Interview: Helane Blumfield of ME AND BOBBY PEACO at Don't Tell Mama

Life is a series of doors through which a person walks, and whatever adventure awaits them there is what they choose to make of that doorway through which they stepped. Helane Blumfield has spent her life finding new doors to open and new adventures to explore, and that philosophy has provided her with many opportunities. Once a sought-after creative director in the worlds of fashion and retail, Helane has embraced a passion for both photography and performing. What better place to go to, upon leaving Macy's to explore new adventures, than the cabaret community, a place where stages awaited her skills as a performer and where artists longed for her skills as a photographer. Since entering that community, Helane has worked, consistently, at both of her passions, but she has also collected a family of friends along the way.

One of those friends is Bobby Peaco, her Musical Director for her last two cabaret shows. Sadly, two years ago, Mr. Peaco relocated from Manhattan to Florida. Not content to let go of her bestie and musical partner, Helane managed to get Peaco to agree to an out-of-town club date, right here in New York City, and this Friday and Saturday Blumfield and Peaco will open their duo show ME AND Bobby Peaco at the intimate and iconic Don't Tell Mama cabaret theater in Midtown Manhattan.

Before their exciting opening night, Helane got on the phone with Broadway World Cabaret (for whom she is a contributor of a photojournalistic nature) to talk about creativity, the value of community, and the importance of walking through a door that opens, even if it is not the one upon which you were knocking.

This interview has been edited for space and content.

Helane Blumfield, welcome to Broadway World!

Thank you.

You are one of the most in demand photographers in the business, how did you discover the craft of storytelling with a camera?

Oh wow. That's a good question. I think, probably, it came from the people that I worked with before I became a photographer. For a long time, I was a creative director and I was blessed to work with some of the best photographers in the world. We would have to craft those stories together, you know? And I really was a good student, in watching what they would do, as a photographer, but knowing what I would do as a creative director.

How many years did you spend working as a creative director?

Oh. (Bursts out laughing) A long time.

Can you remember?

Well, before I started shooting again (about four years ago) I was a Creativefor Macy's for 11 years. But I was with Macy's before that, and then other places as well, but the most recent was 11 years at Macys. But all in total: decades.

During those years as a creative director, did you just watch the photographers and let what they were doing assimilate?

It really depends on who you're shooting with. Some people need a lot of direction, and then some people, you just want to sit back and watch the magic. I always would say that the best shoots are when you assemble, as a creative director, the best team - and if you do your job - meaning you come up with your concepts and your ideas and you get the best photographer, the stylist, the models, the location, and all of that. You put all that team together and you show up, you should not have to micromanage that team any longer: they should be able to go there and do what's expected. Now, that doesn't always happen. Because sometimes things happen... and then you can jump in with a strong hand, which I've been known to do.

Did you buy a camera during your creative director days and practice, or did you wait until it was all done and say, "I think I want to try this"?

You know, it happened early on. I was actually (in my first business as creative director for Macy's) I was living in Atlanta and (this was in the late Eighties) I just wanted to take pictures. I just wanted to take pictures. So I actually worked with the best assistant, who worked with this top photographer, one of the top photographers in Atlanta. I said I wanted to learn. So he helped me and he taught me and he worked with me and we started shooting children; we started shooting children as adults, and dressing them up in hair and makeup and evening wear. I still have those pictures, they're really remarkable. I started practicing on them because I figured if you can take pictures of children, and they'll listen to you, then that would be a good start.

So I started taking those pictures, then I moved to New York, and that was when I was the creative director at Bloomingdales. Then I left Bloomingdales and started taking fashion pictures - I did that in conjunction with freelance creative directing, and I was partner in a design agency; I did that for 11 years. I took pictures and I was a creative director. When I went to Macy's, I couldn't do both, it was just too big of a job, it really needed me to do what I guess I was always known to do, and that was creative direction. So I put the camera down and I never picked it up again and I was fine. I was really fine. I loved my job... and things change, life changes, and it's time to move on.

It was 11 years later, I still hadn't even thought about picking up a camera again, and I started to quietly start taking pictures. I had a lot of support from certain people in the business, especially Lennie Watts, who was really supportive of me and asked me to shoot the MAC Awards about three years ago. I hadn't done something like that in a long time and I just started shooting again; it just felt so natural.

You've mentioned Lennie Watts and the MAC awards and that's a perfect lead in to my next question: you are also a cabaret performer. Did you get your photography introduction into the community by being a performing member of the community or the other way around? What was the transition that gave you two different roles in one industry?

