620 introduces a new era starting with ‘Heart and Hope’

Although the upcoming season’s curated (planned) events won’t be unveiled until early September, The Studio @620 is offering up a glimpse of the future: Heart and Hope, a Cabaret Experience, with performances Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

It is, in fact, a cabaret, featuring five young bay area vocalists singing with a three-piece band led by veteran theatrical musical director Juan Rodriguez.

The show is co-produced by Patrick Arthur Jackson and Erica Sutherlin; she took the reins from 620 co-founder and director Bob Devin Jones, who retired in June.

It’s literally the first production under Sutherlin’s watch. She saw it as a way to introduce herself as artistic executive director, and as the opening salvo in a varied season of theater, music, art, dance, film and more.

“Before we do a theatrical piece, I kind of wanted to give the community a sneak peek of what’s to come,” Sutherlin explained. “That’s how I think about the cabaret, it’s a sneak peek. I asked Juan ‘Do you want to create something together?’ So we started talking.”

That was, Rodriguez recalled, in June or July. “This was before Kamala. And I said ‘I think we need something uplifting. We need to smile. We need to laugh again. I said ‘joy.’ We bounced off ideas, and she said ‘joy and resilience.’ What we came up with, as our themes, were joy, resilience, strength and hope.

“So I went home and I researched, and I came up with this amazing lineup of songs – they’re basically Broadway songs, most of them contemporary, that speak to those themes. And when Kamala was chosen as our candidate, the songs made even more sense to me. They all speak to this new future, hope, strength of America.”

Sutherlin: “People started being hopeful again. And there was joy.”

Both creators stress there’s nothing political about their cabaret. “It’s light, it’s funny and it’s poignant,” said Rodriguez, who’ll play the piano alongside bassist Richard Jimenez and percussionist Andrea Tafelski. “It’s deep as well!”

Mariela Zeno and Ben Sutherland in Tampa Rep’s “Next to Normal.” Image: Stage Photography of Tampa.

The singers, who’ll perform as soloists and in different combinations, are: A.R. Williams and Jai Shanae, whose credits (together) include Ragtime at American Stage and the Stageworks production of The Color Purple musical (both of those successful shows were directed by Erica Sutherlin); community theater veteran Sabrina Hamilton; Mariela Zeno and Ben Sutherland from the cast of Tampa Repertory Theatre’s recent hit production of Next to Normal (which was music-directed by Juan Rodriguez).

“I picked the songs after I met the singers – ‘this will fit your voice,’” said Rodriguez, who’s also a professional vocal coach. “And it worked perfect, all the singers are happy; we’re in our comfort zones in our voices. And we’re having a blast.”

Sutherlin will shortly announce a fall-and-spring season for The Studio. “The season is called Joy and Resilience,” she said. “We still look at complicated situations, life situations, but I wasn’t interested in just sitting in the sadness of it. I like to explore the resilience of it. I like to explore the joy in life, the joy of love, the joy of hope. And just taking a different lens.”

She’s planning more cabarets, more theater, and a “one night only” concert series. “It’s just one performer and a mic. They curate the song list around a part of their life that they want to talk about. It’s sort of like pulling the veil back and just learning about the person. Beyond the entertainment.”

Sutherlin will direct a production of Loy A. Webb’s two-character drama The Light in mid-September.

She wants people to know that saying “yes” to the public remains woven into the Studio@620’s fabric. “There are things that I’m going to create and lead, yes, but my job is also to give artists platforms to create. That’s part of what I do.”

Tickets for Heart and Hope, a Cabaret Experience, can be found here.