Tomorrow, we head off on our first trans-Atlantic adventure in a very long time! I’m super excited, though, of course, I’ll miss you all. I will, as usual, be posting some of my favorite reruns while I’m gone. As my last new post for a couple of weeks, I thought I’d share something truly special.

I’m a huge fan of cabaret, and when I was writing my post about the organization known as The Cabaret, I came across a performer about whom I haven’t been able to stop thinking. Today, we’re checking out the comic and comedy stylings of the international queen of cabaret Melissa Madden Gray, A.K.A. Meow Meow. Self-described as a post-post-modern diva, she’s a very good singer, of course, but what initially hooked me was her comic timing and her regular use of members of the audience as props and stagehands. She thoroughly embraces the chaos that comes from bringing up random people, and does it all with great humor and flexibility. Sure, sometimes her “volunteer” is a plant, but even so, her performances manage to be unexpected and fresh and fun.

Meow Meow’s on-stage choices, even the subtle ones, are just fascinating to me. Even as she parodies cabaret performances with her over-the-top makeup and costumes and her just-desperate-enough interactions with the audience, there’s also a beautiful underlying pain and pathos. These performances are astonishingly nuanced. What a marvel she is!

Here, once again, is her performance at The Cabaret which started me down this particular rabbit hole.

You can follow the utterly fascinating Meow Meow on her website and on Instagram and Facebook.