Australian Cabaret Summer School: Meet and Greet & Day 1

 Please welcome Cabaret Confessional’s guest blogger Jenny Wynter.

Jenny is a comedian and cabaret performer, whose award winning one-woman show An Unexpected Variety Show is appearing as part of the 2012 Adelaide Fringe Festival and the 2012 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

She is one of the 15 participants in the 2012 Australian Cabaret Summer School, which is currently being held at Walford. Jenny will be blogging her experience on Cabaret Confessional in the coming week.

Jenny Wynter  Photo by Marty Pouwelse

By Jenny Wynter

Meeting all the participants with Matthew Carey at La Boheme

The night before the Australian Cabaret Summer School started, I attended the initial registration/meet & greet session at La Boheme with a key cabaret ingredient: wine.

Walking into a room full of strangers with whom you are about to spend the entirety of the following week would be daunting at the best of times, let alone when you know you are to spend that week singing, writing and putting together a show which at the week’s conclusion, come rain or shine, is going to be gracing the stage.

Luckily for me (and I suspect, others), the wonderful organisers of the Australian Cabaret Summer School softened the scary factor. Glasses in hand, we met, mingled and mused over what was to come.

And  the story begins…

The sixteen of us are a diverse group. Some are returning to the stage after a hiatus, some are seasoned performers and some are singing onstage for the first time. In the morning of our first day of class, we find this out and more, including our stories of what attracted each of us to cabaret in the first place. After a vocal warm-up, our esteemed mentor and Director of the Summer School, Matthew Carey, reveals his summation of what cabaret is: “Cabaret is storytelling.”

This point is driven home throughout the day, as each of us in the class get up to sing a song to our fellow classmates - a song which “gives us a strong sense of who you are.”

While a participant sings, the rest of us are instructed to be “active audience members” by taking notes, writing (and I love the way this is put) “the kind of notes YOU would like to receive.” That is to say, if you have a note to give somebody about something they could do better, word it in a way that you yourself would like to read.”

Taking notes

After each performance, Matt and his fellow mentor Catherine Campbell give notes, and at times, getting the performer to try sections of the song again. Some of the notes that stand out to me include:

- Have a point of focus, even if it’s imagined. i.e. know to whom you are singing to and/or looking at, rather than just staring at the back window.

- Incorporate a “mantra” that sums up the song. The example given in this case was “Love is crazy!”, which the performer was asked to repeat over and over in her head while singing the song itself. I have used this technique in improv before, but not in a musical context.

- Speak the lyrics without the music. This can really help see the words and connect with them in a new light.

- Find YOUR connection to the song. Not the character’s, not the songwriter’s (though naturally their intention is important!), not what the song means in the context of its original show, but YOURS. Why are you singing this? What does it mean to you?

- Not looking at the audience can be a tool that you can use to draw them in. But there does come a point where the audience needs you to connect with them - to share it with them!

My turn comes: I play an original number “The World’s Greatest Love Song” from my upcoming show. It is a little nerve-wracking, given the talent in the room, but I calm myself in the knowledge that we are all in the same boat and that we want each other to succeed! We are, after all, going to be a team, come this weekend, when we put on the show at Cabaret Summer School Showcase.

Ah, the show! Each of us is charged with creating a ten-minute piece, brainstorming the title of which we have been assigned as homework tonight! I am a little torn; I have an idea in mind which is heavily character based. I am unsure about whether to sing entirely in character for my whole piece or not. Matt suggests a couple of different ideas and ways to approach it. I for one, am hoping that the 10 minutes I come up with for Saturday’s show will form the seed of whatever my next solo show will be. Which is exactly what I wanted from this week already: to come up with an idea in mind that’s yet to be open, to having it morph, grow and change as inspiration strikes.

So that, it seems, is already happening.

Stay tuned!

Jenny Wynter’s Australian Cabaret Summer School blog series:

Australian Cabaret Summer School: Meet and Greet & Day 1

Australian Cabaret Summer School: Day 2 and All That Jazz

Australian Cabaret Summer School: Day 3 - A Breakthrough  

Australian Cabaret Summer School: Day 4 - Insecurities

Australian Cabaret Summer School: Day 5 - An Epiphany

Australian Cabaret Summer School: The Final Frontier

For more information on Australian Cabaret Summer School click here.  For Cabaret Summer School Showcase tickets, click here. 

Jenny Wynter’s official website: www.comicmummy.com

She’ll be touring her award-winning An Unexpected Variety Show to the 2012 Adelaide Fringe and the 2012 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Click here to book tickets to the 2012 Adelaide Fringe.

Click here to book tickets to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

*Calling all Adelaide Fringe 2012 cabaret performers! If you are interested in having your Fringe show featured on Cabaret Confessional, click here for more information.

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