The Music Theatre of Connecticut in Norwalk is putting on some Hot Summer Nights. It's a series of one-night-only cabaret shows featuring celebrated performers, including Broadway stars. Raissa Katona Bennett is one of them. She’s also the Cabaret Liaison for the MTC. WSHU’s ATC host Randye Kaye spoke with Katona Bennet about the series and MTC’s mission to keep musical theatre flourishing.
WSHU: I'm Randye Kay, here with WSHU Public Radio, and I'm here with a friend of mine who is a Broadway and Cabaret star, Raissa Katona Bennett. And something else I just learned about you that you've been doing for the past seven years. So, what is your position with Music Theater of Connecticut?
Raissa Katona Bennett: Well, besides being an actor who has performed there several times in their Equity shows.
WSHU: I saw you in Steel Magnolias.
RKB: Did you see me in Fun Home as well?
WSHU: I did not wish I had.
RKB: Oh God, I love that show. Yeah, I am the Cabaret liaison because I've been obviously very active in the major cabaret series and life in New York City. And they had been doing hot summer nights, little by little, over the years, but they wanted to up their game a bit and bring in some of the well-known stars of cabaret from New York. But also those who have a connection to the theater in Connecticut, or to Connecticut artists. So I've been helping them with that, suggesting different performers, and then Kevin and Jimmy, Kevin Connors, and the artistic director will go through the list and say, "Yeah, I think this will sell this, this may be a better fit, whatnot. And so, together, we curate the season, each season.
WSHU: And you've been doing this for seven years?
RKB: About seven years, I would say. Yeah.
WSHU: Theater in Connecticut is so fabulous. There's so much around here, so anyone who says, 'Oh, I've never seen a Broadway show, well, you can see incredible theater in Connecticut. But things kind of slow down in the summertime, it feels like, because a lot of the theater, and it's great theater that I tend to see in the summer, are kids' shows. Because the kids are going to drama camp, and that's wonderful. And usually the performance seasons of the major professional theater companies, which Music Theater of Connecticut is, and even the community theater as well, are generally September to June, but there are theaters that do things like Shakespeare in the park. There's a lot of outdoor theater. I know Curtain Call in Stanford does a wonderful Shakespeare in the Park. Milford Arts Council does in Hartford and over Long Island. So, you'll get to go outside and sweat and bring your bug repellent, which is a wonderful experience. But if you want to experience a hot summer night indoors in the air conditioning…
RKB: Where it's comfortable.
WSHU: Where it's comfortable. Yeah, so tell us about the Hot Summer Nights series, what it is, and what's coming this summer.
RKB: Well, I'll tell you what's great about it is that I would say of all the people that are performing this summer, six of us are Broadway performers. So they're getting to see Broadway performers do their cabaret acts. The first one is Frank Mastrone, who starred in Big, Phantom of the Opera, and Les Misérables on Broadway. By the time this airs, his show will have already taken place, but he performs every year, and he always sells out, and he's incredible. One of my favorite singers, actually. And then we have John Arden's Dueling Pianos. Very hot dueling piano act. They perform all over the world, most recently in New York City, too. Then our first performer from the Broadway world after Frank, that is, July 18, is Christine Andreas. Now she is Broadway royalty.
She's a Tony Award nominee for The Scarlet Pimpernel. She originated the role in The Scarlet Pimpernel, and also for Oklahoma, and La Cage on Broadway. Yeah, and My Fair Lady, she was the Eliza in the revival of that, the 20th anniversary, I believe. And she's cabaret royalty. She's performed at the Cafe Carlyle and the Oak Room at the Algonquin. She's an incredible, incredible friend, person, singer; she's just wonderful, and she also lives in Danbury, Connecticut.
WSHU: Yeah, a lot of these people are Connecticut residents, as well as Broadway stars.
RKB: Yeah. A lot of them have a connection to Connecticut.
WSHU: Which is something we spoke about last time you were on.
RKB: Yes, yeah, because last time I was here with Arbender Robinson when we did a show. He's back in The Book of Mormon on Broadway right now during this exciting time, but that’s another story.
WSHU: Is he filling in as a vacationer?
