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[0:00] Jeryl Brunner: From Shakespeare to Schwartz, from Fawcett to Alvin Ailey, from Sondheim to Borrellis, from McNally to Fay, it happened to the greats, it still happens every day. When lightning strikes, it's the moment you know. When lightning strikes, where you're meant to go. You can stand and shout, Eureka, do whatever you like. You'll never forget the moment when lightning strikes.

[0:27] Jeryl Brunner: This is Jeryl Brunner and you're listening to When Lightning Strikes!. Neyla Pekarek is a two-time Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter, cellist, and former member of The Lumineers. Currently, she's channeling her gift for storytelling into original stage musicals, including Rattlesnake Kate and her newest work, The Queen of Magic. Now on Joy Machine Records, The Queen of Magic album is inspired by the remarkable life of pioneering magician Adelaide Herrmann, a contemporary of Harry Houdini. Adelaide Herrmann transformed the world of magic by reinventing the traditional 19th-century magic show into the dazzling theatrical spectacle audiences know today.

[1:46] Neyla Pekarek: Oh, my heart says, yes, I'll choose to go, nevertheless. Fearless. Craving success. Yearning. I'll do what it takes. I'll do whatever it takes. I'm fearless.

[2:17] Jeryl Brunner: Well, welcome.

[2:19] Neyla Pekarek: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

[2:21] Jeryl Brunner: Thanks so much for coming on. I think about your work as a storyteller and how you sit at the intersection of folk music and musical theater and history and storytelling and all kinds of genres of music. Why is that important to you?

[2:45] Neyla Pekarek: Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, I imagine a lot of musicians are that way, that they come from all kinds of different influences. But yeah, I certainly think the work I'm making right now is a culmination of all the things I've been involved in. In my musical history, I grew up a choir kid. I was a theater kid. I played cello growing up in school orchestra and that kind of thing. And I was really heavily involved and currently I'm heavily involved in barbershop quartets. And so that influences a lot of my songwriting in terms of chord structure and lush harmonies, really tight harmony parts. And then, of course, like my folk background, I think that always lends itself to storytelling. And so really that the music I'm making, I think, is an absolute kind of soup of all of that. And yeah, it's kind of I hope it creates something unique to what I do.

[3:36] Jeryl Brunner: And so what is it about barbershop that you love?

[3:39] Neyla Pekarek: I love that you love barbershop. Yeah, I am an absolute nut for it. I grew up involved because my high school choir teacher was a barbershopper and I used to nanny for his kids as he would go to competitions and I would get voice lessons in exchange and travel with their families and would go to these conventions and I got totally hooked on it. And it's partly the music for sure. I mean, the chord structure of barbershop are really satisfying cadences that one of the past times of barbershoppers is standing around singing tags, which is like the last four measures of a song. And they're just these really like juicy chords that it gets a little bit addictive and you teach them by ear. And I think it's nice for people who are kind of socially awkward because you're kind of hanging out with people. But you don't have to make a lot of small talk. You just jump into a tag together as an awkward kid. I think it really spoke to me. But also, yeah, the community aspect of it, that I've been going to these conventions since I was young, a young kid. And so now I when I attend these conventions almost every year, I'll go. And it's like a family reunion. And so it's partly the music and partly the friendship that's involved.

[4:44] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, that's so I love the harmonies of barbershop and how they complement each other. And it's you're right. It's so satisfying as a listener. Yeah, I'd love to talk about The Queen of Magic. So what inspired The Queen of Magic? And how would you describe The Queen of Magic?

