Singer Projects in a New Way

Cabaret singers often use the props, costumes and backdrops of the stage to emphasize the theatrical nature of their musical act. Singer-actress Kate Peters put a different twist on that practice Friday at Founders Hall in the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, singing in front of digitally projected images pulled from her upcoming computer interactive CD, “Sojourn.”

Flanked by two guitarists and a four-piece string section--the instrumental combo was directed by bassist Baba Elphante--Peters worked in front of a movie screen filled with computerized effects.

In one scene, an image of Peters stood inside a stone archway, then, like Tinkerbell, disappeared in a shrinking arc of light.

Peters introduced Joni Mitchell’s “Clouds” with a story about a youthful road trip in a Volkswagen bug, and sure enough, in a slow-motion home movie of passing mountains and a highway, a ghostly VW floated across the sky.

It’s not as if Peters needs to distract the audience from her singing. With a strong resume in musical theater and opera, the Yorba Linda resident has the vocal and dramatic abilities to carry this kind of show on her own.

Her voice is sturdy and shimmers in the manner of classical vocalists. She is able to communicate delicacy and strength equally well, and employs an ever-changing vibrato. Not once during the program of tunes arranged by Shelly Markham from composers as diverse as Johnny Mercer and Dolly Parton was her range tested.

Overuse of the digital technology could have turned the performance, directed by Jack Wrangler, into one big light show--appropriate maybe to the Joni Mitchell numbers--but luckily, restraint was shown.

The backdrops were usually simple settings, landscapes still or moving, sometimes embellished with floating scenes pulled from the family album. At one point, Peters ascended a riser to stand flat against the screen, becoming part of the tableau. For some numbers, the screen remained blank.

Cabaret performers try to reveal something of themselves through song and stories, and Peters was aided in this by the images of her father that hovered on the screen as she sang Gretchen Peters’ “On a Bus to St. Cloud.” Photos presumably of Kate Peters as a young girl with her family flashed during Parton’s “Eagle When She Flies.”

More than projections enhanced the performance. 1940s singing star Margaret Whiting came out to sing “One More for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” and chat about her collaboration with songwriter Mercer. Peters’ daughter Katherine and stepdaughter Katy made singing appearances, as did members of Team Cabaret, a Fullerton-based teen group with which Peters works.

At one point, Peters, who was not afraid to overdramatize, used her resemblance to Hillary Clinton to become the first lady with a monologue that played on the pronunciation of the word “saxophone.”

She also did a humorous bit on a clueless society woman writing a letter from jail where she has been imprisoned for trying to kill an emu. But Peters was at her best being herself--simply singing.