Hello everyone!
I hope that all of you had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend!
The next Spotlight On YOU Open mic is coming up soon on JUNE 15th! Don't forget to mark your calendars! Time to pick your song to sing!
I wanted to kick start this week and tease you all with my interview with the very handsome, charming and multi-talented, award winning composer/lyricist/performer Scott Evan Davis.
For those of you who don't know Scott, here is his bio for starters:
Scott Evan Davis is a multi-award-winning Composer and Lyricist based in NYC. After working as an actor around the U.S., he began composing in 2010. Davis has since gained international recognition in the worlds of musical theatre and cabaret. Scott has performed concerts of his music at Birdland Jazz Club in NYC, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as well as London, Dublin, Australia, and all around the U.S. His songs have been performed at Feinstein's 54 Below, The Metropolitan Room, Don't Tell Mama's, The Duplex, as well as internationally in high schools and colleges.
Scott's debut album, Cautiously Optimistic, features Broadway talents such as Liz Callaway, Faith Prince, Daniel Reichard, Nikki Renee Daniels as well as others from the worlds of Broadway and cabaret. In the Huffington Post review of Cautiously Optimistic, David Finkle listed Scott among five "must see and must know" emerging writers. His second album NEXT, released in 2016, features performers such as Karen Mason, Robert Cuccioli, Joshua Colley, Derek Klena and Lisa Howard.
In addition to the upcoming Indigo, Scott's theatre work includes two theatrical revues of his songs, Picture Perfect, which debuted at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in Australia and was subsequently performed in London's West End at the St. James Theatre, and Fragments, premiering in NYC in June 2018. His musical Powerful Day, which was written with and for autistic children at PS94 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, won Musical Theatre International's prestigious Courage in Theatre Award. Recently, these students were selected to attend the Junior Theatre Festival, and won the Spirit of Theatre Award as well as an award for Best Ensemble. Scott's work with the students of PS94 was featured in a segment on CBS News, as well as a feature length documentary called Spectrum of Hope, produced by Musical Theatre International. (MTI)
Scott's most known song, "If the World Only Knew," has been viewed almost 300,000 times on YouTube for its social message. It's been covered countless times, including performances at Broadway's Gershwin Theater and at Australia's 2017 Schools Spectacular.
Are you impressed yet? Have I tickled your interest?
I want to add a personal touch before jumping into the interview. One thing about Scott is that I've noticed from the first day I met him is the kindness and warmth in his energy. I've always seen him with his beautiful smile and I love all the work he put in with children and his music!
Here's my interview with Scott:
1) Can you share with us a few interesting facts that most people don’t know about you?
When I was 12 I wanted to be a professional bowler.
I used to be a mutual fund investment specialist.
I taught myself piano and started around 12 years old.
2) You are a wonderful entertainer, amazing composer and song writer. How did it all started? How did you discover your passion for it all and realized that this was what you wanted to do?
I never thought I would be a songwriter. It wasn't planned... the profession chose me.
It’s a really long story, but in a nutshell, my teacher/mentor in college (I was pursuing performing) asked me to come and live with him, when he found out he had terminal cancer, and was given a year to live. I was 19. He had hoped I would stay with him for the last year of his life.
After about 8 months, I felt very confined by the situation and left. We had a huge fight and never spoke again. I think I broke his heart.
Years later, after quitting theatre and getting a job in mutual funds in Boston, I wrote him a letter, asking for forgiveness for leaving him alone to take care of himself. I never heard back because he had passed away. That inspired me to quit my job and pursue performing again.
It brought me back to NYC and I ended up in an Off-Broadway play called Joy. It was during the run of that show, that I had a dream. In that dream, Brian, my teacher, was healthy and smiling and sitting on a park bench. I sat next to him, and we hugged, and I apologized. All he did was hug me tighter and hum. He kept humming the same phrase of music. After awhile, the hug got so tight, that I couldn’t breath and I woke up.
The next day, I couldn’t get that melody out of my head, and even though I had never written a song before, I sat down at the piano (because I've always played) and tried to play the melody. That became my first song called "Cautiously Optimistic." I was 32.
I haven’t stopped writing since.
3) Do you have some particularly interesting stories that you'd like to share with the readers?
I did my first solo cabaret show as a singer (since I hadn’t started writing yet) at Don’t Tell Mamas in 2002. I was 24. It was called Both Sides Now. Somewhere there might be a VHS of it. I remember being proud of it. Also, I played Will Rogers in Will Rogers Follies in Boston, and learned how to do rope tricks from a rancher on a farm in Throggs Neck NY for six months before rehearsals started.
4) What motivates your creativity and passion for life? Name three things that never failed to put a smile on your face!
Music.
Getting inside the mind of whatever character I’m writing for, and truly caring about the project.
Love.
I think having a healthy balance of love and work in your life is a very good thing. :)
5) Share with us what you have in the pipeline for us to be on the lookout for.
Well, coming up the soonest is a new song cycle I’ve written called FRAGMENTS. It incorporates old and new material and tells the story (albeit loosely) of someone losing their memory and trying to recapture the fragments in his mind. That will be at the Laurie Beechman theatre on June 26th and 7pm.
It will feature Kevin Dozier, Angela Shultz, Jamie Zeidman and Adam Von Almen. Directed by Stearns Mathews.
Also, my musical INDIGO, about a non verbal girl named Emma, is being produced and developed for Broadway by the producers of ALLEGIANCE.
We are pushing for the first public performance of that sometime in October or November. So far we’ve had a reading and two backers concerts. It’s very exciting for me.
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So.... everyone.... bring your favorite song for the month, invite a friend or two and join me as I welcome the wonderful Scott Evan Davis and sing with the very talented Matthew Martin Ward!
Until then, enjoy the sunshine and greet your day with a smile!