Just out., May 16, 2003, Page 39, Image 39

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may 16.2003 - J u s t o u t
MUSIC
A wonderful little package
Steven Nash invites you to get to know him...intimately
by
Portland Gay Men’s Chorus
F lo yd S k la v er
presents
S
teven Nash is over the top, and
he wants to prove it.
In his latest act, Over the
Top, which opens May 20 at
W ilf’s, the 45-year-old cabaret
singer reflects on “all the things
that are over the top in my life.”
A performer since age 12, Nash
has spent his life in musical theater.
He started as a dancer and moved
on to successively larger roles until
graduating to leads in Company,
Sweeney Todd and A Chorus Line. He
is rehearsing with the Oregon Sym­
phony Pops for its upcoming concert,
Boule on Broadway, starring Oregonian
columnist and popular music theater per
former Margie Boule.
But it is cabaret that tugs at his heart,
and the proudly out singer has been
active in the fluctuating scene since
arriving in Portland 20 years ago
“W hen 1 moved here,” he says,
“there were several cabaret
clubs [like] Wild Oscar’s.
T hen cabaret just died out,
pretty much nationwide, j j
By the ’90s there wasn’t
anything here.”
But, like many
other cities,
we’ve
recently
resurgence
seen
a
of
cabaret.
“Portland
has a huge
theater community,” says Nash, “and Portland
theater has been dying over the last few years,
so we have all these wonderful performers with
no places to perform their craft.”
A t the forefront of this movement has been
W ilf’s Restaurant & Piano Bar at U nion Sta­
tion. Its cabaret series started a year and a half
ago and has proven so popular that performers
are already booked every Tuesday through the
end of September. “W ilf’s is a really wonderful
space that really feels good,” says Nash.
or successful cabaret, according to Nash, the
audience should end up knowing about the
performer intimately. For him, cabaret is dif­
ferent from theater because “you have to he
yourself. You have to be very honest, very vul­
nerable. In theater, when people don’t like you,
it’s the character they don’t like. But in cabaret,
you are putting yourself in a position to he
judged, and if they don’t like you, it’s personal.”
And know him we certainly will. Nash per­
forms a variety of comic songs that reflect his
“twisted" humor and “over the top” attitude. In
choosing his material, if he hears a song and
thinks to himself, “I could have written this
song," then he begins to explore it. These are
songs that “just ring in my gut.”
His latest show, however, “is more about stuff
that makes me laugh. 1 hear something that
made me laugh and 1 think, ‘W here can I put
that lnT ’’ For instance, Nash has “bastardized a
couple of songs and changed the lyrics to reflect
my life” on such ditties as Noel Coward’s “Don’t
Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthing­
ton," now titled “Your Son Is Not Going
Through a Stage, Mrs. W orthington.”
He also performs a song called “Shattered
F
Illusions” by Dillie Keene,
“about when you meet a
person a n d .. .then you get
to know them and realize
you’re dating a ffeak.” (He
confesses, “I’ve had a
pretty wild dating
career, and so there’s a
whole section on
screwy dates.”)
Depending on the
crowd at Wilf’s—“the
rowdier, the better,"
Nash says—he also
hopes to sing a
number
about
Rainbow Ball
i
Friday,
June 1 3, 2003
Crystal Ballroom—Downtown PDX
rrrr
Re-live the era when disco was
iT,
king, hair was big, jeans were tight
and the beat of the music was the
•
-
elixir that made everything a-okay.
Spinning tunes from the 70's and
80’s. This is the official kick-off to
the Pride Northwest Weekend.
Ticket Price:
$10 in advance or at
the door.
And Don't Miss...
masturbation (“Making Love Alone”) that
Bernadette Peters sang at Carnegie Hall. “A lot
of my humor,” he notes, “depends on how far in
the ‘off position my editing button is.”
Accompanying him is collaborator and fel­
low gay artist Richard Bower, who Nash calls
“a genius on the piano.” T he two have been
working together for about a year and find that
their musical aesthetics mesh perfectly.
“I will he hitting my head trying to think of
a number appropriate for a moment,” says
Nash, and Bower “will come up with the per­
fect one. He is absolutely brilliant at arranging
and weaving songs together.. .to make these
wonderful little packages.”
Nash cites Bernadette Peters as one of his
favorite performers because she is “a power­
house. Her comedic timing is flawless, and then
she can turn around and be very introspective.”
A nother performer he admires is Bette
Midler. “This sounds like such a faggy thing to
say, [but] I love her,” he gushes. “She can get
up there, and her voice can crack on the high
notes or go flat, hut it’s honest and passionate.
You don’t care that she went flat. She fills her
heart and her gut, and you are just with her.”
And, like Midler, Nash knows that when he
goes over the top, gay audiences will go right
with him.
Wings to Fly
With Special Guests: Aurora Chorus
Saturday, June 21, 2003 @ 8 p.m.
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Downtown Portland
PGMC welcomes Portland's inimitable women's
ensemble Aurora Chorus for our final concert of
the season "Wings to Fly." Each chorus will per­
form their own set of beautiful music and com­
bine for joint works. This is a rare opportunity
to have these two amazing choruses performing
on the same stage. A true choral spectacular.
Ticket Price
520/ $1 5 & $12
jn
STEVEN N ash performs O ver the Top with
Richard Bower 7:30 p.m. May 20 and 27 at
Wilfs Restaurant & Piano Bar, 800 N .W . Sixth
Ave. Admission is $10. Make reservations at
503-223-0070.
FLOYD S klaver is a Portland free-lance writer
and theater queen.
For tickets contact the PGMC office at 503-226-2588
or online at www.pdxgmc.org
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