Biographies: Deborah Karpel (Singer) and David Drake (Director)
Photo: Devon Cass
Deborah Karpel is a... jazz, old-time country, pop, and Klezmer-singing, classically-trained opera diva who came up through the ranks of comic improvisation and sings in nine languages. Deborah’s early influences (thank you Columbia House Record Club!) include Benny Goodman, Liltin’ Martha Tilton, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Sandy Denny, Patsy Cline, Dinah Shore, and Debbie Harry. While performing the work of a composer friend, he encouraged her to study classical singing, which led to a whole new world of music and a steady stream of opera performance and recital work. After a solo recital/performance piece at Dixon Place’s Opera Vindaloo, Deborah was recruited to sing with Metropolitan Klezmer by the group’s leader. She has since enjoyed a robust career in that genre with both Metropolitan and the all-female Isle of Klezbos, which has allowed her to showcase both her comic and dramatic sides.
Deborah’s stage credits include originating and singing the role of Sunny in Jeff Weiss’s long-running, Obie award-winning live serial Hot Keys, and working with Circus Amok, Naked Angels, Shock of the Funny, and several New York opera companies. She is a frequent recitalist at Donnell Library and recently sang the role of Contessa Almavia in Le Nozze di Figaro at both Weill and Merkin Halls. Through her work with several Klezmer bands, Deborah became acquainted with Yiddish language and music. She combined this growing interest with her passion for opera to create a concert, entitled Songs My Mother Never Taught Me, for the National Yiddish Center in Amherst, MA. The resultant CD (and forthcoming extended solo show) features lesser-known Yiddish songs culled from her paternal grandfather’s sheet music collection. Deborah’s solo recordings include Songs My Mother Never Taught Me and the forthcoming “chamber folk” album, La Promessa. She is also a featured vocalist on Metropolitan Klezmer’s recordings, Yiddish For Travelers, Mosaic Persuasion, Surprising Finds, Travelling Show, Isle of Klezbos’s Welcome to the Isle of Klezbos, and Ben Yarmolinsky’s Blindwitness News.
David Drake is New York-based actor, writer and director. His most recent work as a director includes the solo shows of Matthew Francis (“The Gospel According to Matthew”) in the 2007 NY International Fringe Festival at the Soho Playhouse, Sherie Rene Scott (“A Work-in-Progress”) at the Zipper last spring and Taylor Mac (“The Beast of Taylor Mac”) in the 2007 Under-the-Radar Festival at the Public Theater, which later transferred to London’s Soho Theatre.
After developing the “Beast” at Joe’s Pub in the summer of 2006, David sent it off to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it won a slew of rave reviews and a Herald “Angel” Award. Subsequently, “The Beast of Taylor Mac” enjoyed an extensive tour of Europe and Australia, picking up three more awards to date. Last summer, David directed a revival of James Edwin Parker’s “2 Boys in a Bed on a Cold Winter’s Night” at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in SF. The production received terrific reviews, including one from the SF Chronicle’s chief drama critic saying: “To lyrical effect, director David Drake sensitively orchestrates the flow of erotic attraction and emotional overtures.”
Other directing projects include Edmund White’s “Terre Haute” at the Sundance Theater Lab, Anne Bobby’s “That Woman: Rebecca West Remembers” at Manhattan Theatre Source, Eric Bernat and Robin Carrigan’s “Jesus & Mandy” at NY’s Theatre for the New City and Eric Bernat’s “Starstruck” at Rattlestick Theatre. Regionally he has directed at Provincetown Rep, Baltimore Theatre Project and Out North Contemporary Art House in Anchorage, as well as teaching two semesters in monologue writing and performing to NYC queer kids at NY’s LGBT Community Services Center.
On stage, David is most widely known as the playwright/performer of one of the longest-running solo shows in New York theater history, “The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me,” for which he won an Obie Award and two Dramalogue Awards. The published edition by Doublebay garnered a Lambda Literary Award nomination for Best New Play.
His latest autobiographical monologue, “Son of Drakula,” premiered at Dance Theater Workshop when he was an artist-in-residence there in 2002-03. The play was praised by The New York Times as “A dazzling, inventive... terrific new one-man show” before making its European debut in Zagreb, Croatia. Other New York stage credits include originating the role of Miss Deep South in the off-Broadway hit “Pageant,” succeeding Charles Busch in “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom” and starring in the revival of “The Boys in the Band” at the Lucille Lortel. Among his numerous TV and movie appearances -- including his critically acclaimed work in the performance film of “Larry Kramer”-- David co-stars in Roland Tec’s upcoming feature “We Pedal Uphill.”
