BWW Interviews: Life Has Become a CABARET For Showcase Winner Bradley McCaw

Bradley McCaw is the first to admit he was no cabaret aficionado when he started. It was others who recognised this art form might be a perfect fit for the young performer. The winner of the '2012 Australian Cabaret Showcase' still considered himself primarily an actor and singer back in the early days, fresh off touring the world with the Australian super-group "The Ten Tenors".

For McCaw the journey to emerging Cabaret star began when he was offered the chance to write his first musical in 2010.

"I'd never considered doing it - I'd always written pop music. '[But] they said no, no it seems a logical step for you. You're a theatre artist, just try it!'"

Try it he did, and the resultant show "BECOMING BILL" was a sold-out hit. After the singing success of his early career, the play put McCaw on the map as a composer/playwrite to watch, and in 2011 he was awarded the '2011 Young Emerging Playwrights' award for his next musical "IN GOOD COMPANY".

Then came the 2012 Australian Cabaret Showcase, and a chance for McCaw to combine the talents he had been honing as composer, playwrite and performer. With his one-man show, "CABARET: THE COMPLETE UNAUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY" he set out to trace the history of the art form, and in researching the piece, McCaw came to see what others had recognised earlier.

"When I went through the competition it just seemed very natural for me. It was always how I'd performed, and I just wasn't aware that that's what I was doing. The more I studied cabaret [for the showcase piece], the more I realised so many artists out there are like this. We don't realise that so much of our act is based in cabaret."

When I ask what it means to him now, firmly under the cabaret spotlight on a tour of Australia, before heading to New York, McCaw references the beginnings of cabaret itself.

"It really started as a giant sing-along in France, with a group of guys who got together - and the audience followed them. They didn't even get drunk, really! It was about the art. Cabaret endeavours to be about something more than the performer, more than the audience, more than what's happening (on stage). Everyone is completely present in that moment."

Winning the Cabaret Showcase, with the opportunity to perform his original work both in Australia and at the upcoming New York Music Theatre Festival, has been a wonderful surprise for McCaw, with new doors already beginning to open.

"This is a whole other level and I'm trying to enjoy it," he says of this hectic time in his life.

"I am naturally a bit 'hermity," he goes on to admit. "I'm one of those performers - you get up on stage and it's the hermit in you that propels you into the opposite. I'm getting better at it and I'm enjoying it!"

As for the chance to perform in New York for the first time, McCaw says that like a lot of people he grew up dreaming of the city.

"I can't wait - I've only been there once. I was just blown away."

As for nerves that may come, the sports fan references a Rafael Nadal quote he recently came across, where the champion tennis player noted that if you are not nervous when going into a match, then you have forgotten what it means to play tennis. Nerves come with things that matter.

"So will I be nervous? Yes! But I'm going to do my best not to think about it until after. I'll probably sit in my hotel room and have a beer and just go ..." - he makes the sound of exhaling - "I just played New York!"

"This is the first step for me," he adds, "So it's great for people to see straight from the get-go that this is what I do. I'm a performer, and I'm a composer, and I'm a playwrite. The show I've just written, it's really me. I'm very fortunate that cabaret has given me that opportunity."

"The thing for me," McCaw adds of his current experience, "is that everyone pushes together. Every person all around this business, we all do our part, and it all pushes to the same place. That's the really cool thing I'm seeing everywhere."

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Bradley McCaw is currently touring "CABARET: THE COMPLETE UNAUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY" across Australia, and will make his US debut at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in July.

TOUR DATES:

NOOSA LONGWEEKEND FESTIVAL

Sunday 23 June at 8.20pm

Tickets and full details www.noosalongweekend.com or (07) 5455 4455

MELBOURNE CABARET FESTIVAL

Thursday 27 June at 8pm

Friday 28 June at 8pm

Tickets and full details: www.melbournecabaret.com or (03) 8290 7000

NEW YORK MUSICAL THEATRE FESTIVAL

Sunday 21 July at 5.30 and 9.30pm

Full details and tickets www.nymf.org or +1 212 352 3101

BALLARAT CABARET FESTIVAL

Friday 11 October

Full details and tickets www.ballaratcabaret.com

BRISBANE CABARET FESTIVAL

October TBA

Full details and tickets www.brisbanecabaretfestival.com

Images: Kurt Sneddon