Who gets themselves discovered in a jazz bar by Liza Minelli, does lunch with Stephen Sondheim and sings his way out of Rikers Island maximum security prison? Well, it’d probably be the man The Sydney Morning Herald described as having the charm to ‘talk John Howard into joining a union’ – Glug award winning performer Tyran Parke.
Tyran Parke serenades the intimate den of the Cabaret Soiree this month with the tall tale of his quest to create the role of a lifetime, ‘Chinks in the Armour – A Quest through Cabaret’. Tyran wrote the show to recapture the excitement of a favourite role, that of painter George Seurat in Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park.
He explained ‘I remember being on stage and there was a line in the second act where George says ‘I don’t know what to do next, but I just want to do something I care about.’ And that’s what I felt about my life.’
His passion eventually led to a scholarship at Yale to study cabaret. According to Tyran, cabaret is ‘a bit like having a dinner party, but instead of six people you invite 100 and you get to share on a much more intimate level’
For the current show Tyran combines an eclectic mix of music, including Sondheim, Lloyd-Webber, U2 and PlaySchool and links the story together is the idea of quests.
‘It’s how I can tell a whole bunch of stories and link them in a way that kinda is funny and silly… and there are a whole range of quests, from the quest to fit in to the quest to find love, so it was a way to kind of link them altogether,’ Tyran explained.
Tyran Parke firmly believes that there is a cabaret inside everyone – although he adds that he has to say that because he runs a course to help everyone find theirs! You can see Tyran Parke’s inner cabaret in the Cabaret Soiree season DownStairs at the Maj from Thursday 27 to Saturday March 29. Shows start at 8.30pm, though the doors and bar open at 7.30pm so you have time to relax with a drink and light refreshments before, during and after the show. For tickets see www.bocsticketing.com.au
