Magazine publisher/editor/writer and cabaret impresario, Stephen Hanks, has written about sports, politics, the media, health and nutrition, and most recently, cabaret and theater for an array of national media outlets. He began his career after graduating Herbert H. Lehman College (CUNY) as Editor-in-Chief of the National Hockey League Magazine. With wife Beatrice Hanks he then created New York Sports Magazine (which ceased publication in 1985). Following various editorships, Hanks created the multiple award-winning archaeology magazine for children called DIG and served as Publisher and Editorial Director until it was sold in 2001. He then went on as Publisher and Editorial Director of Energy Times, a health and nutrition publication. 
From 2012-2016, Hanks was the lead New York Cabaret Editor and Writer for BroadwayWorld.com, and began reviewing cabaret in 2010 for Cabaret Scenes Magazine. He has has also been a producer, promoter, publicist and performer, producing seven shows in New York for the Urban Stages’ Winter Rhythms Cabaret Series. In 2018, Hanks produced the five-show series Cabaret Campaigns: Ride the Blue Wave: 2018, which were fundraisers for Democratic candidates in the 2018 Midterm elections. Moving from Brooklyn to Sedona, AZ in 2021, Hanks now works as an Advertising Executive with the Sedona International Film Festival, is a Board Member of The Democrats of the Red Rocks PAC, and recently launched Red Rocks Writer, an independent copy writing, copy editing and publicity service for Sedona-area businesses and individuals. Hanks also posts political and sports essays on Medium.com and is also a Contributing Writer for WomanAroundTown.com
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) Asks Stephen Hanks (SH) Six Questions:
NLE: When did your interest in politics begin? Was there an epiphany attached to that?
SH: I guess my interest in history began before my passion for politics and that started when I was seven/eight years old with the Biography TV series with Mike Wallace. I was fascinated by those mini-documentaries about history events and people. But the political epiphany probably began with President Kennedy’s Assassination in November 1963, a month after I turned eight. I told the audience at the first Blue Wave show in 2018 about the profound effect that had on me and how I was riveted to the television for the four days between JFK’s death and his funeral and watching the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald killed on live TV. I’m pretty sure that event led to my interest in both politics and journalism.
Since then, I’ve always been a political junkie and worked for a lot of candidates as a volunteer, both in New York and national politics. While in college in 1976, I volunteered in Jimmy Carter’s Presidential campaign in New York. After 12 years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as President, I got very involved in Bill Clinton’s New York primary and national campaign in 1992. I would give speeches supporting Clinton that I wrote myself to community groups and senior citizen centers and I’d give “soapbox speeches” in front of the Public Library on Fifth Avenue and in Washington Square Park. Now that I live in Sedona, AZ, I’m on the Board of the Democrats of the Red Rocks, which fundraises for local candidates and supports get-out-the-vote efforts. And over the past four years, I’ve written political columns criticizing Donald Trump and the Republican Right Wing on my blog on the website Medium.
NLE: What or who has shaped your political views over the years?
SH:
Like most people, my early political views were shaped by my parents (unless you rebel when you get older), mostly my mother who was a staunch Democrat and despised Richard Nixon. My maternal grandfather, who died when I was just a month old, once ran for Congress in the Bronx and was buddies with Mayor LaGuardia, Mayor Robert Wagner, FDR, Jr., and Ambassador Avrill Harriman, etc. With JFK being one of my early heroes, naturally I favored Democrats and as I got older I identified much more with Democratic Party policy positions that the government has a necessary role to help people in American Democracy. Unfortunately, the current state of the so-called “Republican Party” has pretty much trashed our two-party system and I’m as progressive a Democrat as I’ve ever been in my life.
NLE: The arts have long been part of political expression. What makes cabaret an effective vehicle for political advocacy?
SH: As you might know, the entertainment art form of cabaret has been a political platform since the days of Weimar Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler and before World War II. Ironically, the musical and film version of Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, which takes place as the Nazi’s were taking power in Germany, tragically conveys messages of the situation we’re experiencing today in America. In fact, right before the 2016 election, I decided to watch the film version of Cabaret because it was on Turner Classic Movies, and had another epiphany; that white supremacy was rearing its ugly head in this country and was the biggest threat to our precious Democracy. And that was when I thought Hillary Clinton was going to WIN the election. Anyone who doesn’t realize that the entire Republican Party agenda is based on White Nationalism is either not paying attention or willfully ignorant.
As far as what makes cabaret an effective vehicle for political advocacy, I think it’s partly the intimacy of the art form and the fact that it allows performers to express themselves in a myriad of ways, especially since the financial bottom-line pressures aren’t as great as they are in film or theater productions. Cabaret is an ideal medium for opinion and satire through music and storytelling.
NLE: Have you gotten push-back for your views or your activism?
SH: If you mean besides the occasional nasty comments from right wingers on Facebook and Twitter and on my Medium blog? LOL! That kind of response is to be expected. Since I’m very allergic to right wing extremists, Fox News viewers, 2020 Election deniers, and insurrectionists, I tend to stick with my own tribe where I get plenty of support.
As far as the cabaret community, the great audiences we’ve gotten at all the Blue Wave shows speak volumes about the support. I have to admit that I was disappointed that a few New York-based cabaret performers turned down my requests to have them perform in the Blue Wave shows because they were concerned about “being too political” or offending potential audiences that might not be Democrats or Progressives. I try to understand that position because they’re thinking about their livelihoods, but it’s still disappointing.
NLE: What do you most desire to achieve with this edition of Blue Wave on May 27?
SH: Well, pretty much what I and all my cast members wanted to achieve with the shows we staged from 2018 to early 2020 (there was one show right before the pandemic happened)—heighten awareness of the issues, energize Democrats and Independents to vote, spread the word to their friends, and raise as much money as possible for Democrats running in the 2022 midterms. For this show and cycle, we’ve decided to focus the attention on candidates running races in states that Democrats really need to win to keep control of the House and Senate, like the Governor races in Georgia, Arizona, and Texas, and the Senate races in Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio. Another goal I always love to achieve is showcasing the incredible performers and singers and Music Director Tracy Stark, all of whom I’ll love forever for their talent, courage, and commitment to this effort over the past five years.
NLE: What’s most at stake in the fractured political world we now inhabit? How do you see the near future playing out?
SH: What’s not at stake politically these days? I can’t express how painful and disillusioning it is to say that nothing less than our fragile American Democracy is at stake right now. Everything many Americans value is on the line, whether it’s voting rights, women’s rights, minority rights, healthcare, the future of the planet . . . and the list goes on.
I was immensely distressed last weekend when I learned about the killings of 10 Black people in Buffalo. It combined two issues of the three issues that I’ve been pretty obsessed about since Barack Obama’s second Presidential election—White supremacy and gun violence.
In all the Blue Wave shows I hosted, I told audiences that these issues—in addition to protecting voting rights—are the biggest threats to American Democracy. And they are all related because as is painfully obvious, the entire Republican Party/Right Wing agenda is motivated by one factor, which President Biden articulated in his recent speech—White Supremacy. In spite of how depressed I’ve been since the day Donald Trump was elected, I’m still optimistic good will triumph over evil. In 2018, after we did the five Blue Wave shows, Democrats flipped 40 seats in Congress and won some important Governorships and Senate races. By the way, I’m not taking the credit for that. LOL. In spite of massive voter suppression and gerrymandering in the states, Joe Biden was still able to win the Presidency in 2020. I want to believe—I HAVE TO BELIEVE—that we will win in 2022 and 2024. If not, I may be producing cabaret shows in Amsterdam. 😉
