you proactive in any way to make this happen?

JR: I did not have any hopes for outdoor playing options at the beginning of the pandemic because I think I was still in a state of shock, and also because it was still quite cool outside in mid-March!

But during one of my “Virtual Piano Bar” shows in May, the managing director of the Paper Mill Playhouse In Millburn NJ saw one of my Friday night shows when my guest Star was Susan Speidel. Susie and I had both worked at the Paper Mill in the Past.  The Managing Director said; “I Love what you guys did with that one hour show!” and I said jokingly, “Why Don’t we set up an outdoor stage at the Theatre and do an outdoor cabaret series? The Paper Mill Does have an on-site Restaurant, so it could be like Dinner Theatre!” And he said; “Hmmmmm… well we did just had to cancel the whole  second half of our 2019-2020 season. It would be great to have something to present!”  And since a singer and pianist are easy to separate on an outdoor stage, and we did not need a huge technical and backstage support staff etc. it looked like it was possible!!

There were a series of obstacles to deal with like: construction of the outdoor stage and sight Lines, social distancing for the audience, outdoor lighting and sound, Theatrical Unions etc. But The staff at the Paper Mill Playhouse and it’s “Carriage House Restaurant” were amazing in getting everything set up to start a cabaret series. They asked what we wanted to call it, and we said since the theatre is on a Brook on the site of an actual Paper Mill, let’s call it the ‘Brookside Cabaret.” We have been performing most Saturdays and will continue up till Labor Day. The stage has been a great success, so they expanded the cabaret series to include a Jazz night and a comedy night.  The theatre is also looking at all kinds of other performance possibilities in the fall.

NLE: What was the first live performance gig you played since lockdown? How did it make you feel––and how did your playing make your audience feel?

JR: I had been doing my Virtual Piano Bar shows on Facebook  and YouTube live since May 8th, but playing with no live audience is a kind of hollow experience!  My First LIVE performance was at the Paper Mill Playhouse “Brookside Cabaret” on Saturday June 20th at 7pm! It was actually raining up till 6:55 pm and they thought they were going to have to postpone opening night!!  But the rain stopped and although the stage was wet and I had to wipe the piano keys off to dry them, we began. And it was amazing.

Every performer knows that feeling that you get from an audience. I don’t know whether it’s just in my head, but I swear I can feel an energy coming from the audience that makes me feel high!! And boy did I feel it that night! You can look out at the audience and see the looks on their faces, but more importantly, it’s the position of their heads and the eyes! When you look out and see that every single person is looking right at you with a look of delight, it’s an amazing feeling!

My opening number was the Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael Academy Award-winning song, “In The Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening!” Now, I’m really just a saloon pianist and singer, but that audience went nuts like I was Harry Connick Jr., Michael Feinstein, Billy Joel, and Elton John all in one package. (Actually, when I play in piano Bars, I do have to be all four of them!!)

NLE:  What was it like to return to Don’t Tell Mama after so many months?

JR: I was able to return to Don’t Tell Mama on 46th street on Tuesday July 21st. They had been doing outdoor dining from 4pm-10pm and the did have pianists outside, but they were using the happy hour pianists who normally play From 5-9pm.  They wanted to try having the regular 9pm-3am piano bar crew from a couple of nights come back and see if it would work to have a “full-on piano bar experience” from 5-10pm instead of 9pm-3am. And since there are way fewer tourists it was going to be a big test!

It was a bumpy and hot outdoor start, but working with two of my three regular Tuesday night colleagues was a pleasure!! Elaine Brier and Alison Nusbaum are both able to serve customers with one hand and sing into a mic with the other, so they make my life very easy!! (I cant wait to have the third Tuesday Musketeer, Tommy J. Dose back!)

NLE: What’s the importance of the piano bar genre in live performance? How did you come to dedicate your career to it?

JR: The importance of piano bar is that it gives an audience a chance to see live music in an intimate and comfortable way! You can sit and have a drink, socialize, talk, interact all as much as you want. In a theatre or cabaret room you are expected to be QUIET and watch the show. But in a piano bar, as long as you’re not screaming or being physically disruptive, you can really have a great time. You can pay as much or as little attention to the performers and the music as you like.

