Interview: Kathryn Keats of THE HUMMINGBIRD at The Marsh Tells the Truth to Create a Gripping New Piece of Musical Theatre

What would you do after finally managing to escape an intensely abusive relationship and living for 22 years in anonymity with the help of the Victim Witness Assistance Program? Sometimes, it's enough just to tell the truth, and that is exactly what Kathryn Keats is aiming to do with The Hummingbird, her new solo musical running at The Marsh San Francisco. Keats' real-life story is unlike any I've ever heard and is a testament of the human capacity for resiliency. Landing in New York City at the tender age of 17 with dreams of performing on Broadway, her path was derailed by the irresistible invitation of her music director to become his muse and romantic partner. His descent into madness and her attempt to save him became a terrifying ordeal culminating in her brutal captivity. An arduous jury trial led her to seek help from Victim Witness Assistance who helped her create a new life in order to evade his obsession. While her tormentor lived, she was forced to adopt an alias, entirely abandoning her promising music career and eventually finding new love with a husband and children who had no inkling of her former identity.

The Hummingbird tells her harrowing and ultimately redemptive journey of going from a young woman with Broadway ambitions to her brutal captivity, decades in hiding and what came next. Starring Keats and created by her in collaboration with director David Ford and composer/musician Kevin Gerzevitz, it won Best Solo Musical during The Marsh's 2020 MarshStream International Solo Fest. As intense as the material is, Keats points out that the show "ends with an uplift. Because I lived ... and I'm well. I am well."

Keats is a seasoned actor and powerfully compelling vocalist who has released original music with Grammy Award-winning and nominated producers and musicians such as Pete Sears, Narada Michael Walden, Michael Manring and Aram Avagyan. She has played many top music venues, from Yoshi's and the Great American Music Hall in the Bay Area to the Bitter End and Symphony Space in New York. She has been a Method Acting Teaching Artist since 1993 for film and television actors throughout the world. She has also been featured on various television shows, podcasts and publications, and appeared as a keynote speaker for organizations including the YWCA and Center for Domestic Peace, raising awareness to end domestic violence.

I spoke with Keats by phone earlier this week just as she was about to head to The Marsh for a final round of rehearsals with Ford. We talked about how she managed to craft a musical out of such a horrifying ordeal without trivializing it by sanding off the rough edges or turning it into trauma porn, what her hopes were as that teenager pursuing her dreams in New York, and how she was ultimately able to find healing. Throughout our conversation, which was also often quite light-hearted and humorous, she reiterated how important it was for her to tell the story as honestly as possible so that it could be of service to others. As she puts it, her story could happen to anyone because it is ultimately about love. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

You obviously have such a gripping life story, but it's so intense that it could easily be too much for audiences to take in. So how did you approach the idea of turning it into a piece of musical theatre. What was your way in?

I'm a musician and a singer and a songwriter, so that was my only way in. That is how I express myself. I think and I create musically before I create from an acting point of view. The composition and melodies come first. And I think in a rather cinematic way when I write scenes, and then cinematically and compositionally they kind of come together. It's a story about two people who were making music and writing shows, so it's all wrapped around music.

I wanted to tell what really happened to two humans who fell through the cracks due to mental illness. I felt very strong about that, because the story broke in Reader's Digest when I first came out of hiding, and then it broke all over the world and everybody told it differently, of course. Then at one point it was optioned by Lifetime and I was like "No, take it back. I need to tell the story the way it really happened." This show is not a movie. It's really, really what happened. And it ends with an uplift. Because I lived... and I'm well. I am well. But he didn't live, so...

It's not a cookie-cutter story about domestic violence or insanity or bipolar illness or Stockholm or PTSD. It's a story about two people who struggle, real humans. It's not a circus act and it's not trauma porn. It's inspiring. And it says "This person lived, and this person tragically did not. This person had a mistaken sense of responsibility and only knew what she knew, and this person fell all the way through the cracks."

I'm doing everything I can to be of service through this vehicle. This story has served a lot of people and will continue to do so. I have a code for complimentary tickets for the medical, therapeutic, domestic violence, and mental health advocacy groups and medical students so they can all come see the show. Because very rarely do we get to see a piece where we really get to see into this world. And Judge Leo Dorado, who was the Deputy District Attorney who pled the case (I play him in the show), is going to do one of the talkbacks with me.

