This artist’s folk-punk show is taking place in Brooklyn, NY on the weekend of August 23rd and 24th.
Folk-punk artist and acclaimed Broadway performer Déa Thatcher is performing a new show this coming weekend with her supporting band, The Drips. Thatcher is currently performing as an opener for CABARET at the Kit Kat Club, the newest Broadway revival of the world-famous Kander & Ebb musical. We recently got an opportunity to interview Thatcher, and here’s what we found out!
So, first of all, what is the overall meaning and message behind your folk-punk show, TransVolution?
Hi! thanks for these gorgeous questions and for taking the time to listen to the music!
The meaning? TransVolution is transgender evolution. It’s a set of songs I wrote over the early stages of my social, emotional, and physical transition. I would wake up in the wee hours of a Brooklyn morning with a heavy heart from body dysphoria, confusion, or depression… I’d pick up the guitar and sing my way out of a spiral. I’d comfort my inner child by making something beautiful out of the grief.
TransVolution is also transgender revolution. I would wake up knowing that around the world, in occupied Palestine and beyond, trans siblings were (and are) fighting for their lives. I’d write a song as a way of reminding myself not to give up on the fallen, to not be complacent in the movement to end oppression against people.
The message? Dear listener: Be yourself, baby. I am here to see you show up and thrive. Dear stranger: What gives you the impulse to question my existence? Stop that.
I want to humanize my experience, a transfemme individual who feels real feelings, real joys, real sorrows… Just like you, dear reader.
I understand that there’s a specific political bent to TransVolution, as all things are inherently political (as much as that always stings to say). As a fairly well-versed trans nonbinary individual myself, what can I hope to learn from this show and the music within it?
I hope that you learn another something about yourself. The project’s creative director and curator, Pauli Pontrelli, will often ask our audiences to lean into what moves them individually. Is there a lyric that gets you thinking? A melody that gets you singing? A beat that gets you dancing? Lean in.
Something I hope that you learn from the set is that it’s okay to resist <3 I want you to leave the room feeling empowered to resist norms that don’t feel normal, be it gender roles, political values, social conditions, violence as justice/punishment, and/or the many other forms of oppressive tactics that the USA justifies.
What is it like acting as the opener for a full-on Broadway musical? What kinds of nerves do you have to fight back against during your performance?
I used to walk around Midtown Manhattan as a young person just yearning to perform on Broadway. I really had no idea what it would feel like, what it would take, what let-downs and complications would come along with it… Landing this gig was twenty years in the making. Now that this is where I am, it really is a job. I push my body, mind, and soul to show up even on rainy days because, honey, it’s expensive to live in NYC, and I need to pay rent every time the month ends. I will say it is thrilling because my trans mother is leading the music team right now, and my bandmates and castmates are absolutely fierce at what they do, so meeting the moment every show is incredible.
I have a lot of nerves to fight off! I got followed to work the other day, all the way to the stage door! That makes me nervous as hell to then paint my face, put on my dress, go out in front of the crowd, and personify my queerness. I have to fight back against what I think the audience is perceiving, what they think of me and/or what they want to do to me. Pauli taught me to “mind my business” while performing, and so that helps me forget the nerves, forget the intrusive thoughts. Just me minding my business and playing as best I can.
I was recently informed that your Fender Telecaster was a gift from Orville Peck, one of the previous Emcees of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club. Would you be willing to tell me more about how that came about? What was it like meeting Peck, and how did he come to give you such an amazing gift?
OP is an absolutely radiant human, let me just start by saying that. He doesn’t know that I am telling this story, but to me it’s kinda like a version of Queer lineage, so I will give you the highlights…
I was looking around town for my first electric guitar. I didn’t know where to start, and I wanted to have a distinct sound, like the way I know that Laura Jane Grace plays a Rickenbacker… I was describing this to Orville, and he talked about how he loves a clean Telecaster. I thought that sounded like a solid place to start, considering Johnny Greenwood (Radiohead) and Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney)… So I was excited about the suggestion. 3 days later, I’m doing my eye makeup in the dressing room, and in walks OP with a box. It’s a brand new tele. I had to start the eye makeup over from the beginning after he hugged me and said it’s mine to keep. Orville is a very generous human, and he is for the dolls.
If you could perform your original music at any caliber of venue to a full audience, how big or how small would you want the venue’s capacity to be, and why?
TransVolution started as a performance for a few friends in a living room, and I would love more of that. The intimacy and casualness of the setting felt so right, people could let their guard down and not think about being “in public”. I’d also love to be booked at a venue like Brooklyn Paramount or Webster Hall… Intimate but big and sophisticated. I want the community to come out and claim space! I want to celebrate trans people in public, on stages that are recognized and established! And the ambitious pop girl in me wants to play summer stages like Forest Hills or Gov Ball, for the thrill!
Which five performers most influenced your opening performance at Cabaret’s revival? Which five most influenced your music for TransVolution?
Cabaret: We were really encouraged by the directors to create our own performance! So I’m influenced by the girl who I’ve always been but was too shy/nervous/confused to embody. I’m influenced by Hambo, an accordionist from the Weimar era, who performed in clubs, presumably a trancestor! Maeve Stier, the OG Prologue accordionist! One of the great accordionists in NYC today, Ira Temple, who I work with at Cabaret. And for the punk cabaret of it all, I’ll wrap with Amanda Palmer.
Transvolution: Patti Smith, Ezra Furman, Tracy Chapman, Joan Armatrading, Laura Jane Grace
At the end of TransVolution, if you deem it a success in achieving its presumed goals of community and activism, do you foresee doing a show like it again? How soon and how often would you want to perform again in that capacity, if so?
Absolutely! We are recording the project as an album in the fall and have ambitions to tour. I’ve already written the second album for Déa and the Drips, so we’ll start that in the new year! Otherwise, I am committed to creating art that heals, that grows, that activates, and that reminds people of our shared humanity — the shared experience of needing air, water, and shelter to survive. More living room shows, more local shows, more regional shows!
What are your plans once Cabaret wraps and once TransVolution has ended? Are there any projects soon thereafter that you wish to pursue?
Rest! Caring for my body and continued healing! But really, I have so much creative ambition, sometimes too much for my own good.. A few of the projects include a musical-ballet fusion piece based on the “Hunt of the Unicorn” tapestries and a trans coming-of-age musical based on R.M. Rilke texts.
Additionally, I am dedicated to the pursuit of a free Palestine and the end of mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex as we know it.
A huge thank-you to Déa Thatcher for allowing us to conduct this interview! You can check out Déa and the Drips perform TransVolution at 7:15 PM on August 23rd and 24th at 24 Marcy Ave in Brooklyn, NY.
