Playwright, performer, composer and songwriter Cynthia Hopkins is the definition of postmodern artistry. Her work, which she describes as being united in some kind of singular tapestry, transcends single genres and mediums and defies definition. In combining non-fiction documentary with traditional narrative story, science fiction, space opera and introspective autobiography, Hopkins weaves a new kind of story. She also takes the same approach to music, releasing albums with her band Gloria Deluxe.
On Mar. 27, backed up by Gloria Deluxe, a gaggle of performers will perform the Cynthia Hopkins Songbook—a revue of her own original music—at Joe’s Pub. Not just a musician but also a playwright, Hopkins marries her musical abilities with an organic form of storytelling that combines genres, fiction and fact with elements from her own life to create amazing musical theater. A triumph of post-modern artistic expression, Hopkins’ music is also a shining of example of eclectic taste and an uncanny ability to touch people.
“Her voice is a beautiful, aching instrument wavering between Patsy Cline and Billie Holiday, and her songs layered with humor, raunch, sadness and a courageous vulnerability both on tape and especially on stage,” says Hopkins’ friend and collaborator John Hodgman. “I wrote my first book, The Areas of My Expertise, almost exclusively to the soundtrack of her music.”
The performance will take place right around the five-year anniversary of Accidental Nostalgia, and also debuts “The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success),” a new Gloria Deluxe album that shares the name of the Accidental Trilogy’s final installment. The performers, mostly longtime friends, acquaintances and artists in the same vein as Hopkins, include funnymen Hodgman and Ethan Lipton, drag legend Taylor Mac and teen singer Maria Ventura. Although some artists will perform works that Hopkins never has herself, she will play with the band, sing duets with Hodgman, Lipton and several others, and also sing a solo “Evolution,” to debut the new album.
In a way, the Joe’s Pub performance is a teaser for the last piece in the folktale operetta The Accidental Trilogy, “The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success),” an elaborate, postmodern folktale about science, fact, consciousness, and human evolution. Always a collaborative artist, Hopkins works within artist collective Accinosco to create the extensive and beautiful sets, costumes and high-production theater. The show opens at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Dumbo on May 22.
With a slight quiver in her voice, Hopkins tells me that “this coming spring feels like a culmination of all my creative work,” referring to the Joe’s Pub concert, the release of “The Success of Failure,” the closing of the Accidental Trilogy, and the May 5 release of Amplified, a collection of short stories by songwriters, to which she is a contributor.
Hopkins’ music takes influence from country and American folk tradition, European cabaret, punk rock, gypsy, Eastern European harmony and rhythm and even North African sufi tradition. But as “convoluted, multi-layered and faceted as [The Accidental Trilogy] gets, they’re not abstract.” Hopkins insists. “The whole show is a meditation on the pros and cons of evolution.”
The first act of “Success of Failure” is a sci-fi outer space saga, and the second act take places in “inner space,” exploring the world on a tiny scale and discussing personal perspective and autobiographical details of Hopkins’ life—such as battles with alcoholism and experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder. As she weaves these personal elements with “outlandish fiction and scientific and historic facts,” Hopkins attempts to create a tableau that demonstrates how all storytelling, fiction or otherwise, is woven from the same fabric.
The music follows suit; ethereal and orchestral in the beginning and more “folk-punk,” in the second act, she promises that the two opposite genres still share close musical ideas. Hopkins cites her eclectic taste and a mind that isn’t capable of creating separate categories.
“I prefer a holistic perspective,” she explains, “and I don’t really distinguish between styles. What I’m called upon to describe always comes out in a jumble. It feels to me most like a tapestry…like any artist, it’s like taken anything [I’ve] ever encountered.
Ethan Lipton, who will perform Hopkins songs “Beyond and the Beyond” and “Easier to Love You,” has worked with the songwriter for years.
“When I saw Cynthia perform,” he says, “I recognized what a New York artist should be immediately. Her work is sublime and inexplicable, generous and weird, sad, funny and beautiful, smart and tough. I have no idea where it’s going and yet it feels completely inevitable. You could not instruct another human being in the craft of making Cynthia’s work.”
The idea of culmination—since this artist’s interests suggest a belief in the one-ness of all things, or that all points within the universe are equal—seems to promise that this spring will be exhilarating time for postmodern theater and music, with Cynthia Hopkins leading the way.