Can you talk about the show's developmental process, first at Berkeley Rep and then with David Ford at The Marsh?

I was really, really lucky to have a very good friend of mine invite me to meet with Les Waters at Berkeley Repertory Theatre who was kind enough to walk me in to Madeleine Oldham at the Ground Floor. So I did one or two weeks (I can't remember) at the Ground Floor as a full [multi-person cast] musical. And then I heard David Ford talking on KPFA about solo work, which I had never done, and I was intrigued by him and his process and decided to take his workshops. That's how it started. We worked for three years on the show, and I had never really dived into that kind of acting. I'm a Method acting coach and have been for years, primarily with film actors and mostly in New York City and Europe. So the work was really invigorating and inspiring and especially for this piece, given sense memory and all the ways we can use Method in this work.

Working with David was incredible because he gave me so much space to bring in my writing. Before that I had been in a writing class with Dr. Joyce Block for quite a while and had written an extensive amount of work, thinking I might write a book. So I had like 280 pages of beat writing, cause that's how I write, not beat poetry but more like beat slam (I don't even know how I write!). [laughs] So that's what I brought in to David, and little by little we ended up with this show.

How did you collaborate with composer Kevin Gerzevitz on writing the music?

Well, he is first of all a genius and incredible to work with, and really one of the most loving people. He plays every instrument and knows all about sound. I am primarily a singer and lyricist, and though I can compose music, I am not, you know, him. And so Kevin and I, we just write. I'll do something and say, "Kevin, fix this, please." [laughs] And he does. He and I just put in a new piece last weekend. We wanted to give my former partner's character a voice, which was very necessary, and took an older piece of music and it'll be in this run. We sat down and just did it, and it's wonderful.

The show is from beginning to end a soundscape. It doesn't stop; it's like a train. And it's written in such a way that it's almost like film cuts, cause that's how I see, that's how I write. The question is: Is it a performance piece or is it a musical? I think if you're under 40 you would say "Well, this is a performance piece or performance art," which I tend to agree with.

Kevin has a jazz quartet and he can play anything, so it's pretty magical to have a music partner such as him. Not to mention when he plays, his dynamics and his ability to express on the piano are just incredible. Another person that plays in the show is Michael Manring, the bass player. He and I had done an improv at Bay Area Sound Studios when Michael LaValle had us in to do a recorded concert. So I pulled a piece from that of him playing this 12-string fretless bass and used that in the show. There's really interesting work in the soundscape of the show.

I used a lot of handmade instruments when I was composing, and I used my voice a lot. I had to use music to represent the emotional components of the show and any of the violence. The process of writing it has been incredible and the creative process is of course a blast, working with David and Kevin and Tina D'Elia, who's my acting coach and a brilliant performer. The minute I saw her in David's class, I said, "Help me!" I'm an actor in my own right, but she is a genius solo artist and from her I learned to do solo work.

What does the title The Hummingbird signify to you?

Resiliency. What does it signify to you? What does it say to you when you hear it?

I'm not exactly sure, but I do find the title intriguing. We've had hummingbirds in our backyard for the last couple of years, and I've become kind of obsessed with them because they're so beautiful and mystifying. I don't understand how they do what they do.

And they're always coming around me, they come so close to all of us. They have the largest heart of any flying animal, and maybe of any animal, and are incredibly resilient. The resiliency it's taken for me to move through this experience, and for anyone who goes through these kinds of experiences, is very, very important. That resiliency is key to life. It was my writing teacher, Dr. Block, who said, "What about The Hummingbird?" And it just fits. It just makes sense for the show.

Thinking back to when you first went to New York at the age of 17, what kind of career, what kind of future, were you hoping to carve out for yourself?

Musical theatre - since I was 5.

So you were one of those theatre kids.

