Feature: QR Cabaret - The Future of the Art

During a recent performance of her musical cabaret NEW WORDS, singer Meri Ziev graciously listed the people who contributed to the creation of her show. Days earlier, Becca Brunelle made a similar gesture during her club act, equally generous and impressively detailed, right down to the thanking of her Creativity Coaches. After his debut solo show, Sam Gravitte gave shout-outs to his band, the Birdland bookers, as well as his parents and twin sister. Each and every one of those artists shared a few minutes of their stage time with the people to whom they were indebted, as so many performers do.

The end-of-performance thank you speech is a regular part of almost every nightclub act, and it is the time when the artist standing at the microphone names their director, musical director, band members, and acknowledges various and sundry people without whom their work could not be done, including the all-important plea to tip the servers. It's a respectful and respectable tradition in cabaret, but one that can easily stop the flow of a show, if the thank you speech leans into the loquacious. It is also a tradition that might, well, become a thing of the past, given technological advancements in the world, and in the world of entertainment. Yes, by all means, there should be a thirty-second moment just before the final number when an artist thanks the band and, definitely, encourages the tipping of the waitstaff. What happens, though, when there are too many people to thank in thirty seconds, the desired maximum length of the obligatory thank you speech?

Some cabaret shows take years to piece together. Some nightclub acts go through several iterations during their lifespan. In an interview with Broadway World Cabaret published only yesterday, Tim Connell mentions three different versions of his club act, using the qualifiers 2.0 and 3.0 to tell them apart. As each different version of various shows is created, there are contributions from any number of people. Ms. Ziev is effusive with her praise of several different arrangers who are responsible for the music in her program, as well as the contribution of two different directors who have worked on her act over the years. A woman of manners, Ms. Ziev, naturally, wants to give credit where credit is due, and why not? It is credit due. Every person should be allowed the credit that is due them, every person wants to be acknowledged, every person wants to be visible. But those thirty seconds... How can one performer standing on a cabaret and concert stage thank everyone in thirty seconds?

The answer is simple, and it presented itself to this writer during a recent visit to The Green Room 42 to see Kaisha Huguley's act ONE WOMAN SHOW-CIAL.

During her cabaret outing, Ms. Huguley, a popular TikTok artist, used her work with social media to inform her act, talking about what TikTok and other platforms have meant to her, what they have done for her career and her creativity, and she demonstrated how modern technology can enhance the cabaret and concert industry. On every table at The Green Room 42, Ms. Huguley (inventively and ingeniously) placed a QR Code. Guests of her show could use that QR Code to open a digital program for One Woman Show-cial. Inside of that virtual program one could see her bio and the bios of other artists who participated in the creation of her club act, including headhsots of all. The QR Code was also available for audience members who wanted to interact with Kaisha by way of IRT (in real time) games during the presentation. There were polls taken to decide things like which of the Schuyler Sisters' numbers should Kaisha sing next. That little slip of paper on the cabaret tables of The Green Room 42 brought Kaisha Huguley and the art of cabaret into the present, and it is something that every club and every performer should, immediately, investigate. It is, in fact, through QR codes that artists performing in piano bars and restaurants are being bestowed with gratuities. Even buskers in the street have their QR Code, Venmo and Paypal handles on display - cash is a thing of the past, and with these electronic means at a patron's fingertips, there is a record of where the money went. It is a question of changing times, and of people, artists, and the arts evolving with those changing times, which is paramount to the sustained good health of the art form. The genie is out of the bottle and naysayers should take out the time to learn about the change, and how it can be applied to their work, lest they become dinosaurs talking about "the good old days." There are no good old days, only good days, and they are now.

During Sunday night's performance of the Joe's Pub hosted variety show ASSORTED FRUIT, host Justin Elizabeth Sayre made certain to have, displayed on an enormous screen, the QR Code where audience members could acquire tickets to the next performance. Throughout the evening that screen was used to display the name of the guest artists and their social media handles. 54 Below has monitors on both sides of the club that, frequently, showcase the names of artists appearing in group shows, sometimes with their pronouns, sometimes with their social media handles, and sometimes with other information, either pertinent or trivial. The point is that information and opportunities to connect are being offered to audiences. There need be no printing of programs to pre-set on tables or hand out after a show. No audience member should find themself at their computer, using Google search to find a song they heard or try to decipher the spelling of an artist's name. Thanks to electronics and social media, all the information a patron wants to know can be at their fingertips, and all the intel an artist wants to supply can be out there - tangible, visible proof of gratitude and acknowledgement. Setlists, composers, band members, tech directors, directors, consultants, musical directors, parents, siblings, spouses - everyone can have their due paid to them, and the creative in the spotlight can leave the club with their pocket filled with the coins of self-satisfaction, knowing that due diligence was done, and with the greatest of ease.

Attention will have been paid.... Through one electronic scan of a smartphone.

Welcome to the new dawn of cabaret.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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