Mona Makela
Now wrapping up their final year at New Mexico School for the Arts, singer/pianist/actor/all-around performer Theo Kutsko has been rounding out a loaded schedule and college applications with weekly cabaret-style performances over at Sage Inn’s Social Kitchen+Bar (6 pm Thursday, Feb. 17. Free. 725 Cerrillos Road, (505) 982-5952). With a combo of musical theater greatness and iconic classic rock monster jamz courtesy of Queen, Elton John and other titans, Kutsko, who was recently accepted to Berklee College of Music, brings the heat through two of our country’s greatest artistic exports. You can catch Kutsko as Fester in their school’s upcoming musical production of The Addams Family this April, you’ll find them behind a piano on Thursdays, you can learn more on this very page. (Alex De Vore)
What about classic rock and musicals speaks to you as a performer, and how are you finding ways to merge those interests?
I’ve just grown up listening to both musicals and classic rock more than any other kinds of music. I saw Wicked when I was 4, and I’ve been in love with theater ever since. I’ve also been listening to Queen since I was very little, so that’s a part of my interest in it; but also as someone who is an LGBTQ musician, I really take my main inspiration from other musicians who write about the same things I go through. I like learning about and hearing about these things I can relate to. I love Elton John, Queen and, in musicals form, Falsettos and Rent.
When I felt like I wanted to do musical theater was really once I got into Falsettos in the 8th grade. I liked musicals before that, like Rent and Hamilton and In the Heights, but Falsettos was such a good work of theater that I knew wanted to pursue it. That’s how I chose my major at NMSA. I thought, ‘I’m pretty good at my music outside of school, and I like doing my visual arts as a hobby, but musical theater is something I want to do.’ I just love performing in any way. With the cabaret genre, which is what I’m doing at Social Kitchen right now, I get to combine all of these different interests of mine: ‘70s songs, Broadway and newer songs that I think are interesting and fun—I get to combine them all into this big showcase every week. Really, I just like performing in any capacity.
Do you compose as well? Do you have plans to write, record and release your own jams at any point?
I like experimenting with composition, and some of the college courses I’m looking at right now offer more information on composing. It’s definitely something I want to get more into, but I haven’t really gone super in-depth with it currently as I’m so focused on being in different shows and doing this other music I like. I’m gathering my interests and sounds. The songs I write end up being very theatrical in a Jonathan Larson kind of sense.
What would you want would-be audiences to know about your current live show?
What I’ve been telling all these colleges I’ve been doing interviews for, when they ask me, ‘where do you see yourself?’ I always say I’m going to perform no matter what—that’s where I see myself going. Doesn’t matter if it’s cabaret, like what I’m doing currently, or in a different city; on Broadway on a big stage, or on a tour. I’m going to be there, I’m going to be doing that. It just shows I’m on that path. I like to put on the best performance, be it to an audience of one or two, or to a full-packed house, I just love to perform. Even if you are not familiar or uninterested in those few genres, I put on a show that you don’t want to miss.