I was that kid, totally. I went to Cincinnati Conservatory of Music a year and a half early from high school, and that was back in the day when they would only take 13 people. I left CCM early and went to New York, and when I got there, I was instantly working. It was happening. I was doing a lot of callbacks, for A Chorus Line and tons of other things, I was doing summer stock and I was having a really good reception in New York. I was working with Word Baker at Herbert Berghof Studios and studying with Edward Morehouse, so all these things were happening. But my brother had just been killed in a motorcycle accident so I was very vulnerable. And I was young, too young to be on my own in New York after such a family crisis.

Do did you come from a theatrical family?

My grandmother was an actor and my parents were writers, so I come from a long line of that's what you're supposed to do. It's quite the opposite of many families, and my kids are carrying that on. You know, we're hoping someone will be a doctor! [laughs] But, yeah, it's a long line of people who are artists.

That's interesting to me because I talk to a lot of actors and writers and directors in my job, and by and large most of them were the unicorn in their family, the oddball, and their families didn't know what to make of them.

Yeah, we were so lucky. My sister is an incredible painter and a writer and psychologist. She's the one who saved me. But art in my family was expected. And it was expected for me to be on Broadway. Of course, I don't expect this show to go to Broadway [laughs] - but that would be great, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that be a wild thing? But that's OK, I'll settle for [playing] Hermes in Hadestown. [laughs] Let me have that! That would be a dream!

You have such a unique vocal style - to me it's part jazz, part blues, part 1970s Joni Mitchell, part 1990s Betty Buckley and part none of those things, just plain you.

Wow - thank you!

What vocalists have had the biggest influence on you?

I was raised with a mother who had me come in after dinner every night and sing Sammy Davis and Judy and Liza and all of those people. And Etta James is a huge influence of mine, and of course Nina Simone. When I saw Etta James perform live it changed my life, the freedom that she had as a performer.

Right now I'm having a love affair with Twain, and I am extremely interested in Andrea Gibson, who's a poet, I guess, I don't know if she would consider herself a slam poet. And I am really into jazz. I'm listening a lot to the Ezra Collective right now. I like so much music, and so many writers, and it just goes on and on. I've been influenced by a lot of different people.

And also Method changed my life as a performer. When I got to San Francisco and was in hiding, my best friend was here from when I was 5, Mark Monroe, and we started an acting school called Mark Monroe Studios. We had 650 acting students, by word of mouth, and then it was in LA as well. I started learning Method and learning how not to act. So all the Method actors and you know Strasberg and Stanislavski, I would say that has been the biggest influence on all of my work - music, acting, performance, writing - because it's all based in being in the moment and finding out how to marry your own experiences with the content that you're creating. And then in performance, how not to perform, which is exceedingly difficult. But when you can "get" it, it's all about giving to the audience and getting out of your own way.

I have a final question that I'm a little hesitant to ask because I don't want to sound trite or patronizing: How in the world did you survive what you did and not become just a totally dysfunctional, bitter, angry person?

I appreciate the question and don't feel like it's trite. First of all, I never blamed my partner for what happened. Because he was very ill and I saw him lose his mind, and that is probably the worst thing any human could ever experience. And I certainly have had to take responsibility for being there and staying there, and not getting out. Taking responsibility for being a victim has been really important, and also doing a lot of work to recover. It's just taken a lot of work to not be angry. It would be a lie to say I've not been angry about losing my career. But not angry at him. The key has been to forgive myself for the choices that I made.

It hasn't been about blaming him. I mean, I'm alive and I have my mind. It's a terrible thing when people lose their minds or have illnesses. I was incredibly incapable of leaving him, so I was not void of being ill myself. We can say I was young, but this can happen to anyone. It doesn't matter whether you're young or this or that. The question is "Why don't you leave?" I left at one point and came back. We are all vulnerable to people we love, and this was someone I loved.

Self-forgiveness has taken a lot of work, and I still work on it. I had to write a show, that's how I survived. I guess that's the answer to your question! [laughs] I mean, I have Stockholm Syndrome, I guess to the point I had to write a show, and I'm still writing. Stockholm's trippy.

OK, I'm off to rehearsal. Finally, we're starting! I'm tired of rehearsing alone, and now I get to go rehearse with David. I'm thrilled!

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The Hummingbird runs October 14-November 18, 2022 with performances at 7:00pm Fridays at The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia St., San Francisco. For further information or to order tickets visit www.themarsh.org.

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