Chuck Sweeney and David Maiocco bring their award-winning show, LEE SQUARED: An Evening with Liberace and Peggy Lee, to the Pilgrim House, Thursday, August 2- Saturday, August 4 @ 7pm. Chuck and David are each Bistro and MAC Award Winners, for Musical Direction and Outstanding Impersonation, respectively and jointly won the 2017 Bistro Award for LEE SQUARED in the category of Outstanding Musical Comedy Duo! As a team, they have created an evening of music and laughter, from the virtuoso playing of Liberace, to the sultry jazz and swing of Miss Peggy Lee.
1) So……Liberace AND Miss Peggy Lee in concert. How in the world did that ever materialize?
Chuck: The idea for the pairing was David’s. We were working together in Norwalk, CT, for a “Peggy” Christmas gig. He was musical directing the show and he started telling me about his desire to put together a Liberace show. For years he had been dreaming about it and he asked me if I would be willing to help him get it all going. I said sure, set a date and let’s get things in motion. That was December, 2014. In 2016, I get a call that a date was set for an April opening at The Bijou Theatre in beautiful downtown Bridgeport. After a mad rehearsal period, we put together the very first Lee Squared: An Evening with Liberace and Miss Peggy Lee! David came up with name as well. After a few performances at the Bijou, we were informed that the space was closing, so I started calling around different clubs in Manhattan. Joseph Macchia booked us at Metropolitan Room and we had quite a long run there.
David: My cabaret/tribute/impersonation career started as being Musical Director to the reasonable facsimile superstars like Tommy Femia as Judy Garland, James Beaman as Marlene Dietrich and Lauren Bacall, Richard Skipper as Carol Channing, Rick Skye as Liza and of course the brilliant Chuck Sweeney as Miss Peggy Lee. In the early 2000’s, fans and friends started hinting to me that I should try out a Liberace act. I went back and forth from “dream” to “fear” and more “fear,” but eventually the dream energy won out. Liberace is a very expensive character to portray as you cannot just pull his costumes from stock – they all have to be built, so financially, that held up production for about 16 years. Finally, the financing and the offer of being fully produced came around in 2016. My one stipulation for the project, was that it must be created with Chuck. I needed someone I trusted completely; funny, strong, talented and experienced to anchor and balance the act with me. Once the initially skeptical producers and financiers saw Chuck’s zany and brilliant Peggy, they knew I was right with my concept. I am so grateful that Chuck was willing to bring Peggy back from hiatus to co-create this show.
2) Is this your first time performing in Provincetown?
Chuck: No, actually I got my start in the business at the Pilgrim House in 1984. My first professional job was working with a man named Frank Massey who performed as “Gert, the waitress.” She was a Provincetown institution for many years. Andy Garcia and I were his back up/chorus boys. Frank “discovered” me in the Upstage Lounge of the Pilgrim House at an open mic hosted by Carol Neal. She was incredibly generous with her time and could play anything, in any key. She was amazing.
David: No, I played a show with a group of actors from the Boston Conservatory in the summer of 1988 in the front cabaret room of the Crown & Anchor called A Black-Tie Affair, which was really Fred Silver’s In Gay Company. We tanked! We were trying to appeal to the straight tourists as we had the dreaded 5pm slot, so we changed the name to soften it. It’s hard to believe that we actually had to do that, but the late ’80s was a very scary time; we’ve come so far in many ways. Needless to say, with our financially pitiful 5pm time slot, I earned my daily bread as a cashier at the Boatslip Gift Shop (there was one) during T-Dance and as a cocktail waiter for The Jimmy James Show in the back showroom of The Crown & Anchor. I’m hoping I don’t have to do that this time around. Waiting on people is truly an art and I don’t think I have it anymore, if I ever did.
3) What drew you to your characters, Peggy and Liberace?
Chuck: I was lucky enough to see Peggy Lee perform at The Ballroom in NYC, back in the winter of 1988. It was her 50th anniversary in show business and she was celebrating her career at that venue. It was a surreal experience. I remembered Peggy from TV shows like “Merv Griffin” and “Johnny Carson.” The sultry vision in yards of chiffon, feathers and honey-blonde paddle curls was replaced with a white satin caribou trimmed kimono, Elton John rhinestone sunglasses and a white Cleopatra wig. At first I thought we were being punked, but it was the one and only Peggy Lee. Her patter was loopy and demented, but her singing was phenomenal. I knew I had to put her into the act immediately.
David: I had the opposite experience of “surreal” than that of Chuck’s with Peggy. I was terrified and a little traumatized as a young piano playing boy seeing Liberace and watching him on TV thinking that I would have to one day become “that” crazy and flamboyant creation to ever be a successful piano playing rock star. Suffice it to say, that many gay years later, I kind of like it. Oddly enough, I was NEVER a Liberace fan until friends and colleagues starting hinting to me that I should give him a try and I did my research. In my music directing career, I truly watched the best of the best artists create their own visions of the iconic legends, so I had some pretty good training there and hell, I could play the piano, but not only play, I also play by ear so I am able to lift his exact arrangements without the printed music. Most of his arrangements aren’t available in print. He’s also a musical force to reckon with, yet a sweet and down home charming soul. I really love that! That’s probably my biggest draw to him.
4) How have audiences responded to your show?
Chuck: So far, we’ve had a pretty fantastic response. A lot people think Peggy and Liberace worked together, but they never did. They were in Vegas at the same time at different hotels. We want the audience to just go along for the ride, enjoy the music, the comedy and of course, the sequins, rhinestones and feathers!
David: It’s been pretty amazing so far. It was a true honor to be awarded a 2017 Bistro Award as well as a 2018 MAC Award nomination with our, as I like to call it, “Little Show that Could.” People who already know us both as artists have loved the chemistry, balance and the fun of our act. People who are seeing it for the first time truly enjoy the ride, exactly as Chuck described.
5) What do you think the appeal of your characters is to a younger audience? It’s not like a Cher or Lady Gaga tribute show…
Chuck: I’ve spoken with lots of audience members after our shows and the beauty of what we do transcends age. You have the musicality of David as Liberace and the weird and wonderful nuttiness of my character. Years ago I had someone say, ”I have no idea who Peggy Lee is, but you’re hysterical! You’re like a big gay muppet!” I was flattered and it made perfect sense to me. Our show has spurred people on to search YouTube for Liberace and Peggy Lee clips and they come back in awe.
David: My character’s appeal has the fortune of the recent HBO film Behind the Candelabra, which made “Lee” a reborn icon of sorts, mostly for the glitz and glitter, but there is an overall intrigue that I see come over the younger crowds’ faces as the show unfolds before their eyes. You truly don’t have to know anything about the real Peggy and Lee to enjoy the show. We incorporate some modern material done in the spunkiest way that two legends in their late 90’s can possibly muster and it proves to be crowd-pleasing for all ages. I get personal messages regularly from newbies to our characters, who truly do surf the net for clips of the real Peggy and Liberace after seeing our embodiments and in many instances, come back to the show and follow our schedule.
6) What’s next? What are your upcoming show?
Chuck: We are booked at The Cotuit Center for the Arts on August 30th. We are still lining up dates through the Fall. You can check our website www.leesquared.info
David: What he said. 😉
