A Conspiracy of Abundance

Feb 18

At the end of 2025, I opened a year-long cabaret residency. It’s exciting, and I’m proud I get to do it. I can scarcely believe I get to write such a ridiculous sentence.

I write it from my pale green slipper chair, my fake-fur blanket draped over my knees like a heroine in a Regency novel. It’s very cozy here. I plan for the next thing, dream and organize, relive the highs and the lows. I like it here. It’s quiet and…hidden.

Thi

You see, I retreat when things are afoot and I should be present; after an important event, I pull back. Once I say thank you, I withdraw. Rather than say I did that — rather than acknowledge that making art is worthy, joyful work — I overblow the lows I mentioned. Like, really overblow them.

It has always been very hard for me to accept my own work, and what a strange conundrum: doing the work on my terms is deeply satisfying, yet sharing the fact of that work doesn’t come naturally. When I do share, you can safely assume there was a very long on-ramp.

Rehearsal to residency. Or my Elphaba-Glinda moment. :)

I watch others who promote consistently. How I love the beauty of their work, the inspiration they offer the world, and how I envy their easy rhythm. I have never quite found my way there. The very thing that gives me joy and pride as it’s created can leave me quaking under the blanket afterward, hungover with shame. I cannot seem to escape the aversion I have to liking the output. Right when my joy should be at its zenith, I assume disaster. (A Christmas Story reference is appropriate any time of year.)

A performance is a whole thing, I find — not something easily separated into packageable parts. It’s beautiful in the moment: that audience, that energy, that spontaneity — the particular magic that comes from being in community while music is made. And who am I to judge its goodness or badness, its intrinsic worth? Liking it or not is beside the point. Studying one’s own work, acknowledging it, is simply to say: information received.

There is also the conundrum of art vs the real world: outside my little artist’s garret (corner of the living room…), the world is dark and drear. This “flooding the zone” with upheaval, with deeply sad things I cannot agree with and will not condone and our collective grief over the loss of so much, loss both intimate and public. I feel the pull of my little green chair.

And still — or perhaps because we need it — joy persists. It must. Not fragile joy, not accidental joy. An embarrassment of riches, really. The world keeps placing things in my hands that draw me outward again, it conspires against my out-of-all-proportion assumptions about the value of my work. It floods me, despite, despite, despite.

Dan Blank, writing guru, says It is tempting to assume our work will find its audience on its own — that it is everyone else’s job to spread the word but ours. The same is true in the performing arts: abundance asks to be shared, and the arts, all of them, require community. So here is what the flood has brought:

🎼Unexpected Songs is the next installment in (swoon) my residency. Come be in community with me on Mar 15 & 29.

🎙 A recording with PS Classics in NYC this month- songs dedicated my heart! to me and others by the late composer Gerald Ginsburg. One album of his work is already out there with artists of high standing in our community; those songs are worth your listening ears. What an honor to sing Gerry’s beautiful work; the coming album is titled Dedication.

🎭 Two Gentlemen of Verona at American University. This new adaptation of Shakespeare’s first play is by Aaron Posner (Stupid F*cking Bird)and Greg Kotis (Urinetown). I’ve transcribed the score and am co-music director along with Max Jacobs. It’s a bluegrass musical (which makes perfect sense, given my vast bluegrass experience…). Rehearsing and creating now with a terrific student cast and band, performing at the end of March.

🎶 The Music Man in concert (Apr 12). Marian the Librarian! I love her, her conviction and her love of the written word. This is another pinch-me: to revisit this iconic role with my DC pal Bob McDonald in our fair city with The City Choir of Washington and players from the NSO is beyond. There is uplift happening all over town right now.

🌸 Emily: a new musical treatment of the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson gets its first public outing on April 30. Created for me. I’m flooded with gratitude.

📺 A huge surprise: an appearance with the American Pops Orchestra in “Movin’ On Broadway” - a recreation of Kay Starr’s album oft he same name brought to thrilling swinging life. a recreation of Kay Starr’s album brought to thrilling, swinging life. A to-be-televised PBS performance — friends and colleagues old and new strutting their stuff. I don’t yet know when it will air, but I will share. It was a great time, and as a longtime-fan of APO, it meant a lot.

And since these events became evident, there have been readings of new works, so much new music to learn and teaching - always the teaching.

These are facts. These are the inescapable truths I get to share. Their value I leave to you; to me, it is immense.

So immense, in fact, that moving forward without looking back began to feel untenable. My dear friend and voice teacher Dan Thaler offered to hold my hand and watch December’s work with me — talk about a mitzvah, talk about compassion. I had to quite literally lie down on the floor and clutch a pillow at the start. But oh, it was joyful. We had a blast.

So much felt good. So much was beautiful and workable. So much information received: this moment thrilled me; there was an unexpected laugh there; perhaps that moment didn’t come from an honest place; my approach to this song needs rethinking; I want to explore that idea more deeply. To acknowledge that it happened, to accept the work with gratitude, to offer myself compassion — that felt good.

And I am reminded that I, too, can flood the zone: with empathy, with compassion, with art, with joy.

The inescapable fact of a residency is that there is always more to do - for a whole year! It’s abundance that’s not waiting somewhere ahead, but already here, ready to be shared. What a beautiful thing it is to offer what overflows in us to the world.

And so now you know. The work continues. The chair and the blanket still have each other. And I have so much joy to share.