Interview: Artemisia LeFay's WASTED GIRL at Don't Tell Mama Is a Thrilling Gothic Ride

Artemisia LeFay’s Wasted Girl ran in NYC back in September and received a glowing review from BWW’s Lydia Singer, who called it “an intoxicatingly gothic ride through some of the darker manifestations of passion.” She’s reprising it at Don’t Tell Mama on Sunday November 24 at 7 pm – tickets are available here. Read a conversation with Artemisia about the show and the concept of the “wasted girl.”

How does it feel to be reprising Wasted Girl?

Wasted Girl is my third cabaret show-- following Ghosts of Weimar Past and Phantoms of the Cabaret, in that order-- and as this is a show comprising entirely my own music, it is never not a personal experience.  In many cabaret performing experiences, there can be almost a mask to hide behind when it comes to interpreting other people's music-- if you are uncomfortable with a bald performance of an aspect of yourself-- because all cabaret performances are about YOUR truth-- you can bring the focus upon the person who popularized, performed, or penned the piece; indeed, in my first cabaret show, I created a whole 1920s "cabaretsona" to portray, rather than be myself, Artemisia.  Not to say that I regret that at all. As a matter of fact, all of the characters of "Ghosts" are currently–albeit very slowly–inspiring a traditional musical, and I loved getting to immerse myself in the fantasy of 1920s Berlin.

But it is extremely different performing your own songs!  They are all aspects of myself, my "babies," and come from hard-won inspiration.  Yes, they all have quite strange stories, and interesting characters, but as Emily Dickenson said, "tell the truth, but tell it slant"—I will leave it up to the audience to imagine what I am showing of myself through the musical recounting of historical figures or ghostly characters.  There is a real freedom in getting to create one's own vision of cabaret from scratch, which in context of this particular show's evolution, of course, includes constantly having new insights into my songs-- performance, staging, arranging, etc.—as well as adding new songs whenever they arrive. 

To get to your question more directly, it is extremely satisfying to observe the process of something very, very ethereal become concrete and tangible by an outside party, particularly when it is always growing and changing. It feels like living in my imagination, like my inner and outer worlds become blurred, and I get to take people on a journey into what makes me tick, even as I myself explore what that means on a conscious level.  

Have you made any tweaks to the show since your last performance of it?  

Oh, constantly!  Sometimes a song will tell me what it needs, long after it is considered finished... Victorian fan language, an extra verse or chorus, violin or accordion parts, a tap-dancing break, a guest performer... expect to see plenty of new material on the 24th... 

Where did the idea for the concept of the "Wasted Girl" come from?

Excellent question—to answer it more in depth, I must divulge both the backstory to the title song of the show/album, as well as my songwriting process.  As an avid practitioner of meditation and other trance techniques (that is a whole other story to get into a different time), I am used to slipping into altered levels of brain activity, but it was only during production of "Ghosts of Weimar Past" at Birdland in March of 2022 that I started to hear melodies when in deep meditation and when falling asleep.  I think it was a sort of osmosis; that I had immersed myself in so much avant-garde 1920s music that it started to mix up inside of me and generate new melodies and snippets of lyrics.  The chorus of "Wasted Girl" fairly wrote itself during an unbidden lucid dreaming situation, and it was later that I really delved into the multiple meanings of the term... you could be intoxicated, you could have wasted your time on someone, you could have wasted your life away, or you could have wasted away.  These are all symptoms of a very 1920s archetype: not quite a vamp, not quite an ingenue, but definitely someone to be pitied and shown compassion.  This was my very first proper song.  

Since then, I am happy to report that through a combination of stream-of-consciousness poetry, literary immersion, divination, contrapuntal study, music history study, and lots of waking up in the middle of the night to scratch out whatever I am hearing mid-dream, I have refined my songwriting technique to the point where I have over a dozen finished songs, and dozens more ideas to develop!  

Who and what has been inspiring you lately, as a writer and a performer?

I love reading biographies of musicians and performers throughout history—there's just something about getting into what makes these artists tick that helps me get into what I imagine is their sort of mindset.  The biographies of Frederic Chopin, Anita Berber, and Rekha are those that immediately come to mind, but the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, as well as an extremely well-written novel by Edward Carey ("Edith Holler") have been recent obsessions.  I journal nearly every day, and am often able to find inspiration in my entries-- sometimes my songs are ways to either romanticize or work through whatever is going on in my life.  I am also constantly awed by the works of the Gershwin brothers, by Irving Berlin, by Scott Joplin (I have begun writing rags last year), Weimar composers Spoliansky and Holländer, lyricist Bertolt Brecht, and, of those who are alive today, William Bolcom, Danny Elfman, and Tom Lehrer.  All men, I know, but they are as lauded as they are for very good reason.  

As a performer, who immediately comes to mind is Victoriandustrial singer/songwriter/violinist/pianist/poetess Emilie Autumn, who created a 19th century world of gothic heroines, Shakespearean tragedies, the dark side of the history of mental institutions, and neobaroque compositions.  I am very inspired by the fact that she's a bit undefinable, except in the way that she very blatantly is led by her own imagination.  Dark cabaret pianist/singer/necromantress Jill Tracy is another big influence, as is the unshakeable devotion to musical material of Maria Callas.  As I mentioned before, I love reading about performers of the past, and try to emulate who I read about-- as well as those melodramatic silent film poses and facial expressions!  I'm a big believer in performing because you need to say something, and these were people who exemplified this concept to extreme excellence.  

Who do you think should come see Wasted Girl?

I invite anyone, so long as they have decent grasp of theatre etiquette.  

Aside from that, I think that the people who would most enjoy it might be fans of steampunk and dark cabaret music (such as was so ubiquitous in the heyday of steampunk conventions in the 2010s), the vintage community (you know who you are), fans of 1920s and 1930s music, fans of golden era Broadway, goths, Witches, bohemians, owners of Victrolas or antique taxidermy, hot jazz musicians, classical musicians (for I have the privilege of getting to perform with some truly talented and artful classical musicians, pianist Renee Guerrero and violinist Khullip Jeung), bohemians, silent film aficionados, absinthe drinkers, Edward Gorey enthusiasts, and fans of the "Series of Unfortunate Events" franchise.  

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I hope to see a return to melody-driven music in cabaret and Broadway, and more support for the arts in general... things are getting more expensive, and the arts must, must, must survive in New York City-- not just the mainstream and immediately visible things.  

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Tickets to Wasted Girl on 11/24 are available here.

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