It’s interesting that most piano bar performers do not expect the audience to stop talking and pay absolute attention to them. When you work and perform in a piano bar you come to realize that you have to really WORK to get the audience’s  attention. But every night there’s a miraculous thing that happens. One of the singers will get up and get the audience in the palm of their hand, and you can hear a pin drop in the room. It is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, and I am thrilled to be part of it.

Sometimes a singer who is visiting the piano bar from another city, or who is a Cabaret or Broadway performer will come in and expect that the crowd is going to quiet down and give them undivided attention. They may have just witnessed one of our singing staff get the crowd to be quiet, so they think they crowd will automatically be quiet for them simply because they have been introduced and are standing there. The crowd will give them about 16 bars, just like at an audition. If they don’t sell it, it’s back to the regular noisy crowd!! So overall, singing in a piano bar is a great way to learn how to communicate with an audience. Since you have to work to get the attention of the audience every time, when you do sing in a cabaret setting or as a character in a musical, it feels super easy!!

Most nights the piano player really is kind of “the Filler” or the Master of Ceremonies who has to keep things moving along by playing requests, playing for guest singers, and making sure that people don’t leave!  I have to play and sing for 5-6 hours to keep the room moving in between the featured staff singers; But about once every night, I may start a song and almost accidentally get the crowd in the palm of my hand—and boy does that feel good!!

I actually started my career as an actor. I thought that all actors played the piano and that I was just moderately good at it. But over the years I’d play at a party, or get up and do a guest spot at a Piano Bar like the Duplex, Rose’s Turn, or 88’s in the Village. I was a huge Piano Bar regular starting in the late 1980s and I Learned so much by listening to (and copying !) all the piano bar pianists.  But over the years more and more people said to me: “You know you’re really a pretty good piano player, you should be doing it for a living.”

Around that time, I was working as a waiter in a restaurant, and they owner heard me play at a party, and he asked me to switch from being a waiter 5 days a week to being a pianist 5 days a week!

A short while later I took a position as a pianist for Nordstrom department stores in the Northeast and then began hiring piano players for several northeast stores. This required taking a position in Human Resources. Unfortunately my position started to become more about Personnel and Human Resources things like payroll, labor law, benefits, interviewing and hiring etc.  I felt myself becoming a corporate drone and I became very unhappy because I wasn’t able to play the piano that much! But I was still going to piano bars every weekend!! So I started subbing at The Oaks, The Duplex, 88’s, Roses’s Turn, and Judy’s, and eventually got some regular shifts!

NLE: Among so much uncertainty as to what the future holds during and after the pandemic, how do you see your future as an artist unfolding?

JR: Oy! The future of live entertainment during this pandemic! And then after…..

I have a lot of friends and colleagues who are in the entertainment industry. Whether they are actors on Broadway, or actors in regional theater or touring companies, dancers, singers, etc. They are all out of work and very nervous about the future. I have friends and colleagues in theatre administration at Lincoln Center, The Paper Mill Playhouse, The Mayo Performing Arts Center, NJPAC, Goodspeed, and they are all scared to death of what’s going to happen next. It is very unlikely that normal indoor theatre will be able to happen until there is a vaccine that is proven effective and administered to over 70% of the population. And lord knows how long that will actually take.

Outdoor theater venues and cabaret venues like the one that I am doing at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey are running OK for now, but what happens when the weather turns really cold. The theaters do not want to invest in huge heated tents for two primary reasons. The first is that it’s extremely expensive for something that’s probably only going to be necessary for about a year and secondly a heated tent is about the same thing as being inside a building. And having a large group inside is considered too risky for transmission of the disease.

I am very lucky in that I have been able to find a place at “Virtual Piano Bar” to do a show where I can perform and bring guest singers on to perform with me. (And even make a few bucks with the virtual tips on Venmo and PayPal!) I am also lucky in that I can play on Tuesdays 5-10 pm at the outdoor piano bar at Don’t Tell Mama, but again what happens when the weather turns cold? It also it seems unlikely that indoor dining is going to be allowed within the next few months, so moving the piano bar back inside may be a while off. Lastly, we still have to worry about the fact that until the Broadway shows reopen, a theatre district Piano Bar like Mama’s is likely to be slower than normal.

I have always been a “Glass Half Full” sort of person, so I am really trying to be as positive as I possibly can about the prospects for all of us in the live entertainment industry!!