Award-winning jazz and contemporary artist Catherine Summers brings Paris and New York to you this Perth Fringe World.
Catherine will present two separate full exploding shows – 'A Parisian Affair', and 'Late Night Speakeasy'.
'A Parisian Affair' features all things Fringe including a full jazz band and a little bit of satire with, of course, Catherine at the helm. Then, right after, 'Late Night Speakeasy' presents a late night hangout, a nine-piece swinging band New York cocktail bar extravaganza.
Each show will showcase Catherine's stage presence and stellar vocals, and will aim to take audiences on a musical journey, without even needing to leave their seats.
Here, Catherine lists five ways to experience Paris and New York in one night (PS – you can too at her Fringe World shows).
One
‘Moulin Rouge’. Sensuality, dance, entertainment, music. . . But the history of cabaret is much more than that. Towards the end of the 19th century, the song or ‘chanson’ was the main form of entertainment in the French café and songs were not only for entertainment but were used as a medium for communication to react to what was happening in the country around them and, for documenting history. Showgirl feathers, six-piece swinging jazz with me, and people know me for my storytelling and authentic interpretations of French classics.
Image © David Philips
Two
‘Late Night New York Speakeasy’. 'Late Night Speakeasy' is straight after ‘A Parisian Affair’. Enter a nine-piece swinging band New York cocktail bar extravaganza. This raucous authentic ‘20s nine-piece jazz band late night hang out is just what COVID ordered – shhhh. . . One of the most famous was called Krazy Kat, in Washington, D.C., a hangout for the city’s bohemian crowd, circa the early 1920s. . . Sounds good to me!Three
‘Not Quite The Real Feel of Vaudeville’. Vaudeville was made of comedians, singers, plate-spinners, ventriloquists, dancers, musicians, acrobats, animal trainers, and anyone who could keep an audience's interest for more than three minutes. These shows were intended for all-male audiences and were often obscene! You will get comedy, musicians, singers, showgirls, but this is an an all-inclusive, women's and LGBTQIA+ liberation, a musical story of the working classes mixing with the bourgeois classes – the birth of anything goes!
Image © Kaifu Deng
Four
‘Everything Fringe in Sophisticated Bliss’. Enjoy all things Fringe within stylish sophistication for show one, cabaret, vaudeville, showgirl, satire, burlesque and historical tid-bits weaved around a world class full six-piece jazz band with me at the helm. Then, get your tickets for show two, nine-piece authentic swinging '20s lively raucous band speakeasy bar. Think 'Fat Sam’s Grand Slam'!Five
‘Edith Piaf’. Noted as France's national chanteuse and one of the country's most widely known international stars. In 1935 she was discovered by Louis Leplée, a cabaret owner, who gave her her first nightclub job. Edith’s songs are often autobiographical. The tragedies and emotive songs of Edith’s life resonate strongly with my own life and it’s this that I feel take her songs to a place where words and music turn into something else. That something you can’t get from the TV, that something that can make the hairs on your neck stand on end. I invite you to come and hear her songs in the best way I possibly can pay homage to them.'A Parisian Affair' plays The Old Pickle Factory 3-13 February and 'Late Night Speakeasy' plays The Old Pickle Factory 3-12 February.