The Cynthia Hopkins Songbook
Mar. 27, Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (at Astor Pl.); 10, $20.
On Mar. 27, backed up by Gloria Deluxe, a gaggle of performers will perform the Cynthia Hopkins Songbook—a revue of her own original music—at Joe’s Pub. Not just a musician but also a playwright, Hopkins marries her musical abilities with an organic form of storytelling that combines genres, fiction and fact with elements from her own life to create amazing musical theater. A triumph of post-modern artistic expression, Hopkins’ music is also a shining of example of eclectic taste and an uncanny ability to touch people.
“Her voice is a beautiful, aching instrument wavering between Patsy Cline and Billie Holiday, and her songs layered with humor, raunch, sadness and a courageous vulnerability both on tape and especially on stage,” says Hopkins’ friend and collaborator John Hodgman. “I wrote my first book, The Areas of My Expertise, almost exclusively to the soundtrack of her music.”
The performance will take place right around the five-year anniversary of Accidental Nostalgia, and also debuts “The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success),” a new Gloria Deluxe album that shares the name of the Accidental Trilogy’s final installment. The performers, mostly longtime friends, acquaintances and artists in the same vein as Hopkins, include funnymen Hodgman and Ethan Lipton, drag legend Taylor Mac and teen singer Maria Ventura. Although some artists will perform works that Hopkins never has herself, she will play with the band, sing duets with Hodgman, Lipton and several others, and also sing a solo “Evolution,” to debut the new album.
In a way, the Joe’s Pub performance is a teaser for the last piece in the folktale operetta The Accidental Trilogy, “The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success),” an elaborate, postmodern folktale about science, fact, consciousness, and human evolution. Always a collaborative artist, Hopkins works within artist collective Accinosco to create the extensive and beautiful sets, costumes and high-production theater. The show opens at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Dumbo on May 22.
With a slight quiver in her voice, Hopkins tells me that “this coming spring feels like a culmination of all my creative work,” referring to the Joe’s Pub concert, the release of “The Success of Failure,” the closing of the Accidental Trilogy, and the May 5 release of Amplified, a collection of short stories by songwriters, to which she is a contributor.
Hopkins’ music takes influence from country and American folk tradition, European cabaret, punk rock, gypsy, Eastern European harmony and rhythm and even North African sufi tradition. But as “convoluted, multi-layered and faceted as [The Accidental Trilogy] gets, they’re not abstract.” Hopkins insists. “The whole show is a meditation on the pros and cons of evolution.”
The first act of “Success of Failure” is a sci-fi outer space saga, and the second act take places in “inner space,” exploring the world on a tiny scale and discussing personal perspective and autobiographical details of Hopkins’ life—such as battles with alcoholism and experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder. As she weaves these personal elements with “outlandish fiction and scientific and historic facts,” Hopkins attempts to create a tableau that demonstrates how all storytelling, fiction or otherwise, is woven from the same fabric.
The music follows suit; ethereal and orchestral in the beginning and more “folk-punk,” in the second act, she promises that the two opposite genres still share close musical ideas. Hopkins cites her eclectic taste and a mind that isn’t capable of creating separate categories.
“I prefer a holistic perspective,” she explains, “and I don’t really distinguish between styles. What I’m called upon to describe always comes out in a jumble. It feels to me most like a tapestry…like any artist, it’s like taken anything [I’ve] ever encountered.
Ethan Lipton, who will perform Hopkins songs “Beyond and the Beyond” and “Easier to Love You,” has worked with the songwriter for years.
“When I saw Cynthia perform,” he says, “I recognized what a New York artist should be immediately. Her work is sublime and inexplicable, generous and weird, sad, funny and beautiful, smart and tough. I have no idea where it’s going and yet it feels completely inevitable. You could not instruct another human being in the craft of making Cynthia’s work.”
The idea of culmination—since this artist’s interests suggest a belief in the one-ness of all things, or that all points within the universe are equal—seems to promise that this spring will be exhilarating time for postmodern theater and music, with Cynthia Hopkins leading the way.
The Cynthia Hopkins Songbook
Mar. 27, Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (at Astor Pl.); 10, $20.