I know, it's really crazy. Honestly, I was in a class at Singnasium, I was taking a class and I started taking pictures on my iPhone, and I sent them to Lennie and he's like, "Oh my god, these are really great." And they weren't. I love him, but they weren't great. (Laughing) But he loved them. I had already been taking classes, and I already had done two shows by then, and I just love the community so much, I love being part of the community. So I started taking pictures again. And I was lucky enough to be put on retainer for the Laurie Beechman Theatre at West Bank Cafe, both upstairs and downstairs, and I did social media for them for a year. I didn't take pictures for the social media on my iPhone, I brought my camera and I developed my craft of taking pictures of performers, and that's really where I started to get a name for myself - through that gig. It was great. I loved it. It was one of my most favorite things I've ever done. I loved the team there.

From there I started taking portraits again, I started shooting fashion again (which I was completely shocked by, I wasn't expecting it) and I have some fashion clients that I love - it's really where I lived for most of my career.

And so to be back doing that kind of thing and I function not only as a photographer, but I help them with their concepts and do what I do, in that world. That door is opening and for me - it's never a straight path. I've never had a straight path. I've always moved forward and I've been very successful and I'm really proud of that, but I've learned to pivot when those needs come, and sometimes you have to pivot through a door that you don't expect to go through, but it opens, and that's the one that's open, and you try to go another way that's not open. So you go through the one that's open and then look at what happens. You'd be really surprised. You have to keep your energy and mind open.

Where do you come by the instinct to be able to go with the flow, to take chances of that nature?

That's an interesting question because I will roll with the flow, I do do that, but I'm also very regimented. I'm one of those creatives that have both sides of the brain. So, whereas I'm able to create and do all of that, I'm also very business minded, and I think that the business mind of me says you gotta roll with the flow and you gotta gotta see what's out there and you have to keep on moving. I don't know where it actually comes from, but I think it's a little bit from that side of the brain because I think, as artists, I don't think we're so great at rolling with the flow. I think you get nervous and it's very personal work, so if somebody's not asking you to do work or requesting you and they had in the past, that hurts, but the business side says get up and go through that door.

What would you say to artists that are stuck in a rut who need to be prompted to go through the door? How would you convince them that the reward is worth the risk?

I always tell people that are stuck - and even all the people that have worked for me, so many people, I mean hundreds, hundreds of people - but when I speak to people one on one, I tell people they have to have more than one interest. You can't rely on just what you do. If you're a photographer, maybe you're interested in movies, or if you're a director, maybe you're interested in cooking; for me, I've always been (in the last 20 years) a big crafter, a big knitter, and I, at one point, owned The Knitting Cafe in the West Village. This is before I went back to Macy's. Not everybody knows that, but I did that. I started knitting and I made a career out of it for a little while - that door opened... well, I pushed my way through that door. (Laughing) It didn't open. I kind of thought there was a need for something that maybe there wasn't, and that happens, you know. (Laughing) Also you have to tell people not to be afraid to fail. I've always been okay with that. You can't succeed at everything. You just can't - I tell this to my own child, who's a 22 year old son, you can't be afraid to fail. It's okay. It's really okay. Just get up and find something else, or try it again. And I do that.

So this whole adventure started when you were taking classes at Singnasium.

Yeah.

But what brought you initially to the cabaret world in the first place?

Funny you should ask, I was one of those people who studied musical theater in high school and sang in college and always wanted to be an actress and all of that. And when I was going to college my father always believed that it wasn't a great career choice for me, and I also did graphic design and art and all of that, in high school. I made a bet with him that if I got accepted to an art program (art is a great career, by the way, and he thought it was better) that I would go to that school and I would pick up the acting and the singing years later.

And I lost that bet. I got accepted to FIT, at eighteen, in their design program... but I always had in the back of my mind that, eventually, I was going to do this later in my life, that I wasn't going to give up and not to do it, cause it's a passion and it's a need and you have to do it. You just have to do it. And when I was fine with my job and everything, I didn't have a lot of extra time. So, when you see cabaret shows, and you're taking classes, and you're doing solo shows, that's a lot, and you're a mother, right? But I just couldn't help myself. And the more I started in the community and started singing and taking classes, I got the bug and I just couldn't stop. I wanted to do it. And I'm so glad.

The decision to do it gave you an entire new community and life and family.

That's an interesting thing too, because, as adults... I've always been very fortunate, friend wise. I have an enormous amount of wonderful people in my life that I've met throughout my years of living at different places and working at different spaces and all of that. But as an adult, and later in life, it's hard to make friends. Right? It's fascinating, this community you can walk in the door and you meet these amazing people - you meet new lifelong friends and it's just amazing. It's really a blessing.