[5:03] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, well, I cannot get enough stories about really brave, ambitious women and every time I just saw the new Toy Story movie and it's kind of centered around Jessie and she's this brave little cowgirl. And I just was so emotional watching it. So I'm always taken by a woman who's brave and ambitious and kind of lives outside the mold of what women are expected to do and be. And certainly these women from the past who are doing that. I think when it was a lot more challenging, they lived, you know, late 1800s, early 1900s. And, yeah, just she was ambitious from the get-go. She was sneaking out of her house as a young child to go to dance classes because she was so excited about perfecting her craft even as a young child. And that carried through into her adult life where she crafted these giant magic shows. And I think when she first started doing magic alongside her husband, Alexander Herrmann, who is an amazing magician, but he had these sort of sleight of hand parlor tricks. And she had the grand idea to put that with music and lights and costumes on this very grand scale that still informs what we do, you know, in Broadway shows now, in magic shows now. And so I love that kind of visionary aspect of her. But I found out about her through our sound designer on Rattlesnake Kate. His name is Ken Travis and he did all the sound design for Aladdin on Broadway and Memphis on Broadway. And so he has this kind of big vision in terms of what you can do magic-wise. And he just loves magic. And so he approached me during the run of Rattlesnake Kate that we did in Denver and said, you know, you should read this memoir about this awesome magician, see if it sparks anything for you. And sure enough, I got totally hooked on her. And songs were kind of cranked out immediately. And yeah, I just I always feel inspired by a woman that is just really dedicated to her craft and kind of relentlessly ambitious. And I think about the lyrics and the song titles. You know, you have "Fearless," you know, that she's it's never enough. You know, I let you know she's striving in this world, trying to make her mark.

[7:10] Jeryl Brunner: What do you adore about her? What are qualities that you just think make her so special?

[7:17] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, I think Adelaide Herrmann was just kind of a firecracker. You know, she was she wasn't super interested in people pleasing. And I think that's hard as a modern woman, but certainly a woman of that time period that, you know, she was really committed to seeing her vision through, even if she kind of stepped on people's toes and, you know, she had these big ambitious plans. And I also think her husband really loved that about her, which also is a very modern kind of romance that they had, that he really championed her and was like really admired her as a magician in her own right, as an artist in her own right. And they worked as partners. And I think that's super rare even today that, you know, men and women working as equals and but certainly over 100 years ago, I think that was probably a pretty unique dynamic. I just love that she at the end of the day had all this creativity that was pouring out of her. And she worked well into her 70s, continuing to reinvent herself and reinvent her show. And she just really had a lot to give in terms of creativity.

[8:20] Jeryl Brunner: And what is the dream for the project? Is it that you want to create a musical of The Queen of Magic? I know it's an EP now. How do you describe it?

[8:32] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, you know, with Rattlesnake Kate, I had made a concept album first and then that was turned into a big musical at the Denver Center that was a little bit more challenging because we ended up it was almost like a jukebox musical. We were taking existing material and trying to kind of create a story around it. And I ended up throwing out a ton of songs, writing about a dozen more, which is very standard for musical theater. But with this, we started with a musical in mind and I'm working with an amazing playwright, Gabrielle Mirabella is her name, which I feel like she's the perfect person to write a magic musical because her name sounds like a magical incantation. But we've been working together from the beginning, really creating a musical out of this. And so we have a draft ready to go. We've been submitting it to various theaters to try to get it on its feet. And my EP is kind of a way to both shine some light on the project and just for my own creative endeavor of recording these songs and putting them out in the world. And, you know, in musical theater, you can't really be precious about anything because so much stuff gets cut and it's all for the greater good of the project. And so this lets me kind of be precious about these five tunes and let them exist in the world, kind of filtered through my creative brain. But I feel very excited. You know, it's the kind of story that deserves the big stage. And so we hope to get it on its feet as a full bonafide musical. And these are just five tunes. I think there's about 20 in the show. So there's lots, lots more of this to come.

[9:54] Jeryl Brunner: And you have some wonderful collaborators performing with you. Do you want to talk about that in some of the songs?

