BWW Interviews: Deborah Boily Talks Cabaret, Career, and Concert

Deborah Boily is preparing for her cabaret performance of DEBORAH BOILY - ONE NIGHT ONLY. DEBORAH BOILY SOLO is a celebration of her career and the 10-year anniversary of her live album THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC. At the cabaret she will sing songs off of her albums THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC and THE SONG REMEMBERS WHEN. Deborah Boily will also showcase her theatrical side with a set entitled "Roles I Never Got to Play." Despite her busy schedule preparing this thrilling night of entertaining song, she carved out a few minutes to sit down with me and discuss her career and her upcoming June 1st cabaret show at Ovations.

Me: How did you first get involved in theatre, and when did you know you wanted to perform as a profession?

Deborah Boily: I'm going to tell my whole story at the show, but when I was eleven years old, my dad came home with a Hi-Fi, which in those days was nothing more than a record player on legs. (Laughs) And about five albums of Broadway musicals. When I started listening to those musicals, it just felt like that was something I wanted to do. That never changed, so I guess you can say when I was eleven. That's not when I got involved in theatre, but that's when I made the decision that I wanted to perform.

The Broadway music just appealed to me so much. I found myself fantasizing that I was performing these characters in the play. At one point, I took that same Hi-Fi into my bedroom. I would decide what album I wanted to listen to, and I would just play it over and over and over and over again. I did that with THE FANTASTICKS. Oh my God! I saw a production of that as a junior in high school, got the album, and then I just listened to it. I was completely obsessed by it. I just knew that was what I wanted to do.

Then, I actually got involved in theatre in high school, and in college more actively. I majored in music and changed my major from music to drama. In music school, in those days, you could not major in musical theatre. You had to study classical music. And that was just never going to be me, so I changed my major to theatre.

And professionally, I guess you could say, I became a professional in 1976. That's when I got my equity card.

Me: When did you transition from performing in theatre to being a cabaret singer? What was this transition like?

Deborah Boily: In 1990 I wrote my first little show. I had always been drawn to really intimate theatre and little shows. They always came to my attention. I was interested in that form of theatre, art, and performing for a very long time. But when I decided to write my first show, I decided that I should probably try to get it into some cabaret rooms. The first show I wrote was called, I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE FRENCH. I premiered it here in town at Ovations and some other little theaters here in town. Then, I went to New York and tried it out. I even went to Canada, to the fringe festivals, and did it there. That was my start in cabaret.

Me: You lived and performed in both Paris and London. What were those experiences like?

Deborah Boily: Yeah, you know, it was like Charles Dickens said, "It was the best of times, and the worst of times." (Laughs) I was full of fear. It was scary as hell. I was leaving America, leaving home, to pursue a dream. Yes, I knew Paris pretty well, and I spoke the language to some degree, but it was distressing going to a foreign place. I knew a few people I could depend on, but I didn't know that many people.

I did get to perform, especially in London. In London, I performed at every cabaret room in town. But the reason I left Paris was because I realized that what I do is not something that the French wanted. At the time-well, they still are-very much into Jazz. They were really in love with the Jazz singers, and that was never going to be me. I realized in order to get to do what I really loved to do it wasn't going to happen there, which is ironic because my going there to sing French music went 180 degrees. They didn't want to hear an American do French music. They wanted to hear Americans do what Americans are known for, which is Blues and Jazz. That's why I decided if I really wanted to stick with performing cabaret, I was going to have to try London, which I did.

Me: At your June 1st concert, you'll be performing a set entitled "Roles I Never Got to Play." What was your inspiration for this set?

Deborah Boily: Well, I like to come up with interesting ways to broach a subject. It's easy enough to just go "Oh, let's do a Broadway show." I sing on a lot of very small, high-end ships, so I have to create a lot of shows for them. And I didn't just want to do a show called "Broadway." It's just too normal and too predictable. So, years ago I came with the title of "Roles I Never Got to Play" because that has been a big factor in my life. I never really fit one particular mold. I was always an ingénue looking kid and an ingénue looking woman with an Alto kind of voice and a character personality, so I was very hard to cast. There were many many roles that I did not get cast in but would have loved to sung that music. So, as a cabaret singer, what's wonderful is that you can sing that music because you can put it in any key you want. You can sing any role you want, even if it's a man's role. And you can sing a character of any age. You just make it your own! "Roles I Never Got to Play" is based on a lot of truth, and I'll be telling those stories on stage in the show.

Me: Without giving away too much, what songs can your audience expect to hear during this set?

Deborah Boily: Well, you're going to hear some Rogers and Hammerstein because those were my very first influences. I'm going to do "I Have Dreamed," which is a song from THE KING AND I. It's usually done very quickly and very unthrillingly in any production I have seen, and it's a shame. That song is gorgeous, and it's full of emotional connection. I've found an arrangement, which was originally done by Nancy LaMott, who was one of my idol cabaret singers. She died back in the mid-90s, at a very early age, of ovarian cancer. Her arrangement, done by Christopher Marlowe, is an arrangement I have cherished and loved for years. I'm going to do that.

