The actor and musician forgives no one for missing Confessions, a Cabaret.
by Julie GaristoBlessed with a keen sense of voyeuristic pop fetish — the kind that made reality TV and PostSecret books hugely popular — and a silly, post-modern sense of humor, local performer Zachary Hines has taken on the role of a wayward priest, soliciting private anonymous confessions and sharing them with the public in Confessions, a Cabaret, a new variety show at freeFall this Friday.
You might recognize the slender, baby-faced performer as half of the Best of the Bay-winning cabaret duo Coco and Homo. Hines’ latest endeavor, funded by a Hampton Arts Management’s Think Small to Thing Big microgrant (thinksmalltothinkbig.org), brings him to freeFall Theatre’s stage this Friday, where he will serenade the audience and enlist them in embarrassingly fun revelations and silly games. The focus this time, though, is on the music. His repertoire includes favorites from storytellers and pop divas like Kurt Weill, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone and Madonna — backed by members of the local band No Loves and an amazing busker-drummer named Michael Alaska, who wows subway commuters with a forearm-balancing drumstick trick.
In addition, phoned- and typed-in anonymous confessions that Hines has been collecting at Avant-Guardian.org/confess and 1-855-U-CONFESS will add twisted, funny and thought-provoking counterpoints throughout the evening. Though Hines claims that no murderers creeped him out, he did encounter a theremin player who just goes by the name Alien, but, sadly, Hines didn’t have a spot for Alien on the lineup.
Making it on the stage will be Colleen “Coco” Cherry. The duo will also reunite in a new Coco and Homo show on his 24th birthday on Aug. 24. Before that, Hines plans to tour his Confessions show around central Florida for a spell. The Coco and Homo show brought him a new boyfriend, too — he met his partner of one year, Paul Trusik, playing “Chubby Bunny” during the duo’s holiday show.
“Who knew I’d find love in a onesie!” he said.
Hines is much more than a cutie-pie with a formidable singing voice and indiscernible shtick —“My aunt thought I was a stripper,” he shared during a recent visit to Independent Bar in Tampa. He grew up in the performing arts, raised by parents who nurtured his talent and took him to Broadway shows regularly as a child. Hines moved to Tampa to study at UT, and graduated with a B.A. in Theatre Performance. He grew up near NYC in Lambertville, N.J., across from a town where “Barbra Streisand went antiquing.”
Having studied theater, music and dance training, he went abroad to study in a British American Drama Academy program. While in London, he got his first exposure to true nitty-gritty cabaret, an “unfortunate macabre creature” named David Hoyle. In Gina Vivinetto's recent profile of Hines in Articulate, he described Hoyle as a coked-out but brilliant Judy Garland in drag.
Hines says he loves cabaret because he can incorporate the ADD elements of current entertainment and a more organic form of performance in one show. “It’s comedy burnt around the edges.”