[10:02] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, like, yeah. I had some incredible local folks here in Denver. Annie Booth plays piano on the record, and she was super integral and almost like a co-producer in helping me create the sound of this album. And she did all the string arrangements. And I don't know a whole lot about clarinets and trombones and horns and things like that, but I knew I wanted sonically that kind of sound. And, you know, hearing that first opening clarinet on "Fearless," I feel like immediately puts us into the right vibe of like, this is vaudevillian, this is show business-y kind of, you know, early 1900s. And so Annie was really integral, yeah, in creating all those arrangements for me. And I was really excited to collaborate with Mary Kate Morrissey of Wicked fame. She's just incredible. And she did our very first reading of Rattlesnake Kate and then ended up, you know, of course, booking Elphaba on Broadway. And so I understood why she took that instead. But we remained friends and she's such an incredibly talented person, but more importantly, just down to earth and an awesome human. And so I managed to get her in the studio to record "Never Enough," which is this kind of badass sister duet where there's lyrics like, "gnaw my corset off with my teeth" and "smashing teeth ups" and kind of, you know, women just shaking off the confines of especially the Victorian period of what was expected of women. So to have Mary Kate Morrissey come in and just belting her face off, that was so thrilling. And she did an incredible performance on the record.

[11:36] Neyla Pekarek: ♪ Musical number: "Never Enough" — performed by Neyla Pekarek and Mary Kate Morrissey ♪

[13:00] Neyla Pekarek: You know a lot of collective memory while some people like Houdini become legends. It's a great question of why. You know some people stand the test of time and others don't and even still, it's you know we don't always imagine magicians as women but what I found out as I researched this project is Adelaide is one of many, many, many female magicians and I've been doing these vaudevillian shows to go along with the release of my EP and I had one in Denver and I hired this awesome local magician Erica Sotos and she did a talk at the library that I went to about women in the history of magic and there have been just as many women doing this as long as there have been men doing this and these clubs and societies and things that were really separated gender-wise. And so Adelaide, you know she was certainly a trailblazer in the field and more visible at least at the time but yeah she's totally been forgotten and I do think it's an art form that is more stereotypically male in terms of the public persona but there's so many women doing magic currently and have been and so I hope to shine a light on some of that because it just feels important that you know there are spaces in these kind of niche worlds. Barbershop is the same that you know a lot of people are like oh I didn't know there were women's barbershop quartets but there have been women's barbershop quartets since the 1940s and in terms of like an organized kind of competitions and things like that and so I really I've drawn a lot of parallels of kind of women in this niche barbershop world to the magic world as well and you know and beyond the specific crafts that are at hand here in terms of magic I think it's applicable to a lot of women in fields that feel really dominated by men and that there's room and space and interest for all kinds of genders.

[14:50] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, that's so wonderful. How has your relationship with magic changed since working?

[14:56] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, I didn't I didn't know a whole lot about

[15:00] Neyla Pekarek: Honestly, yeah, I didn't know a whole lot about the craft itself. And I think again, in the parallels of barbershop world where I'm such a like, it's such a nerdy niche thing. I think magic is a little bit the same that the people who are into it are so into it. And I love that. I love anybody who's like very committed to a craft. And I'm very excited, you know, in terms of as we think about this on a grand scale, how to bring these magic tricks to life on stage. And it's right now in the script, you know, then they do this kind of trick. And my writing partner, and I've done a lot more research in terms of what that looks like. But that's above our pay grade. So hopefully someone else will figure it out. But I think it'll be a unique casting situation, because I think some of our actors will have to perform some magic on stage. And there might be like a magic camp that we'll all go to before the production. But yeah, I think I think, you know, magic is such an interesting thing, the escape of it, you know, as all entertainment can be this really cool thing to just kind of escape into and the illusion of everything. And a lot of the tricks that they were doing, at the real height of magic, you know, when Houdini and Adelaide were doing this, those tricks are still applicable today that a lot of the illusions they were doing at that time, and the things they figured out, they're still using in like big magic shows in Vegas today. So that's kind of cool to think about.