RKB: He's a swing, but he also helps with the, let's just say, the camaraderie and the what's the word I want, the good feeling. There's a, there's a word for that, but I’m darned right now if I know.
WSHU: Well, he's a ray of sunshine.
RKB: He truly is. And we're going to be doing a show, actually, together at the Fairfield Theater Company in October, but I digress. Then August 1,st, we have Nicolas Dromard and Desiree Davar, Nick and Desi. Nick and Desi have performed several times, I believe most recently at the Music Theater of Connecticut, when they did Cabaret a couple of years ago. I got to know them because they performed at the Cabaret Convention in New York City, which is a big honor. And KT Sullivan, who's the head of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, said to me, "Let's get them for our Dutch Treat Club”, which I'm the entertainment chair of. And I saw them, I was like, "Oh my god, you guys are amazing”. They sing, they dance, they tap dance right there in front of you. And when I mentioned it to Kevin, he said, "Oh, I know Nick and Desi”, so. I'm hoping that the people who have seen them in Connecticut will want to come back and see them, because they are just amazing, and you know, between them, they've appeared on Broadway in Wicked and Jersey Boys, Mary Poppins, West Side Story, and Peter Pan. I mean, it goes on and on. That’s August 1st.
And then August 8 is me! It's Katona and Kittredge. My friend Ann Kittredge and I have put together a show, and between the two of us, we've starred in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, she's been in A Christmas Carol, King David, and lots of cabaret shows together, and the two of us are fairly well established in the echelon of cabaret in New York City. And then on August 15, we have this chick
named Randye Kaye.
WSHU: And I will not be singing, just so you know.
RKB: Well, that's a darn shame, because I have performed in concert with Randye Kaye, she's got a beautiful voice, but I have seen this show, I think I may have seen the first time you did it,
WSHU: You did see the first time I did it.
RKB: It was great.
WSHU: Thank you, and I am actually constructing an Act 2 because…
RKB: You are good.
WSHU: … yes, it's going to be a little bit different. This is an experiment that Kevin and Jim asked if we could do in two acts. And it was either split it into or add a little extra, and so I like to be creative and do stuff. But the first act actually got developed at the Music Theater of Connecticut in a storytelling class,
RKB: That's right, that's right, I remember that.
WSHU: You know, the show will always be available as a one-actor, but you know, I like a challenge, and I love me a deadline, because otherwise I get nothing done.
RKB: Yeah, well, that's how Ann and I decided to do the show together. She said to me one day, "Hey, would you ever consider doing a show together?” I said, "Sure.” And I said, "You know, I'm already booked at Music Theatre of Connecticut on August 8. I said, "How about Katona and Kittredge?” She goes, "Okay.” And that was it. And we went, we went flying. And the other thing I love about Music Theatre of Connecticut, wonderful audiences, but it's like a kind of sandbox that you can play in and create. Most cabaret artists in the city do a one-act. It's a 60- to 70-minute show, tops. Here, they want to do an intermission, and you can go on, get a cocktail, and whatnot. And it's lovely to take a show that you've done in one act and expand it a little bit, and say, oh, I always wanted to put this song in there. So, it's really fun. And you know, a lot of theaters around the country- I just did the show with Arbender down at the Live Arts Maryland, they want a second act, they want people to be able to get up, buy a cocktail, and stretch yourselves, and you know, go back down in and listen. So it's a nice opportunity to play around.
WSHU: Yeah, I love that. I know from Cabaret in New York, and comedy shows as well, because my show is a solo show, it answers the question, Can we be loved even if we're not perfect? I think that's something that everybody faces, and you know, there are laughs in it, and there's drama, and you can see the reviews in many places; it's a different kind of show. In those types of shows, often when you go to a comedy show or a cabaret, there's a two-drink minimum, and you have to do that. So, here you can have two drinks if you want, but you don't have to,
RKB: You don't have, but I think people think I'm better when they've had a couple of drinks.
WSHU: Well, there you go, that's what intermission is for.
