Singer/Songwriter/Playwright Ethan Lipton Divides His Time Between Music and Theatre Written by Elias Stimac Photo Credit: Heather Phelps www.cameragirl.com

Singer/songwriter/playwright Ethan Lipton has been performing publicly in New York for three years. Before that, he’d been writing songs and singing to friends, lovers, and mostly himself for a decade. He has also had success as a playwright. How he transferred his talents from theatre to cabaret is a story that is worthy of a play itself.

“I’m a playwright first, so I always had mixed feelings about performing, but there came a point where I needed a challenge creatively, where I wanted to open up some doors in my own process. A friend suggested I sing at the downtown variety show, Deep Dish Cabaret. I did a few songs a cappella --I don’t play any instruments, so for the first year, my shows were basically solo -- and I had a good experience.

“I kept doing the guest spots and began playing shows of my own. I had 10 years worth of songs in my head, so that made it easier. Little by little, I added musicians and experimented with different combos. Now I play with two outfits, a jazz combo and a ukulele player. I’ve had a couple of ongoing gigs, and I’ve played all over NYC and Brooklyn. I keep expecting the music thing to end one day, either because I will get bored or my audience will, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

While the music career progresses, Lipton keeps up with the scriptwriting as well. “I still think of myself as a playwright. My play 100 Aspects of the Moon was just produced at the Ohio Theatre by Clubbed Thumb, and my play Meat is bring produced this summer at the Edinburgh Fringe by an English company called Upstart. And I’m really enjoying the new play I’m writing.” But more about the theatrical side of Lipton later.

Lipton admits his music is hard to describe. “Someone called it "old-time folk lounge," which is as close as anything I’ve heard. Last week in rehearsal, my guitar player Eben Levy -- a great musician who used to head up a band called Chucklehead joked that our set was like a history of American music: folk, jazz, country, blues, rock, pop, even a hint of rap. While that’s a little misleading, it’s not completely off-base. I don’t have any musical training. My rule of melody writing is that if I can remember the tune, and if it pleases me, I’ll give it a shot. But the inspiration for that melody can come from anywhere, and it can make a song in any number of styles. I’m not parodying those styles, I’m just regurgitating my unstudied understanding of them in a way that feels natural to me.”

Photo Credit: Heather Phelps
www.cameragirl.com

He performs along with an “orchestra” -- so to speak. “The Orchestra is, well, me. I started using that sobriquet because people would tell me they could "hear" the band when I sang a cappella. I always liked that because I felt like I could "hear" the band too. Now, even though I usually play with musicians, I like to think of them as sitting in with this "band" of ghosts. Not to underplay the influence of the guys I play with. Mike Stumm is a maestro with the uke, a hugely expressive presence, and he and I have a great rapport. Ian Riggs, my standup bass player, is in 17 bands around town, has an amazing ear, can play anything, and he’s an excellent complement to Eben, who’s just sick with a lick.

His latest CD will be released on September 10 at 7pm. Entitled "Baby, I Feel the Same Way," the album was recorded live at Tonic. There will be a special event to mark the occasion. “We’ll have the whole Orchestra, including Mike, Eben, Ian, and guests like Vito Dieterle and the Wall Street Wailers. A huge, delicious, 90 minute show which will celebrate the new CD.” The title ties in with the visuals of the CD, according to Lipton, and plays off the idea that his singing persona is “both empathetic and untrustworthy.”

Lipton’s first album, "A New Low," had a different vibe from the current release. “That one was recorded at Low in Dumbo, which is a smaller place. The vibe on the first CD is closer to a comedy album, like the old Woody Allen recording where you can hear all the drinks being served, and the sound is thicker, more clublike. We had better equipment for the new CD, and though the audience is still a presence, it’s a less intrusive one. I wanted this CD to take a step closer to a straight music recording, where you could listen to the songs without having every reaction dictated by the crowd, and I think we did that.

His website, www.ethanlipton.com, has helped spread the word about this eclectic artist. “I guess it conveys some basic sense of what I do and who I am. It gives concrete info (show dates, downloads), and hopefully communicates that I take my art very seriously, and myself much less seriously. If I didn’t have a website and email addresses, I don’t know how I’d get people to my shows. I still get nauseous when I have to send out a show email -- I hate bugging people! -- but it’s so much more affordable and convenient than doing flyers for every gig, or however they used to do it back in the Stone Age.”

Lipton grew up in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles, where he went to UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. “My dream was to study sociology in some small, sweater-y East Coast school. At UCLA I hooked up with Buffalo Nights Theatre Company, who mounted great productions of my first two plays, ‘Hope on the Range’ and ‘Meat.’ I went to Chicago for a couple of years after school, because somehow New York seemed too obvious a choice, and it was a time in my life when I’d let something like ‘obviousness’ make a major decision for me.

The young scribe found Chicago to be “great -- lots of theatre, two barbecues for every citizen, and of course, the rent was cheap. Went back to LA, where I taught at Loyola Marymount and became the literary associate at the Geffen Playhouse. A few years, I came to New York -- well, Brooklyn -- where I’ve been for five years. I’d like to stay for as long as I can. Chicago and L.A. are great cities, but neither inspires me like this place. Though it took me a long time to admit it, I’ve always wanted to be an artist who works in multiple forms. In New York, you can be that.”

His most recent play, 100 Aspects of the Moon, was produced by Clubbed Thumb and was quite a success. “Emma Griffin directed, the cast was sublime -- Joanna P. Adler, Gib Frazier, Kate Hampton, Tim Kang, Matt Maher, April Mathis, Chris Wells -- and I hope we can do it again soon.”

This month Lipton will be taking one of his shows to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland – check out http://www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk/listings.cfm?sid=10765. The production is the a result of a chance meeting. “Two years ago, I was up at New York Stage and Film (at Vassar) as a writer in residence, and I met a woman named Jennifer Tuckett, who took an interest in my work. I was working on a different play at the time, but she asked to see my other plays. I gave her ‘Meat,’ which had previously been produced in L.A. and New York, and she gave the play to Tom Mansfield, a director in London. Tom was forming a new company and wanted to take ‘Meat’ to Edinburgh. I’ve never met him, but he sounded like a trustworthy chap, and I’d been directly involved in the two earlier productions of the play, so it seemed like a good opportunity to let someone else take the script and run with it.”

Meat will be served to international audiences at the festival from August 4th through August 27th. The playwright says it was inspired by the true story of dogs that broke into a zoo in Florida and wiped out the gazelle population. “The play tells the story of three dogs and three gazelles, and what happens to them leading up this event. It’s dark and funny and tragic, and it plays with some ideas about class, so I’m hoping the audiences over there will go for it. Tell you truth, I have no idea how it’ll be received, but I’m pretty excited to see it myself.”

He will also bring his vocal abilities to the Fringe, performing in a very-late-night show at C Venue on Saturday, August 20th. “I’m going to do a 30-minute singing gig while I’m there. I’ll be performing a cappella and with some of the members of the "Meat’ production. It will probably be a sloppy mess of a show, but I’ll be surrounded by British people, so that’ll be fun.”

Lipton’s advice for aspiring musicians is simple. “Do good work. Lots and lots of it.” And he hopes everyone will follow one other piece of advice – “Go see more live music!”

Ethan Lipton will have his new CD release show,
"Baby, I Feel the Same Way", Saturday, September 10 @ 7pm
Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, 212-239-6200, http://www.telecharge.com/