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ADVANCED CABARET WORKSHOP
SUMMER
IN THE CITY
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Lennie
Watts’ on going CABLAB are merging to do our 4th annual, 4 day cabaret performance intensive: Summer in the City ! This July there will be 2 separate Summer in the city weekends. Directors Lennie Watts and Lina Koutrakos are at the helm. We will take 2 different groups of 16 “students”. (“AP’s”: Advanced performers) who will be working with us from either Thursday evening July 13th through to Sunday July16th or Thursday evening July 20th through to Sunday 23rd . Though we will be having guest speakers, guest teachers and performances, we will be shaking up our format considerably this summer! For our return singers and those of you who will be new to us, we are.....steppin it up a notch and leaning more and more towards the “advanced” in our teachings if you will. This years SitC will be a more layered event-starting on Thursday night and gathering steam as we go towards completion on Sunday afternoon. We are excited to offer it this way! The core group will be the 16 AP’s, Lennie, Lina and a musical director. The shows will be advertised and open to the public (cover charge and minimum for others- AP’s cover charges for all seminars and shows are included in the price of the workshop.) These shows/guests will feature people (both performers and the folks behind the scenes) who have gained notoriety in the fields we feel will greatly benefit performers by both hearing and seeing them again or for the first time. We will have 2 musical directors and 4 guest teachers joining us at scheduled times throughout the weekend. We will be doing all performance work in cabaret rooms, on the cabaret stages in Manhattan (to be announced). We hope to cover as much ground as we can without exhausting you! We will let you get some sleep in between sessions and you will not be expected to end the 4 days with a performance. So the learning and workshopping are exactly that! An exhausting learning and growing experience. We have about 100 singers who have joined us over the past 4 summers and we're looking forward to meeting more of you. Some folks return and take Summer in the City again to get a “boost” for themselves, as you are all individuals and are in your own very different places in your career this is something we think works out for most of you. We will be shaking up our “format” and adding some new work sessions this year for those of you who will be rejoining! WHO WE ARE Skipping around a bit, let us tell you who we are and why we feel excited about what we can “teach”. (Pass along, share, reinforce etc…) We both, individually, been having such a good time teaching, directing and watching the folks who ask us to assist them in this capacity take the stage. Also we have had such a bad time running against each other for “Best Director” awards around the city over the years that we decided to join forces (which we like much better cuz its easier when we go out to lunch to be nice to one another!). We “hook up” at least once a year and give some of the AP’s we’re already crazy about and the ones’ we’ve yet to meet a performance “upgrade”! Though it is not a necessity to be both director and performer in order to teach, each of us feels we are at a distinct advantage to be bringing both these things to the table. We really want to offer the kick of having this combination going on simultaneously in our lives- to you. We can tell you what we want to see from an educated audiences perspective, give you solid guidance on how to achieve it from a directorial angle and maintain the understanding of the possible “roadblocks” you face in getting your point of view across from “up there”. Lennie is a Backstage Bistro award winning director, he is also 2002’s MAC award winner for Best Director as well. Lennie’s “leanings”, if you will, as “teacher” have also covered a great deal of theater and his directorial client list consists of theater “cross overs”, to pop singers, straight ahead cabaret performers, and comics. Lennie has also been very successful this past year working with lots of New Yorks talented kids. Lina also has a MAC and Bistro Award for Best Director. (different years then Lennie!) About 10 years ago, after winning many Best Female Vocalist awards she started a workshop concentrating, but not limited to, a more “pop/cabaret” student. As a performer, Lina, not a complete stranger to musical theater, has been concentrating on songwriting and fronts her own pop/rock band. Both Lennie and Lina's “clients” have been nominated and won many Backstage Bistros and MAC awards themselves. Lennie has been the booking agent in many of New Yorks top cabaret rooms and is the man who is responsible for the incredible performers who have done shows in Mama Roses, The Encore and now the near to just open newest room in town-The Metropolitan. Lina has been on the teaching staff at both the Eugene O'Neil Cabaret Symposium and currently continues to teach with the Yale Cabaret Conference every August. Both Lennie and Lina have worked many years as part of the staff of Don’t Tell Mama’s and Eighty Eight’s in the cabaret rooms, seeing well over 1000 shows and Lina was also the booking manager at Don’t Tell Mama and the assistant booking manager at Eighty Eight’s. Being privy to all these shows Lennie and Lina have the very exciting advantage of not only knowing what does work but much more valuable…. what doesn’t. Exercising their directorial muscles they also have a real good idea of the why’s and how’s of both. Ok….the point here is these people have their hands all over this thing from a ton of different angles and we feel excited and equipped to pass it on! OUR OBJECTIVE To have available to you an accompanist/arranger (Rick Jensen and Tracy Stark), directors (Lina Koutrakos and Lennie Watts) Seminars (featuring people from the press, vocal coaches, songwriters, funny folks, business people, arrangers, Broadway types, established cabaret performers etc…) guest director/teachers and 15 other students to witness your mistakes, growth and successes. This is invaluable. Being a solo performer almost never allows you to “share” the experience and creativity of this process. It is priceless. We will help you pick material, show you the value of arranging it so it becomes “yours” and not just another song that everybody sings. We will work in a variety of ways on taking you far beyond a “good voice” (in this city- we are “a dime a dozen”!) We have every reason to think, with our experience and yours we can help you become a very unique performer as well as a great singer. We will work on lyric content, emotional intent, acting perspective and expressing it all through your voice. WHAT’S EXPECTED OF YOU To be someone who really wants to go through the process of this workshop. To show up physically and emotionally and above all else….To do the work. You have to be willing to bring the 3 things- vital to a song- to the stage: Your voice, your head, and your heart. This is not a beginners workshop. It is decidedly advanced, because we want to offer something to performers who are already good and simply want to be better sooner then later. Whatever you take away with you (good and bad) after the weekend, we guaranty we will have an extraordinarily good time. And, please trust that there is absolutely no way you will not learn more then ever watching others have similar victories and make the exact mistakes as you have been. You can’t lose! On a more practical note: You are expected to bring cassettes, a cassette recorder, paper and music, music, music. WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS WORKSHOP? Advanced performers who sings well and want more from their performances (and careers).
To bring to you “ego-free” all our experience and the ability to pass it on. And to gather as many available and specifically knowledgeable people to share their experiences both on and off stage with you too.
Absolutely pass this along to other singer/performer friends of yours who you think would enjoy and benefit by this. The itinerary and guests (who are all subject to change- “show biz” kids!) will be posted closer to the weekend. Please know that once committed you are ours from Thursday at 6pm till Sunday at about 4pm. If you have a day job, take off Friday. We will be singing ALL day. If you are rejoining us, you will be thrilled -as we're doin it different! The work will be what you know...no nonsense and intense, but the “format” is very different! One layer is that we will be adding a new work-seminar dealing with “patter” (the spoken word). CONTACT Lennie and/or Lina:
We will have to hear from you
by May 15th 2006 in order for you to join us this year.
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