SCN Caberet: Musical Memories & Anecdotes with Sue Bilch & Paullette McDougal

My father has a phrase for it in his beautiful poem: “Music brings memories.” Yes, indeed it does. Working from that premise, Sue Bilch and Paullette McDougal presented a thrilling cabaret performance for the Story Circle Network Saturday luncheon.

It occurred to me during the performance, as I listened, enjoyed, and looked around the room, that Texas allows for Bigness. Texas is comfortable with flamboyance…of dress, speech, and gesture.

MUSICAL WRITING PROMPTS

But, who could write? Their performances were so mesmerizing…and their well-trained voices such a pleasure to listen to, we all sat totally enthralled, munching out cookies.

When the first prompt of “When did you first decide to write and why?” was followed by the lyrics, “If they asked you, I could write a book,” I just burst into hearty laughter. “We could write a sonnet on how we met…how to make book lovers of friends.”

#2 “My Favorite Things”–What are your favorite things?

#3 Lyric: “Memory all alone in the moonlight” Prompt: Search memory when the muse has escaped through the left ear.

#4 “Sun in the morning and Moon at Night”; Prompt: When you first got married. Things you had and didn’t have. Were you satisfied (at the time)?

#5 “My Man” ; Prompt: Men in our lives

#6 “September” ; Prompt: place…time fleeting and passing.

#7 “Lidia: the Tatooed Lady”; Prompt: Who are freaks? What is the circus?

#8 “Broadway Baby”; prompt: How many of you wanted to be on stage? Or: Write about your time on stage. What does it mean to be “on stage”? What does it mean to be in the limelight?