Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player
The poor thing appears only once a year or so, playing piano beside Honey, uttering an occasional lyric like she’s reading the list of ingredients on a jar of peanut butter. Musically, she gravitates toward Hall & Oates, Peaches and Herb. She flatters herself when she describes her looks as a cross between Anjelica Huston and Mr. Ed.
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Paige Turner is actually the drag persona of Dan Stetzel, one of the busiest musicians in town. For the last three years he’s taught acting for the musical stage and cabaret at Roosevelt University while maintaining a roster of 60 private students. He’s accompanied just about everyone who’s ever sung a note in a nightclub or auditioned in a theater, and he runs the open mike every Tuesday night at Gentry on Halsted. In his spare time he’s worked as musical director for several local and regional theaters, once conducting the national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. “I would say I was musical director of that show,” he says, “except no one listened to a word I said.”
“Great,” Stetzel sighs, reaching for a cigarette. “I don’t want queeny eyebrows. I hate that.”
The two make their way back to the tiny makeshift stage, almost every square inch of which is occupied by a black upright piano with a broken string on the E flat below middle C. There’s a hole in the ceiling where a light fixture probably used to hang. Honey notices that several of the track lights that should spotlight her are out. The cocktail waiter arrives with a lightbulb while Paige slumps into a chair, looking, as always, put out. “Not all gigs are perfect, you can quote me.”
By 12:30 the duo has made $3 in tips. Honey has sung gorgeously. Paige has been consistently tall.