[16:20] Jeryl Brunner: It's amazing. I'd love to know about your lightning strikes moment. You know, when you knew you had to be an artist. I read that you were a cellist since you were a child. And when you knew you could sing and write songs. I'll let you tell me.

[16:34] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, I am. I would describe myself as a pretty shy kid. I knew from a pretty early age that I like knew how to sing. We had a piano in the house growing up. And my sister took lessons and she would sometimes play and I would sing. But anytime, you know, my mom was always trying to show me off to the neighbors or her friends, and I would just cower away. And I didn't want to tell anybody or do it in front of anyone. And yeah, I started playing the cello in elementary school. And I think orchestra in general, orchestra kids that gravitate to that tend to be pretty introverted. And you spend a lot of time in a practice room. And it's, you know, you take it really seriously. I think there's kind of a seriousness to orchestra kids. And then in high school, I had an amazing choir teacher, the same one that took me to the barbershop conventions. And he really got me out of my shell where I just started, you know, he understood that I was a good singer. I think he said on maybe the first day of high school, I was about 14 years old, and I said, I want to take voice lessons. And so I think I had that kind of ambitious fuel to really get good at my craft. And it was about maybe my junior year that I finally had a big solo in front of everybody at the choir concert and just kind of belted to the back of the room and knew that was the life for me. But and same thing, I had an amazing drama teacher in high school. And I was really fortunate to have, you know, a really good performing arts program and great teachers that really cared and nurtured that. And yeah, I just felt like I was that was where I needed to be, you know, when I went to school. It was always I always looked forward to the times a day that I had choir class or drama class. And yeah, I didn't I didn't feel like I was very good at anything else. So yeah, really, it brought me a lot of joy and found my tribe for sure, in terms of the other drama kids and choir kids that I gravitated to. And I continue to be that way in my adult life that so many of my friends are also artists and weirdos. And I think you kind of find your chosen family in that world.

[18:38] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, and this was in Colorado, right? You grew up in Colorado?

[18:44] Neyla Pekarek: It was in Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in Colorado.

[18:48] Jeryl Brunner: And how did it? How did it? And how does it make you feel when you're on stage? Or when you're creating?

[18:54] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, in terms of live performance, I always describe it as like, when you're waiting in line for a roller coaster. And, you know, you're kind of waiting there, like, why did I decide to do this? You're so nervous. And then you get on a blast. And it's so fun. And once I'm on stage, I'm never nervous. And, you know, the aftermath of like the adrenaline, it's just that it's really incomparable that it feels so good to have the accomplishment of having been on stage and the adrenaline of the audience and connecting in that way. It's really a gift to be able to do something like that, because I think it's a really unique experience. And in terms of writing, I mean, so much of that comes from, you know, it can be therapeutic for me at times, if I'm working through something. And it's so nice to kind of be immersed in storytelling in terms of musical theater, because I often am telling someone else's story, but you can kind of hide your own experiences in there. And it feels like less vulnerable than, you know, someone like Taylor Swift, who kind of bears her heart and personal stories all the time. But I think this is nice, because you can kind of do the same thing, but sneak it in through the lens of someone else's narrative. But yeah, and I find, you know, that creative flow is such a, it's a euphoric state to be in. And those are the kind of days when I'm, you know, really immersed in a song, and I can't put it down until it's done. And, you know, my partner will come home from work and say, did you eat today? And you got lost in the flow. So I think it's such a cool thing to get to experience.

[20:26] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, because I was going to ask, I mean, when, you know, you made the shift into musical theater, and what inspired that, the change, you know, of saying, okay, I want to write for the stage, make it even more three dimensional.

