A Conversation with Travis Moser

On recording Sondheim and the art of cabaret

It was really great to meet cabaret, concert, and recording artist Travis Moser recently. In 2020, Travis released his EP, So Many People: The Sondheim Sessions, and a second all-Sondheim volume is now in the works. I loved finding out more about these projects, about Travis’s relationship with Sondheim’s body of work, and about the art of cabaret more generally. Our conversation begins below:

It’s really good to meet you. I’d love to start by asking about your first all-Sondheim EP, So Many People: The Sondheim Sessions, which you released back in 2020. How did that project come about?

My musical director Drew Wutke and I had been working on a Sondheim show, because I'd never done one. I’d done Rodgers & Hart, I’d done Linda Ronstadt, but we had never done a Sondheim show, and so we were working on brand new arrangements. And then when the pandemic hit, that was put on hold. But we were looking at some of the songs and I was like, “This would be great to record.” One of my idols, and someone that I grew up loving, is the cabaret singer Julie Wilson. She recorded all of these albums with just her and her pianist, who she was really close to and did all her shows with. She has a great Sondheim album herself, and I wanted to do something in that same vibe of a Julie Wilson cabaret: a pianist and singer that have a really close working and personal relationship.

And it was the pandemic. We put the show on hold, obviously. I wanted to do an EP that told the story of how I was feeling about the pandemic through the lens of Sondheim songs. Besides being a cabaret and recording artist and concert artist, I also work for Broadway advertising and marketing during the day. During the day, I'm working with Broadway producers, and then at night, I'm singing songs and singing in cabarets. So I started with “Broadway Baby,” because I’m pounding 42nd Street, and then it just goes through the emotions of knowing that not only is performing and Broadway my passion, but it's also my livelihood as well. So it's “What Can You Lose?” and “Good Thing Going,” through to “So Many People,” where in the pandemic so many of us found that all we had were these relationships and these connections, and how important that was. And then ending with “I'm Still Here.” The EP got good reviews, but some people said I was too young to sing “I'm Still Here.” But honestly, it was written for someone that was around 40-ish years old. So that's the impetus of how we started that. We were working on the show, the pandemic happened, and it was like, “Let's choose a small list of songs that can tell my story or my perspective of what's going on during this crazy time.”

And then right after the pandemic, we were one of the first acts asked to open up The Green Room 42, which is a cabaret space here in New York City. And I needed a show that was completely ready, so we did Still Within the Sound of My Voice, the Linda Ronstadt show that I had worked on. Linda Ronstadt had never really recorded or performed any Sondheim. But because our EP had just come out eight months before that, my music director did an arrangement of “What Can You Lose?” as if Linda Ronstadt were singing it. It's an arrangement of that song in that Southern California country pop style. So we did end up being able to incorporate one of the Sondheim songs from the EP into that show—because I always incorporate Sondheim, no matter what show I'm doing.

But because of how fast things moved once things started opening up, we didn't have a chance to work on the Sondheim show. So right now I'm working on volume two of the album, and then we'll finally get around to doing the Sondheim-only show, so that's the plan and the goal here.

And as you're thinking about which songs to choose for volume two, is your approach similar in the sense that you're thinking about where you are at this specific time, in 2024?

Yeah, definitely. We're putting the list together now. We're rehearsing and recording different songs and whatnot. Beyond the pandemic, a lot has happened for me personally and professionally over the last year or so, so it's all of the songs that are speaking to me now in terms of what I thought was important and what I feel is important now. I will say that one of the songs on it is “Anyone Can Whistle,” which is one of my favorite Sondheim songs. And it's a duet version that I've done.

Most recently, I did a show called Someday Soon: The Songs of Judy Collins, and Judy Collins obviously has had a long history of personal and working relationships with Stephen Sondheim. She recorded “Send in the Clowns” and gave him his first Grammy and number one song, so in my Judy Collins show, I have a whole Sondheim section. She recorded a television special and a whole album, A Love Letter to Stephen Sondheim. One of her favorite Sondheim songs is “Anyone Can Whistle,” as well as mine. That duet is going to be on the album, and it’s going to be with someone really exciting that I don't want to reveal just yet. But in the first iteration of Someday Soon, my duet partner was Judy Kaye, who's a Tony winner, most recently for Nice Work If You Can Get It and Phantom of the Opera, and she has a long history of Sondheim herself. And then most recently, I did the show again at Green Room 42, and Melissa Errico sang “Send in the Clowns,” and we duetted together on “Anyone Can Whistle.”

And “Anyone Can Whistle” is one of the Sondheim songs that I love the most, that I feel most connected to, because I feel like that in my life. I feel like the things that are easy in the way that they work for everybody else are never the way it works for me, and I never think that anything anybody does in the normal way is easy. So that song has a special place in my heart, and I really love this duet version that Drew, my musical director, has created. One of the themes of the album is the fact that the older I get, the less I know—and so that's why “Anyone Can Whistle” is definitely going to be included there.

I'm really interested in the art of cabaret performing and concert work. I’d love to know what you think about the craft in general, and also to learn about your own route into it—because I imagine the first time you stand up and do that, it’s quite a nerve-wracking thing.

Absolutely. I hold the art of cabaret in such high regard. I grew up in a really small rural town, nowhere near New York City: Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. And I remember in the 90s and early 2000s, they would release a lot of these cabaret performers’ CDs, like Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner. And yes, they'd been on Broadway, but they were really cabaret albums where there would be such an eclectic mix of Broadway, pop, country, and these new cabaret arrangements. So I grew up really idolizing people like Julie Wilson, like Elaine Stritch, who got into cabaret a lot later in her career.

