October 2023 Featured Artist
Cabaret Icon Keeps the Music Alive
An Interview with
KT Sullivan
Photo Credit: Stephen Mosher
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KT Sullivan starred with Steve Ross in The Irish Rep’s sold-out run of “Love, Noël” in the summer of 2019, and the production was then filmed at The Players in 2020. Currently, KT is singing and playing piano every Tuesday in the lobby of The Algonquin Hotel. In 2012, KT was named artistic director of The Mabel Mercer Foundation, which produces the annual Cabaret Conventions at Lincoln Center.
KT starred in the Broadway revival of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and headlined for almost two decades in The Oak Room of The Algonquin Hotel. One of the shows she created there, "Rhyme, Women, and Song" was presented on PBS' WNET 13, and her award-winning Sondheim show with Jeff Harnar was filmed for PBS from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Besides regular appearances in such New York venues as The Laurie Beechman Theatre, BIRDLAND, 54 Below, and Café Sabarsky, she stars annually at The Pheasantry in London, and has been showcased at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Spoleto Festival, Chichester Festival, CLUB RaYé in Paris, and Adelaide Festival in Australia. She guest-starred on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion and was star vocalist on two tours of China with Manhattan Symphonie. She was twice named one of the Top 100 Irish Americans by Irish America Magazine and was married for 22 years to Stephen Downey, president of The New York Browning Society. |
If you go to one of KT Sullivan’s cabaret performances, bring your singing voice. The evening will be as lively and interactive as she is. Currently appearing on Tuesday nights at New York’s historic The Algonquin Hotel (where she first appeared in 1991), she’ll render each song and hold the high notes in a beautiful, clear soprano. She’ll also mingle with the audience and, during the second half of the evening, distribute lyric sheets so everyone can join in.
KT has appeared on Broadway and in regional theater and has recorded albums with her frequent accompanist Mark Nadler. But in pandemic lockdown, through practice and persistence, she learned to, as Will Friedwald of The New York Sun called it, “master the art of accompanying herself.”
She usually performs wearing a distinctive chapeau or a fascinator, but as artistic director of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, a nonprofit that perpetuates the memory and spirit of its legendary namesake and promotes public interest in classic popular song and the art of cabaret, Friedwald says she earned a crown. He wrote, “Ms. Sullivan has been long known as the ruling doyen of what we New Yorkers call ‘cabaret,’ a community that she presides over as the chairman of the Mabel Mercer Foundation. Ever since the passing of Queen Elizabeth, I've taken to addressing her as ‘Your Majesty.’”
KT has appeared on Broadway and in regional theater and has recorded albums with her frequent accompanist Mark Nadler. But in pandemic lockdown, through practice and persistence, she learned to, as Will Friedwald of The New York Sun called it, “master the art of accompanying herself.”
She usually performs wearing a distinctive chapeau or a fascinator, but as artistic director of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, a nonprofit that perpetuates the memory and spirit of its legendary namesake and promotes public interest in classic popular song and the art of cabaret, Friedwald says she earned a crown. He wrote, “Ms. Sullivan has been long known as the ruling doyen of what we New Yorkers call ‘cabaret,’ a community that she presides over as the chairman of the Mabel Mercer Foundation. Ever since the passing of Queen Elizabeth, I've taken to addressing her as ‘Your Majesty.’”
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KT Sullivan Performs "When the Children are Gone"
Carol Lippert Gray spoke with KT on a mid-August Tuesday evening following her two-and-a-half-hour show at the Algonquin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. KT sported a broad-brimmed, black hat and infectious smile when she sat down with Carol to chat about her journey.
You started out singing gospel with your family in Oklahoma. How did you become a cabaret singer?
I have five brothers and two sisters, and my mom, Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan, taught piano in addition to being a poet. We sang in churches. It’s a great way to learn music. It’s a constant every Sunday and good training for everything.
I first went to Los Angeles to study theater and opera, and I loved everything. In 1980, I was in a musical in Fort Worth and a cabaret owner asked if I’d consider doing an act. It’s intimate and, unlike in acting, you’re not hiding behind a character.
What appeals to you about cabaret?
The communication, telling stories, singing songs – you can’t do these things on stage. I can be the best at this.
What’s your favorite period?
I like to keep it like it’s the 1920s. There were no microphones in the '20s. There’s something intrusive about a microphone. Without one, people are drawn in.
You started out singing gospel with your family in Oklahoma. How did you become a cabaret singer?
I have five brothers and two sisters, and my mom, Elizabeth Fowler Sullivan, taught piano in addition to being a poet. We sang in churches. It’s a great way to learn music. It’s a constant every Sunday and good training for everything.