[20:46] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, I think it's true to who I am, you know, like, that I grew up in school for me. It was just a couple weeks after I graduated college that I ended up being in a band that ended up being the Lumineers. And it was a cool experience, and especially a cool thing to do. And he's lucky that I stumbled into it, but it never felt like home to me. The lore is true that I graduated college, and just like a couple weeks after, I answered a Craigslist ad for a folk band that was looking for a cellist. And I had never been in a band before. A lot of my friends were in bands and that kind of thing, but it was super out of my comfort zone. And I ended up meeting these guys that had just moved to Denver from New Jersey, and they were just kind of looking for a cheaper place to live and make music and tour. And I had just gotten a teaching degree and didn't have a teaching job yet. And I thought this will be fun in the meantime to pass the time. That was 2010. And by 2012, we were nominated for a Grammy and touring the world, and things just really blew up for us fast. And, you know, talk about lightning in a bottle kind of moments where it just felt like the preparation meets opportunity really came together. The music industry was just really craving that, like, folky Americana sound that we were making. And we were also just willing to say yes to absolutely everything. And it was such an awesome thing to get to experience as a young person, you know, in my 20s and into my 30s. But I did know that I felt a little bit like a visitor in that world. It didn't feel like home to me. And I wasn't really involved in the writing in the band. There wasn't a lot of room for that kind of creative part. And I just felt ready to kind of branch out and write my own songs. And I knew in my heart that I was a theater kid. And as I've made the switch into that world, and even promoting my record and doing interviews like this, I find, like, oh, I'm so much more at home in this world and the kind of collaborators I've come across. And I think in the music industry world, it's very, like, it can be very, like, cool. There's not a lot of room for, like, earnest personalities. And certainly in my band, I felt like it was like, don't get too excited about anything. Like, we got to be cool. We got to, you know, stay kind of calm. And I'm a theater kid, and I'm very silly. And I just feel like when I was doing my production of Rattlesnake Kate, my dad made a comment about, like, this is totally where you belong. And the bonds that you kind of have in theater, the friendships that you make, and the creative aspect of it, that there's just, there's no room really to be too cool for school in the theater world. And so I really, I do feel at home kind of creating musicals and storytelling in that way.

[23:24] Jeryl Brunner: Somebody said to me just recently, we're all misfits. The most glorious and joyful misfits. Do you remember some of your early theater going that really helped pave the way for you to say, oh, I'm a theater kid?

[23:41] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we didn't grow up with a lot of money, but my parents really made an effort to get us out to cultural things as kids, the symphony and the theater. And the Denver Center that I ended up putting my show on as an adult, that was where I fell in love with theater and seeing a lot of the tours that came through, you know, Rent and Les Mis and Cats and all the classics. And as a thespian in high school, we did a big theater trip and we got to see six or seven Broadway shows. We saw Phantom and we saw Cabaret at that time. I remember Neil Patrick Harris was the emcee and it was just the coolest. And that show felt really influential to me. I really feel lucky that I got that experience to be able to see theater and it's not accessible to everybody. So I love when I see ways that people are trying to make theater more accessible, especially to people who can't afford it, because I was totally in that category. And my family and my school really found ways to make that happen.

[25:04] Jeryl Brunner: That's why I also love that you're making albums, you know, and whet our appetites and want more. And that, you know, I think about how Hadestown started out as an album that was toured all over. And do you ever see yourself be in the shows? Because you have such a beautiful voice.

[25:15] Neyla Pekarek: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I ended up being in Rattlesnake Kate, which was so fun to get to be in the show. I'm not sure that I'll be in Queen of Magic, but yeah, I do. I try to perform as much as I can. And certainly nowadays that, you know, actor musician stuff is becoming so much more in vogue. I've done a couple productions here in town. There was one of Great Comet that was done at the Arvada Center, and I was in that. And Ghost Quartet, I feel like Dave Malloy shows are right in my wheelhouse in terms of playing cello and singing and the actor musician kind of track. So I'm sure I'll do once at some point. I'm like, I'm a Czech folk singer that plays the cello, which feels like that's exactly that role. Don't even call Central Casting. Yeah, waiting for that.

[25:46] Jeryl Brunner: Who are you in Great Comet?

