Full speed ahead for Tyran

October 6: From producer to venue manager, performer and teacher, Sydney's Tyran Parke keeps himself incredibly busy. Somehow, he's found time to write a brand new cabaret show. TROY DODDS reports...

Tyran Parke sees his fair share of cabaret shows. As one of the forces behind the popular Statement Cabaret Lounge in Sydney, he has seen plenty of hits, a couple of misses and a few "what could have beens". On show nights, Parke manages to be everywhere - collecting money at the door, ensuring performers are happy, answering questions from the inquisitive people who just happen to stumble in from the street above and everything else that goes with the far-from-simple task of producing cabaret.

Later this month, however, Parke's role will be reversed when he takes to the Statement stage in his new show, Chinks in the Armour. If the promotional images for the show are anything to go by, this is far from your standard "I did this last Thursday" cabaret show.

"The show looks at all the different journeys I have been on in the form of separate quests," Parke explains.

"Some are small - the quest to fit in at a sports school or get the most amount of Star Wars figures or find the Heavy side Layer (I thought it was a REAL place!). And then there are others that are more consuming - the quest to find love, fulfilment, happiness - the stuff we all want but tend to look in the wrong places for."

Parke got a lot of his inspiration for the show while playing the lead role of George in a production of Sunday in the Park with George at the Q Theatre in Penrith earlier this year.

"In Sunday there was a lot about being true to yourself and pursuing the things you care about as well as understanding the legacies you leave behind," he said.

"As the season was nearing the end the line 'I just want to do something I care about' really resonated with me. I knew that the next thing I did I would create myself. In my previous show I was fairly naive and inexperienced; I really just did it because I was playing Rolf in The Sound of Music and wanted to raise my profile but I didn’t really have anything to say."

Parke said this show is more "theatrical" than the usual cabaret show.

"Someone once told me, cabaret audiences want blood," he said.

"This time around, I feel ready to reveal more of myself and I’ve had the added experience of seeing weekly cabaret at Statement and developing this show in America, so I’m pretty excited."

There is no doubt 2007 has been monumental for Parke: There was Sunday in the Park with George, then Listen To My Heart at Statement, followed by the workshop production of the new Australian musical The Hatpin. He then headed to Yale and develop this new show, and while in America managed to befriend Stephen Sondheim. It just happened to be at the peak of the Company disaster here in Australia, though Parke is coy on exactly what Sondheim may have said to him about the situation. He's more keen to talk about being discovered singing in a jazz bar by Liza Minelli, or meeting Bernadette Peters in an elevator. Fair enough, too.

So what's the next step for the man who seems to have an ability to be in two places at the same time on a constant basis?

"For now I’m just happy that there has been so much interest in this cabaret show," Parke said.

"I will definitely be taking a show to New York next year and I’m still working on a CD - I’ve been talking about that for a year but I have to get it done before I head back to the States or my producers will behead me. Or I might just take time out and breathe and contemplate the earth - but probably not, who’s got time for that? It’s doing fine without me!"

Chinks in the Armour plays at the Statement Cabaret Lounge on October 25 and November 3 and 10. Bookings: 136 100.