I first went to Los Angeles to study theater and opera, and I loved everything. In 1980, I was in a musical in Fort Worth and a cabaret owner asked if I’d consider doing an act. It’s intimate and, unlike in acting, you’re not hiding behind a character.
What appeals to you about cabaret?
The communication, telling stories, singing songs – you can’t do these things on stage. I can be the best at this.
What’s your favorite period?
I like to keep it like it’s the 1920s. There were no microphones in the '20s. There’s something intrusive about a microphone. Without one, people are drawn in.
KT Exudes Joy while Performing
Photo Credit: Austin Ruffer |
You taught yourself piano during the pandemic, and now you work without an accompanist.
My mother taught me classics as a child. Playing for yourself, you play chords. It’s new to me and I love it. I know where the jokes are. So, your patter is all ad lib? I wing it. I have a library of over 100 songs and select them depending on the audience. It’s spontaneous. Do you have a favorite composer or song? I love them all but especially Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. I love the songs of 1929. It was a great period of songwriting. Not such a great period for the economy, but a great period for songwriting. |
How did you become affiliated with the Mabel Mercer Foundation?
In 1989, I was playing the music of Bart Howard. He wrote Fly Me to the Moon. Buddy Barnes was my pianist. I was invited to the first Cabaret Convention at Town Hall [in New York] and, subsequently, was asked to run the foundation. Reviewers at the time liked to call me frothy and light, and Donald Smith, who started the foundation, said, ‘I’m going to get you off the dessert tray. You’ll be taken seriously.’ What does the Foundation do? We get the right songs for a singer, find themes for shows, and find hosts. We showcase new talent. We have a teen contest in New York City high schools and in some Western states to showcase young singers. Once kids have heard the music, they want to do it because it’s a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Why is cabaret important? There’s something about these songs that’s eternal. They touch the heart. |
More About the Mabel Mercer Foundation
Since 1985, Mabel Mercer Foundation, a nonprofit arts organization, has worked to keep both Mercer’s memory and the performance of popular song and cabaret alive. It’s a source of information for artists, presenters, promoters, and the public. It receives thousands of inquiries annually and has a database of over 2,000 performers. Additionally, the Foundation sponsors performances by both new and established singers and performers, including the annual New York Cabaret Convention in Frederick P. Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It also has sponsored cabaret conventions throughout this country and abroad. Its Young Persons’ Series introduces young people to the Great American Songbook of popular classics. This outreach is funded entirely by ticket sales and contributions. |
Mabel [Mercer] dug down deep into the songs, but we can always find new ways of doing them. If you bend them, they don’t break. There’s always another song I want to learn.
You worked very hard tonight.
Noel Coward said, ‘Work is more fun than fun.’ This is endlessly fun. I enjoy rehearsing. Every week is different. This [the hotel] is my party area. Someone else serves, and someone else cleans up.
Do you have advice for aspiring singers?
Do it. I put in 10,000 hours at church. If you love it, do it. Don’t ever say no. Take any opportunity you can get.
Where do you find sanctuary?
I go to the piano. I’m never bored. I’m never lonely. It’s time to myself with music. It’s finding the right key and key change. I’m loving it. Time flies by. I don’t like to stay at peoples’ homes if they don’t have a piano. It brings joy to me when I’m alone, and then I can share it.
You worked very hard tonight.
Noel Coward said, ‘Work is more fun than fun.’ This is endlessly fun. I enjoy rehearsing. Every week is different. This [the hotel] is my party area. Someone else serves, and someone else cleans up.
Do you have advice for aspiring singers?
Do it. I put in 10,000 hours at church. If you love it, do it. Don’t ever say no. Take any opportunity you can get.
Where do you find sanctuary?
I go to the piano. I’m never bored. I’m never lonely. It’s time to myself with music. It’s finding the right key and key change. I’m loving it. Time flies by. I don’t like to stay at peoples’ homes if they don’t have a piano. It brings joy to me when I’m alone, and then I can share it.
Rose Theater
Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall All Shows ~ 6:00 p.m. New York, NY |
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UPCOMING EVENTS:
KT Sullivan ~ A Celebration! The Pheasantry October 30 and 31 ~ 8:00 p.m. Chelsea, London, UK ~~~ Sail to paradise with KT Sullivan, her 93-year-old mother, Elizabeth, and sister Heather! Headliners: 10-Day Oceania Cruise to Tahiti Sails February 9, 2024 More information: Annette Hostetter Preferred Travel of Naples: (727) 492-4479 |