out & about / in the press / 2001 -2005

...Speaking of Arci's*, I caught up with John Barrowman (ex-Peter Williams, TITANS; ex-Peter Fairchild, CENTRAL PARK WEST) after one of his cabaret performances there. Germany had just done a CPW/TITANS marathon. John thinks the shows didn't hit it big over here because they weren't timely enough. "Nighttime soaps today have to be hipper, edgier, take some risks, like [HBO'S] SIX FEET UNDER, which I think would classify as a nighttime soap."

He says he'd love to do a daytime soap and play "a vicious, sophisticated louse. I loved my character on TITANS. He was such an insincere bastard, yet so smart and on the ball. My character on CPW was a goody two-shoes. There were things women did to him that no man would put up with."

John's been devoting a lot of time to running The Dreamers' Workshops, which are musical workshops for high school students, including his alma mater, Joliet West High School in Illinois, where he had previously distinguished himself by wearing a kilt to his prom. My original date dumped me when I told her I was going to do it. But I told her I was very proud of my hertiage." He comes from Glasgow, Scotland. "There's a picture of me in the yearbook dancing in my kilt."

John told me he's very proud of his old college buddy, Thorsten Kieselbach, whom everyone in the theatre program at United States International University called "Toast" and who we know as Thorsten Kaye (Ian, PORT CHARLES). "We did a lot of partying there," he confides. "We got away with murder."

John has gone on to make his mark in live theatre (starring, for instance, opposite Betty Buckley in SUNSET BOULEVARD both in London and on Broadway). Still he found the cabaret venue, which he was conquering for the first time, "frightening. There's no invisible wall to sheild you from the audience. They're right there in your face."

His worst nightmare happened when he stepped offstage and behind a concealed door, where the performers stand prior to coming out for an encore.
"I sneezed. Totally. I needed a Kleenex immediately. And I thought: They're still clapping: I'll have to go back. So I tried a big sniff. It didn't work. So when I went back out I said, 'I have to have a hankie or a tissue.'" Someone it the audience handed him one. After he used it, he got his biggest laugh of the evening by brandishing it toward the donor and assuring her:
"You can sell that on EBAY, I guarantee you."

 

PERSONAL SIDE NOTE: For those not familar, Arci's Place was a cabaret restraurant on Park Avenue in NYC. This is where John FIRST debuted his cabaret act in February/March of 2002

I was there the evening this happened, John had in fact finished his usual encore song, a blending of AMAZING GRACE and LOCH LOMMOND, and the audience sustained the applause long after he'd quit the stage. So he HAD to come back for another song!! John explained about the backstage sneeze and yes, the ebay line was quite a hit! He then sang, as his second encore, THE SCOTTISH WEDDING SONG.

While on this particular night JB sang it solo, this was a number he had his mom join him for previously while she and his dad were in town. If you ever get the chance to catch John's cabaret show, I highly reccomend you do so...his voice is a glorious gift to the listener.

George Seylaz (webmaster)