JUST PRETENDING: A CABARET PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Kailyn Toussaint and I combined our Honors Theses to create a two-person cabaret called Just Pretending. This 50-minute cabaret is a culmination of Musical Theatre and pop songs inspired by events from our past, present, and imminent futures. The fall semester consisted of collaborating with my advisor and hers, Professor Danny Gurwin, on choosing the material for the evening and hiring a pianist. The spring semester consisted of rehearsals and writing the script for the evening. The script is written in bullet point format, which gave us the freedom to organically converse with the audience while still hitting the main ideas that made it a cohesive story. Throughout the process, Kailyn was responsible for the dialog and flow of the show. I handled the business side including: official correspondence, marketing, and overseeing the budget. We performed Just Pretending on April 26th at The Scented Leaf with 30-35 people in attendance. We also Facebook Livestreamed the show for those that couldn’t make it. This project was a wonderful first experience creating and producing our own cabaret, an invaluable skill for our careers, as well as a wonderful way to wrap up our four years here at the University of Arizona.