[25:48] Neyla Pekarek: I was Princess Mary. Yeah, it was super fun. And I was it was also exciting because the score is so challenging. And I was really intimidated going in. You know, I always describe myself as more of like a rock and roll cellist. And so real, you know, pit parts. But through an amazing music director here in town, his name is David Nels. He really nurtured and was patient and, you know, was really helpful in terms of trying to try to help me through playing the parts. And I really felt like I was almost a pit player as much as I was an actor in the show. And from there, I've actually done more pit gigs in town at times. I did the pit for Waitress at the Arvada Center and a production of Spelling Bee and some other ones. So depending on time and just sort of brain space, it's been kind of a fun way to get my cello chops up.

[26:34] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, God, you're really immersed, you know, in 360, you know, in a parallel world. Is there something you wish you could ask Adelaide or say to her?

[26:42] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, I guess just the what kind of help made her keep reinventing herself, because I think it's so easy to not do this. You know, it's a really hard decision to become a full time artist, and it can be really disheartening. And, you know, hopefully there's, it's just a lot of high highs and low lows. And so it's, I feel curious what kind of kept her moving, you know, well into her 70s to keep reinventing and to keep creating. And what was her driving force in that way? Because there are many days I think like, it'd be nice to maybe just do something a little easier and consistent, but I do feel like in my heart, that's that's not who I am. And so I feel curious what her driving force was.

[27:34] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, what do you think you would tell that young kid who's just starting to play the cello or being pushed out there to perform in front of the neighbors? Or you know, what do you what would you like to tell that kid?

[27:43] Neyla Pekarek: Yeah, I think that this is a feasible job. I think that was so much too. It's a really rewarding experience. And it requires so much hard work, but I don't really think that was ever an issue for me. I was always willing to work hard and that I think it can be such it's such a rewarding field to be in. And, and also just kind of being being your own boss is really an amazing, an amazing thing. I remember I was student teaching my last year of college, and I was living at home and my dad was a mailman for 40 years. And we were up early in the morning together drinking coffee, and I both just kind of miserable to have to be up so early. And he said, you got to find a job where you don't have to do this, because you're not built for it. He was correct. And so I appreciate that he did the hard work of putting food on the table being a mailman so that I could go and write musicals and live my best life. So I appreciate that.

[28:40] Jeryl Brunner: So what is your dream for the Queen of Magic?

[28:43] Neyla Pekarek: I hope that it becomes a big bona fide musical. I would love to get this thing on stage and in a way that we get the story out to as many people as can see it, whatever that means. Of course, we always want to want to be in New York on Broadway. But I think if this story can can reach as many folks as possible, I'm doing two more vaudevillian extravaganzas is what I'm calling them. There's one in New York on August 13, and one in LA on August 27. And tickets are on sale for both of those right now.

[29:09] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, is that a concert or a concert?

[29:10] Neyla Pekarek: I'll play all five songs from the album with a band. And then I have a magician on both of them. I have a barbershop quartet on both of them, jugglers, all kinds of vaudevillian performers. So I'm hoping it to feel kind of like Adelaide's show that she was doing. Oh, yeah, like a 90 minute to two hour experience with lots of different variety acts. I even think about after we have our production, hopefully that I think about this being like in a high school production, how cool that could be for young people to get to perform this story and, and perform new stories. I think there's so many reboots and things of movies that we've seen. And so to create a totally new story that nobody knows, I think it's such a cool thing to get to do. With such a powerful woman. And what do you hope people come away from after listening?

[30:00] Neyla Pekarek: I think this is really a show and an album that's a love letter to craft. And it's a love letter to kind of finding that creative spark, whatever that is for people and to keep reinventing yourself and to keep striving for what brings you joy and creativity, regardless of age or circumstances. And I feel really inspired at the idea of having a creative life for your whole life. That's beautiful. Well, thank you so much. It's such a joy to meet you and I can't wait to experience more of your work. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye.

[30:44] Jeryl Brunner: The theme song was written by Tom McGovern. This episode was produced by Alice Stroud.