BWW Interviews: Bryan Batt on a Hot Tin Roof

In the last few years, Bryan Batt has gone from Broadway darling to household name thanks to his acclaimed role on AMC's hit TV series Mad Men.  But in early October, Batt will be back on a New York stage-though one he hasn't played before. His cabaret show Batt on a Hot Tin Roof will premiere at Feinstein's at Loews Regency on October 3, just as the fourth season of Mad Men starts to draw to a close. And while Batt has done cabaret before-quite a few times, in fact-Feinstein's is terra incognita for the stage veteran.

"I'm excited to do this in New York," Batt says simply when asked how he feels about the debut. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about doing it at such a prestigious venue." A few numbers are held over from the last time he did a cabaret in New York, but others are new. The show will include songs by Kander & Ebb, Billy Joel, Cole Porter, Peter Mills and Burt Bacharach. "There's even some Petula Clark in there!" he adds. In short, he says, the show is "a mixed bag of nuts with Bryan Batt...It's what I want an evening to be. It's fun. I never thought I'd be doing cabaret, but I'm really enjoying it."

The whole idea for the concert, he explains, originated five years ago, when his hometown of New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Batt put together a one-man show as a benefit at Le Chat Noir as soon as people started coming back to the city. "I'd never done this before," he remembers. "It was a blast." He has honed the act over the ensuing years, selling out performances in different cities.

The best thing about cabaret, he says, is the intimacy with the audience. "There are no walls at all, much less a fourth," he laughs. That intimacy, however, can also be daunting, he adds. "You can't hide anywhere. There are no sets, no costumes, no orchestra, no chorus. There's just you, a piano and lights." Without a character to hide behind, he adds, a singer must face the audience as himself. "You can't wing it. You can't pretend to be what you're not. The whole point, in my opinion is connecting with the audience." He remembers advice Betty Buckley once gave him: "Connect with the audience. Forget about hitting the back wall. Just connect."

Learning to perform in cabaret venues-as opposed to Broadway stages-has helped him develop new skills as an actor. "In a cab space, you pull it down and play to the environment. It opened me up for dramatic acting. When we filmed the Mad Men pilot, I was just focused on matching Jon Hamm's level and playing the scene I was in. You draw on everything."

Of course, performing on TV has helped Batt develop new skills as well. "I've learned so much about trusting instincts," he says. With TV, "you don't have a rehearsal period like you have with a play or musical." For a typical run of a typical live show, an actor has rehearsals and previews and a whole run to develop, perfect and maintain a performance. "On TV, you get the script a few days before and you have a few minutes to block it, and then they start shooting." To make sure each scene works, an actor has to know his character thoroughly, and come to the set prepared. "Once you're comfortable with that, it's hard to make wrong move."

Beyond singing and acting, Batt has recently forayed into writing. His first book, She Ain't Heavy, She's My Mother, was published earlier this year (he says some anecdotes from the book will be included in the Feinstein's show), and he is already at work on his next one. "When I got offered deals to do books, I didn't know what I was signing on for," he laughs. "I thought I'd never have to do a term paper again! But it's fun," he adds quickly. "It reaffirms my philosophy: Life is an 'and' proposition, not an 'or' proposition. We should never be put in categories." 

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.