On the subject of lifelong friends, your friend and musical director moved to another state...

You know I'm a stalker... (Laughing)

...and you guys are so close, you actually managed to sweet talk him into coming back to New York for your new show.

Yeah.

Tell me about Bobby Peaco.

Oh god. Well, okay. I'll just phrase what my husband said to me the other day. We were outside and he called and I didn't tell him who was on the phone and I walked away and came back and he said to me, "It was Bobby, right?" (laughing) and I said, "Yeah, why?" He said, "You just light up when you talk to him, your whole face, your whole expression changes." It's true. If we weren't both married, I would have a big crush on him. (Laughin) He's so talented and he's so generous. We started working together, I guess, about five years ago and I can't explain it... like, we would have our rehearsals and the rest of the day and the week was better. Singing with him makes everything better. I was just fortunate and we developed a good friendship and a great collaboration. I decided I wanted to do the show, so I approached him and he said yes. And then he went to Florida. But you know, that doesn't stop me.

Tell me about the show Me and Bobby Peaco.

In this world of theme-filled cabaret shows, which are great and my last show was a big tribute theme show that I loved and won a Broadway World award for, this is more about music that's personal to the two of us. And it's a duo show, so most of the songs, really 80% of the songs, are all duets between the two of us. And they're unusual pairings - very unusual in some of them - that you wouldn't expect to be duets. It's built on how our voice and how our chemistry thrives.

So this is a triple barreled question.

Okay.

Number one: as a cabaret aficionado, when you are sitting in the seats out front, what kind of cabaret show do you want to see?

It varies by artist because you can go into a show for someone who's very famous and it's amazing because it's really thought-through and they have amazing voices and great bands and great clubs and great music. Two people that I photographed that come to mind that I've just loved so much, both of them, are Melissa Errico and Carole J. Bufford. They're, to me, the epitome: they're so together and they have such great choices and their connection to the audience is easy. I think sometimes people could be famous, and they don't have that connection to the audience, but then you can go to debut shows and feel the same way. I just recently saw a debut show, not as a photographer but as an audience member, by a woman named Sarah Carson and it was one of my most favorite shows of the year because it was her storytelling and she was engaged in her material and it was unique. It was surprising, I like to be surprised - sometimes things are cookie cutter, you know, and it's about being surprised and engaged. It's about the best use of the storytelling, the music, and your own instrument.

Part Two: as a cabaret journalist, as a photographer, when you are out front, what do you want to see up on that stage?

Good lighting. (Both laughing)

Oh, it's just awful sometimes, isn't it?

It's hard. It's HARD! In photography, you want to take a picture and you want to make a picture. sometimes a picture just takes itself and then sometimes you're looking how to make it, you know? What I don't like to do is have to go home and spend hours and hours trying to make a picture because the lighting isn't correct. I don't know if I should go on. That's all I want to say. But also I like it when the show moves. Sometimes it's too one note, you know? Whether it's lighting or the whether performer... and that's hard. I like when it moves, I like when the performer moves, I like when there's a lot of spirit by the performer; it's really exciting to me. There's some people that you shoot and you can't stop - you just can't stop.

I shot thirteen hundred pictures at the Jess LeProtto show the other night.

I guess I do that, too, sometimes because I can't stop, but taking pictures of people singing is a very hard thing to do. So it could take a hundred to find the right shot. I think one of the things that makes me strong as a journalist photographer is my background as a creative director, because I have spent decades editing millions (and I am not exaggerating) of photographs. I can find that shot that's the right shot for me as photographer, but also the right spot that the performer

Yeah. I speak that language.

I won't give anything out if it doesn't look right for the performer. I feel like it's my job just to take care of them too.

Now here's the third question: when you get up on that stage, as a performer, what do you want to give your audience?

A good time. I want them to feel like they came to a place where they can celebrate me and enjoy it and feel, and be moved. I'm hoping like there's a couple of moments in there that move you, whether it's to laughing or surprise or tears - not big tears, but that move you, will make you think about your life. I'm hoping that (especially for this show) I'm hoping that the chemistry that we have, me and Bobby, that that chemistry gets to the audience. If that works, and I think it will, I think people will walk away and they would've had a nice time. You know, people are going to spend money, you want them to feel like they came in and they enjoyed themselves.

Helane, thank you so much for chatting with Broadway World today, I've been wanting to do this for such a long time.

Oh, me too. You know I love Broadway World!

Helane Blumfield ME AND Bobby Peaco plays Don't Tell Mama June 3rd and 4th at 7 pm. For information and reservations visit the Don't Tell Mama website HERE.

Visit the Helane Blumfield Photography website HERE.

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