BWW Interviews: Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano - The Lunt-Fontannes of the Cabaret World

Husband-and-wife teams are an integral aspect of show biz--after all, how well would Alfred Lunt have fared without Lynn Fontanne, or Sonny without Cher, or Fred without Ginger? (Wait, what do you mean they weren't married? Oh, never mind.) Rising up alongside Jessica Molaskey and John Pizzarelli are Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano, who, in the last few years, have earned a strong reputation and accolades for their cabaret acts. Next month, they will be featured at the Algonquin's Oak Room for a Valentine's Day themed engagement, and on Monday, they will be honored at Town Hall as Nightlife Award winners.

The couple, married for five years, has been singing together for a little less than that after years of having individual careers. They were approached by the Algonquin to do a Valentine's Day-themed show for the month of February, and decided to call their collection of love songs "This Thing Called Love."  "It's a great title," Comstock says. "It isn't exclusionary...we want to show all sides of this thing called love." The program includes songs by such disparate composers as Berlin, Sondheim and Joni Mitchell that all attempt to answer Cole Porter's unanswerable question, "What is this thing called love?"

The couple met in 1997, when they were both performing on David Kinney's WBAI radio program. "And that was it," Fasano remembers. "No big sparks or anything." Over the following years, they would see each other at events and say hello, until an email blast Fasano sent to her friends and colleagues about upcoming performances got a response from Comstock. They started emailing each other, though not flirtatiously, Fasano swears. "I really just thought he was a clever guy, and I was responding cleverly--" "--Determined to give back as good as she got," Comstock interjects. "But it didn't occur to me that there was anything [there]," she finishes. Finally Comstock asked her to dinner and a movie, and came to pick her up not at her home, but at a popular home for cabaret artists: The Duplex. 

After her performance at the downtown venue, Comstock waited while Fasano greeted her fans. His patience made him stand out to Fasano, and what they describe as "the best first date ever" ended with a kiss on the cheek. "She found it rather peculiar," Comstock acknowledges. Fasano, for her part, spent the rest of the night on the phone with her girlfriends to determine whether the outing was, in fact, a date. But within six months, the couple was engaged, and they were married a year later.

As their personal relationship blossomed, their professional relationship also began to take off. "We both had our individual careers, and it wasn't something we were thinking of doing at all," Fasano says about their collaboration. "But Eric had an opportunity to work out of town, and he brought me along with him. And when I arrived, the producer of the event knew my work and asked me if I would do a little something also as part of the program. So Eric and I put a few things together impromptu, and it went very well."

The collaboration, Comstock says, "came out of not wanting to be apart when we were first married, and when one of us was in a show out of town, we would try to put the other one into it so that we could be together. And then we started exploring material and, fast-forward a few years, here we are opening at the Algonquin with this wonderful new show!" As a team act, he says, their strength is in their unique talents. "Barbara is a very emotional actress who sings magnificently, too, so she has the best in music and theater...I'm a wonk. I research songs and songwriters, and that's my first interest. We're good for each other. Each helps the other. We never sang a duet until we were engaged, and we didn't work together until we'd been married awhile. It has worked out well, but the amazing thing is that it didn't have to work at all. We didn't have to have any chemistry onstage. We just love each other and love each other's work. It didn't have to translate to when we're onstage together, but happily that has worked out."

The personal and professional dynamic has paid off, earning the pair numerous accolades, including a Nightlife Award. "It was really a surprise," Fasano says. "So many wonderful people are given this award, and to be part of that roster is really something. I can't put into words how honored I feel."

"And it's really one of the best shows of the year in New York," Comstock adds. "I'm always impressed with the jury who vote--they're really experts in their field, so while it's great to be honored by one's peers and other performers, it's also a thrill when critics can agree on anything, and they agree that you're good! That's a real kick."

The awards, which celebrate the best in New York's cabaret, jazz and comedy scenes, honor art forms that have become increasingly endangered. "When rooms close it's very scary," Comstock acknowledges. "My personal prescription is--Embrace the jazz world as well because it's a larger audience (it's still a minority, but it's a larger audience) and I feel the rhythm is so important-people want to tap their toes. It sounds very glib of me, but part of entertaining is making people feel it in their feet. It helps the cabaret world when people are working with rhythm sections and embracing more of a swing element. It helps the cabaret world."

"Like with any art form, you have to do what feels true to yourself," Fasano says. "If it gives you something, makes your heart open up, then the odds are it will for others. Someone once said to me, 'Just do what you do, and the audience will find you.' It's a tough time for artists across the board, but you gotta stay true to yourself. And you do get to a point where you just have to trust. I believe that people want to connect, people want to open their hearts and have an emotional experience. Laugh, cry together, not just alone in front of their television. They want to be out in the company of other human beings having a cathartic experience, an experience that makes them feel part of a whole, a part of something. And that is the beauty of music... I stand fast that it's a necessary piece of our culture. And I don't think it will go away, because I do think people want it." Ultimately, she says, they are both grateful that people want to hear their music. "We just love doing the work wherever we're doing it, and whatever we're doing at the moment is the best. We're so grateful that people want to come and hear what we do and have an intimate, honest, emotional experience. I think that's a beautiful thing."

 

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