CHICAGO - Two nights after performing at the Wagon Wheel Theatre, Warsaw, Oct. 6, Beckie Menzie will return to Chicago to receive yet another award for her music.
On Oct. 8, Menzie and vocalist partner and friend Tom Michael will be honored with the award for Best Outstanding Cabaret Artist of 2007 from Chicago's After Dark.
Menzie already is a two-time winner of the "Outstanding Cabaret Artist" award. She is a recipient of the 2002 Hall of Fame Award for her continued contributions to Chicago cabaret and theater. As a songwriter, Menzie received the 1999 After Dark Award for outstanding music and lyrics, and a Jefferson Citation nomination for Best New Work for the musical "Female Problems," produced by Chicago's Pegasus Theatre.
Performing across the country, Menzie has appeared at some of the nation's top nightclubs and concert venues including the legendary Carnegie Hall and New York City's Lincoln Center.
But it's her return to her home that she's excited about.
"It'll be really nice," Menzie said during a telephone interview Monday afternoon.
A Pierceton native, Menzie said she's been back to visit family, but performing at the Wagon Wheel will be fun.
During their show, Menzie and Michael are known for putting new twists on songs audiences know and love, she said. They perform songs by artists from the Everly Brothers and Rodgers & Hammerstein to Simon & Garfunkel.
The show they will perform in Warsaw Oct. 6 is "Songs of the Great American Songbook."
"We've toured a lot with this show," said Menzie. The show is a duo performance, she said, that has never been performed by them in Warsaw. Doing the show at the Wagon Wheel gives her a chance for area friends, families and residents to see what they're all about.
"We take a song, and then we twist it," she said.
Menzie said her whole life is different and filled with music because she grew up around the Wagon Wheel Theatre. Her hunger for performing and music and cabaret all grew out of her life at the Warsaw theater.
"Wagon Wheel is my home," she said. "It's great to see my family. It really does all come around to relationships."
Her husband, Earl Moshinsky, calls her a workaholic, she said. And he calls Michaels Menzie's "musical husband" because she tours so much with him.
It's their experience on the road which is the framework for their new show they are working on, Menzie said. The show, "Postcards from the Road," is a travel show about their stories on the road.
In addition to her life on the road, Menzie also teaches in the musical theater department at Northwestern University. She has released two CDs, Michaels has released one, and the duo also have released a CD, "Better Two-gether."
"Better Two-gether" features their inventive musical twists on jazz favorites, standards from the great American songbook, contemporary pop, Broadway showtunes and film gems. The album features some of the nation's top musicians including Jazziz Magazine talent search finalist Jim Gailloreto on saxophone, Scott Mason on bass, Art Davis on trumpet and Jeff Thomas on percussion.
The CD includes tracks like "Swing, Mr. Mendelssohn, Swing/Sing, Sing, Sing," "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me/Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me" and an Everly Brothers medley.
"Songs of the Great American Songbook" with Menzie and Michael will be at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 6. Tickets are $20.
