Brian Feldman – Under the Covers

At the first Thursday of this month Brian Feldman held a cabaret by request called “Under the Covers” at the Orlando Museum of Art. Back on the first Thursday in May, Jeremy Seghers performed, an act by the same name, singing cover songs requested by the audience for a Fringe Festival Preview. Brian used Jeremy’s performance as inspiration to literally go under the covers.
Accompanying Brian was Isaac Schankler on a Kurzweil SP-76. The performance was developed and first presented in July of 2009 at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach Florida. When the audience entered the theater, they could faintly make out the form of Brian lying under the covers on a mattress on stage. Isaac introduced the act and sat at the piano. Brian explained that he didn’t actually sleep on a mattress himself, but instead slept on the floor of a friend’s house. He was recently separated from his girlfriend, Jessica, and many of the songs in his first set seemed directed to her. An unexpected development towards the end of the first set was that Jeremy Seghers got on stage and joined Brian to sing a duet. At first, Jeremy just sat on the bed next to Brian’s form hidden by the covers. Then, Jeremy lifted the covers and joined Brian underneath, singing “I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues”. This song was a show stopper.
I returned to see his second performance which featured a Queen song requested by Katie Windish from Frames Forever titled “Fat Bottomed Girls”. Don’t ask why she needed to hear that song at this time in her life. After the last song, Brian had to explain that the performance was over since he was still on stage, though under the covers. I am sure some people like myself lingered to see the performance artist in person. But Brian consulted with stage hands and shouted out, “No really, the show is over! Get out of here, people!” When everyone had left, he sprinted into the wings.