From left: Dani Brady, Khnemu Menu-Rah, Jill Waycie (on piano) and Jean E. Mueller-Burr in 3 Stages of Love. (Photo by Maria Burnham/For Ghostlight Ensemble)
Starting this week Ghostlight Ensemble will be embracing all that love has to offer — not just with Valentine’s Day — but with the second installment of its three-part cabaret 3 Stages of Love: Simple Love/Unperfect Actor.
Created by Ensemble Member Khnemu Menu-Ra, Simple Love is a coming of age while emotionally stunted story that asks, “if life and love may never be easy...surely, they can be simple?”
The semi-autobiographical work features a blend of Shakespeare and song, as well as original pieces all focused on love.
The show creates a “rich, reflective experience about the extraordinary power of love in all its many highs and lows,” Menu-Ra says.
3 Stages of Love: Simple Love/Unperfect Actor will run three Fridays in February starting this Friday at 8 p.m. in the upstairs space at Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro.
It is devised and performed by Khnemu Menu-Ra with Dani Brady and Jean E. Mueller-Burr. Music by Ellis Douglas on guitar and Jill Waycie on pianoWaycie on piano.. It is a cabaret, so dining and drinking are encouraged as part of the experience. Food and drink are available to order from Mrs. Murphy’s.
The three parts are not meant as traditional sequels but are tied together thematically with each individual cabaret featuring Shakespeare, song, repeated poems and ideas. Audiences do not need to see one to understand the others.
“I love how the intimacy of a cabaret setting can create a personal, creative flexibility to share classic favorites in a fresh frame or connect more contemporary material to the broad palette of influences from which it sprang,” Menu-Ra said.
The final installment, Extraordinary Love, will take place later this year. The piece remembers the past, embraces the present and hopes the future will continue to be anything but ordinary, Menu-Ra said.
More information is available at: www.ghostlightensemble.com/3-stages-of-love.