RKB: But what I want to say about your show, because this is true about cabaret as well. When we're on stage performing artists, we give voice to so many of the feelings that people already have, and they don't know how to express them. And you're allowing them to see that in the best possible way that they're not unique, that we all feel this way. And the greatest compliment I ever got after my very first cabaret show was that you said so many things that I've always felt, and I didn't know how to give voice to it. And I was like, oh my god, what an honor, and you know, I've thought about that ever since. And that was really true with your show as well, because yours is spoken word, and it is a one-woman show in the traditional sense of the word. I was like, “oh yeah, that was me, oh yeah, that was me.” And you know it's okay, yeah, I can laugh at myself, and I'm okay, and I can be loved, you know, it's like, Stuart Smalley, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and darn it, people like me, and it's true. But you give voice to things that people feel, and maybe they don't know how to express it, so it's very important in theater and cabaret and women's shows like this, where we break that fourth wall, which allows you to speak directly to the audience and say, hey, we're in the living room together, let's talk.
WSHU: Exactly. Thank you for that compliment. And I believe sometimes the song can do it for you, performed as well as you perform it. But in a solo show that doesn't have music, it's all about going well, sometimes I'm a pretty terrible person, and then laughing about it. You know, there's a certain kind of shared humor in just being humble enough to put your imperfections out there loud and proud. To get tickets for any of these, they go to …
RKB: Wait. Hold, let me just double-check.
WSHU: Okay, Music Theater, and it's Theater with an R E.
RKB: Yes, so it's Musictheatreofct.com and it's R E, correct. And you can find out all about the rest of the season. So they're starting their 40th professional season in September with the regional premiere of Barry Manilow's Harmony. Now I saw that on Broadway, and it's a very important and beautiful piece for this time, and that's all I'm going to say about that. But I have to say the other reason why I volunteer my time with this theater is that, as a union member, an Equity member, I want to see these theaters survive and do whatever I can. And right now, for a number of reasons, including governmental funding cutbacks and the economy, where people are pulling back, this is a very challenging time for the 15 professional theaters in Connecticut. We have 15 professional theaters, and you know of several that are closing. This is an interesting and sad fact. Connecticut ranks 44th in the United States for funding of the arts. We rank below Alabama and Mississippi.
WSHU: Wow.
RKB: The state funding is allocated 89 cents per person. And just to give you a comparison, New York state does $12.49 per person. Isn't that sad?
WSHU: It is, and there are a lot of theaters in trouble. And what I have learned in my years in Connecticut, doing professional theater, and also teaching kids, so that area as well, is that you can get money to build a theater, but you can't get a lot of funds to keep it going. And that's where we come in, that's where we come in with ticket sales and donations and advocacy and just supporting the theater.
RKB: I listen to WSHU every day, NPR constantly, and I'm really happy that the public that is listening to public radio has been stepping up and saying, "Oh, the government's cut back, so I have to step.. I know my husband, and I have increased our donations. Thank you. It's so important. That's the same thing for these theaters, and you know, at the end of the day, at the end of one's life in history, people don't go back and say, "Oh, which bill passed?” They think, “Oh, that show, that beautiful piece by Beethoven, this beautiful opera.” They don't talk about the bills that were passed in Congress on this particular day, and whatever. No, it's the results of art that live on, and we have to nurture them.
WSHU: Yes. In schools, in theater, community theater, professional theater, cabaret, because there is a collective energy that AI will never replace, when a bunch of people get together to witness something live.
And so this summer you can have that experience in areas, but if you'd like to go indoors and see one-night-only shows, six of them in a beautiful, newly expanded theater…
RKB: Oh, it's beautiful, isn’t it?
WSHU: …in Norwalk. Hot Summer Nights series, Raissa Katona Bennett with Ann Kittredge on August 8, and me on August 15, and four other shows before then, which are so worth your time and so affordable, and it'll be a great night in the air conditioning. Anything we've left out?
RKB: Well, I just want to say that the other thing is all of these artists could command quite a lot more money for these shows. But this is also part of their giving back. They are basically doing these shows for expenses, which is what it turns out to be, you know. We're even losing money on it, like building a brand new show. I mean, someday maybe I'll make my money back, but I want to support this theater, and that's the way I can do it, by being a liaison for the cabaret community and Music Theater of Connecticut, and also then my time performing there, so that we can spread the word.