And to me, it's one of the things that really encapsulated what New York nightlife was, because there are so few places in the country or in the world where you have that cabaret scene. Chicago, New York, London, a little tiny bit in L.A., but it's specifically such a New York thing: The Carlyle, Joe's Pub, Green Room 42, 54 Below… And so I grew up really idolizing that and wanting to experience that, even more so than Broadway. Someone that can craft a good cabaret show, it's almost like a standup act in that you're being you and you're being super vulnerable, and you're talking to the audience and really sharing yourself raw to a small group of people. And I like that.

For all of my shows, I have an outline or a format of what I'm going to talk about, or a theme, but I don't script anything down to the wire. I don't have a script. I don't have something that I say specifically every night. So to me, I want it to feel like it's a party, a gathering. I'm the host at this intimate setting, and I'm having a real conversation with you and I'm really sharing what I love about these songs, what I love about the songwriter, stories about my life, why they mean something to me. I've always idolized cabaret in particular, so being able to get to do it is a dream come true for me. There's a book that James Gavin wrote all about the cabaret scene in New York in the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies; and Bobby Short, who performed at The Carlyle, has always been an idol.

So to me, you're really sharing yourself and you're really laying yourself open for the audience—and that can be really scary. You can't hide behind a character. You're truly being you. And with cabaret, there's always a through-line. I feel like it's more intimate than other concerts. The audience is expecting in a cabaret setting to hear about you and why you resonate with what you're performing. I love that and I enjoy that, as scary as it can be.

Do you remember the first time you took that leap and did a full cabaret show?

Yeah. The first cabaret venue I ever performed at was the Laurie Beechman Theatre, which is on 42nd Street here in Manhattan. It's a legendary club. It’s the last place Joan Rivers performed before she died, and they get everything from Broadway performers to cabaret performers to drag queens. The show was called Feels Like Home, and it was a mix of what brought me to New York and the songs I love. It was a mix of stuff from Parade, Randy Newman songs, things from Children of Eden, just a really eclectic mix. And it was so exciting. It was right on 42nd Street, right in Times Square. I had a lot of family and friends come in for it. Especially in a venue like that, you feel like you're just shot out of a cannon, because it's such a small space. You can see every face in the crowd.

At a lot of these venues, there's no dressing room to speak of. At the Laurie Beechman, you're behind a curtain in a tiny little closet waiting to come out, and you can hear the audience. So I just remember it like literally being shot out of a cannon. The hour and 20 minutes went by, and it felt like two seconds. But I remember that like it was yesterday, and I loved it just as much as I hoped I would. My big struggle in life is I want people to really know and understand me, and I feel like cabaret allows for that kind of connection with the audience. After doing that first set of shows, that was where I really wanted to put my focus, into cabaret and recording. So I usually do a cycle of recording an album or a single or an EP, and then doing a show to follow that.

And Sondheim’s work is clearly so meaningful to you. I’d love to know how you first discovered it, particularly with the very rural upbringing you mentioned.

Yeah. Like a lot of people, especially in the States, around sixth or seventh grade I saw the filmed Into the Woods and the filmed Sunday in the Park with George on PBS. That was my first foray into that. And then in seventh grade, in my high school musical, I was cast as Jack in Into the Woods, so that solidified the obsession with Sondheim. And the year after I did it in high school, I saw Leslie Uggams as the Witch in Into the Woods at Pittsburgh CLO. And so the trifecta of seeing the original Broadway cast filmed in the original Broadway production, doing the role of Jack in high school, and then seeing Tony winner Leslie Uggams as the Witch at a professional theater company really solidified it for me. That was my entryway.

And then from there, I would always go to Barnes & Noble and to record stores, CD stores, to seek out any and everything Sondheim, everything from Pacific Overtures to even The Frogs and stuff like that. I would be obsessed with finding these albums, and then reading the liner notes and listening to all of them and going from there. And then I went to Point Park University for musical theatre. My voice teacher was in the original cast of Pacific Overtures, so I heard stories from him about the out-of-town process and the changes and whatnot. So it's been a progressive obsession since that original PBS filmed version of Into the Woods.

There’s been such an outpouring of love for Sondheim’s work in the three years since his death, and we’ve seen a number of very important large-scale productions in that time. I wondered, as someone who’s immersed in the cabaret world too, have you experienced something similar in that space?

To be honest with you, especially working in the Broadway industry, I've noticed a huge influx in all kinds of different productions of his work everywhere, whether it be full-scale or black box type productions. Algonquin Playhouse is doing A Little Night Music, and of course the Merrily revival on Broadway, and all this other stuff. But I haven't, to be honest, noticed as much of an influx in cabaret. And I think one of the reasons for that is the fact that the cabaret world has always been carrying that torch of Sondheim. It’s almost like the cabaret world is a little resentful that they’ve been carrying that torch for all these years, before these shows were as commercially viable as they have been more recently. So I've noticed that the full-scale productions in regional theaters and on Broadway have had a huge influx, and less so in the cabaret world, where a lot of the cabaret world is going toward cabaret or theater versions of more currently popular songs. So I'm here to bring back Sondheim to cabaret!

And other than working on the next disc, are there upcoming projects and events that you'd like people to know about?

Sondheim-wise, I'm working on the second volume of this album. And then after that's completed, I'm looking to do that Sondheim-specific show, starting at City Winery in New York, over the next few months. We don't have the dates pinned down yet, because I want to make sure the EP is in a really good place before we do that. So yeah, it'll be the second volume of The Sondheim Sessions, and then a show encompassing all of those Sondheim songs. It'll be all these brand new arrangements, and my duet version, with a very special guest, of “Anyone Can Whistle.” And then it will also include songs that Sondheim wished he had written, and composers he admired too.

You can visit Travis’s website by clicking here.