I'm going to sing a song called "Alto's Lament," which seems like it could have been written for me. It's about an Alto who always wants to do the Soprano part, and she never gets to. That was written by Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler. It's not from a show. It's a novelty song. But, they're two women who write together for the theatre and for cabaret.

And then, I'm going to probably end that section with a really beautiful song, written, surprisingly enough, by the two men from ABBA. Not too many people realize they wrote a musical. They kind of wrote CHESS with Tim Rice, but after that they wrote a musical, which debuted in Malmö, Sweden in 1995 called KRISTINA FRÅN DUVEMÅLA. It's an epic epic musical about a young married couple who leaves Sweden in the 1800s because of famine. They come over to the United States, which is what a lot of Scandinavians did. That's why there's so many people of Scandinavian heritage in the Upper-Midwest. They survived the six or four month voyage by sea, they survived Indian attacks, they survived Small Pox, and all kinds of stuff. At one point in the show she has a very big crisis of faith. You can imagine why, after all of that. And she sings a song called "You Have to Be There." It was translated a few years ago by Björn Ulvaeus and Herbert Kretzmer. I think in anticipation that it would eventually be done on Broadway. It is just an incredibly dramatic and beautiful song. She's asking God if he's there. Actually, she's saying, "You have to be there. I just don't know what I'm going to do. After all these years of counting on you, you really don't exist." So that's just a little bit of a teaser of what I'm going to be doing.

Me: You'll also be performing songs off of your CDs THE SONG REMEMBERS WHEN and THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC. How did you select what numbers to perform off of these albums?

Deborah Boily: The album THE SONG REMEMBERS WHEN is actually named after a country song sung by Trisha Yearwood. I love the story in it. I'm really an actress who sings. That's truly what I am. I love stories. And all of the songs on that album really were telling the story of my adventures to Paris and moving to a foreign country. THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC is the one I recorded ten years ago. I can't believe it's been ten years.

But, a lot of what we're going to do is what Jerry [Atwood] already knows. Jerry is a piano player who plays by ear. He can read very, very slightly, but that's not his strong suit. So, I have to give him music either on YouTube or an MP3 for him to learn it. So, that's really going to dictate-he does know quite a lot of music from both of those albums, and we'll probably be doing "Thank You for the Music," "Asking," and the 60s medley, which I don't do very much.

The premise for THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC was that great standards were written in every era and every decade, not just the 40s. After Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and all those people. So, the joke is that there is a whole plethora of music that was written in the 60s that was just so intelligent and so genius, and then we do "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," "Witch Doctor," and all that stuff. So, we're probably going to try to resurrect that, which is really cute.

Me: What's the difference between preparing for a musical and a cabaret?

Deborah Boily: For one thing, a musical is already written for you. You've got your script and you know what it is that you're going to have to sing and say. Cabaret shows, you have to start from scratch. You have to come up with an idea, a concept, and something you want to talk about.

I think THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC was a great example. Everybody's always saying that the best music was written by Cole Porter and George Gershwin. I'm not disputing that at all, but people don't get to hear the stuff written today. They don't really think about the wonderful composers that are around or that have been around other than those guys.

I originally called the show, I'VE GOT MY STANDARDS. Then we came across the song, "Thank You for the Music," which I had already heard years ago, but we just sort of came across it again. I thought, "Ah! You know I could do the show with 'Thank You for the Music.' That might be a good idea. And I could use it as the title." The singing is then presenting the hypothesis that this wonderful music is written in every decade, and then going about proving that.

So, once you've got your show's concept, then you have to go about researching music. It's not always easy to find the songs you want. You have to research it and track down how you can get the music. I've had to track down people in the oddest places trying to get music they'd written. Then you put it in the right key. And then you have to publicize. The amount of work that goes into a cabaret show will never show up in that one or two hours on stage. People haven't got the slightest idea of just how much time, energy, and passion-passion is the number one driving point-that it takes in order to do an intelligent, sophisticated, and really worth while show. It really takes a lot. And I'm really ambitious. I don't want to just slough off a bunch of songs and pretend that it's great. I can't do that. I just can't. I put a lot of thought into what I'm doing.

Me: You also teach performance skills. What are the most rewarding aspects of teaching?

Deborah Boily: Well, for me, what I love to work with people on is getting them to understand the importance of connecting with their audience. Getting to get them to understand how much they have to connect with the song and to realize that they are a storyteller, an actor, and a character in this three-minute monologue. It just happens to be put to music. But they are acting a story.

I'm not someone who loves to teach technique. I can, and I'm quite capable and able to do it. And I do have what I consider healthy technique when I sing, but it's not what thrills me. What thrills me is to get people involved in the story of the song and to realize that when they get completely in the moment and honest about being in that moment, they will be able to hear a pin drop in that room.

Me: What advice would you offer to others hoping to make a career as a performer?

Deborah Boily: I would say follow your inner voices and go for it. Just do it. An old man told me years ago, when I was making all these radical changes in my life, he said, "You know, when you're old an dying, you'll never regret what you did."

If you don't want to regret missing DEBORAH BOILY - ONE NIGHT ONLY at Ovations Night Club, 2536 Times Boulevard, Houston you can purchase advance tickets for $25 at https://buy.ticketstothecity.com/purchase.php?event_id=2258.

Photo Courtesy of Deborah Boily.