John Cameron Mitchell brings Cassette Roulette to JCCC with Amber Martin this Friday

John Cameron Mitchell is the ultimate multi-hyphenate. One only needs look at his best-known work, the rock musical Hedwig & the Angry Inch, to see just what the man can do—as he wrote, directed, and starred in the original stage production and the film based on it, all the while belting out emotionally-charged rock ‘n’ roll numbers.

No bigs.

That said, Mitchell is a star of stage and screens both big and small, and he’s currently on the road with his friend, cabaret star Amber Martin, for a show they call Cassette Roulette. It’s a show wherein the hand of fate decides the songs which will be performed, resulting in an ever-changing combination of songs, stories, and characters. It hits Yardley Hall at John County Community College’s Midwest Trust Center this Friday, November 10.

We hopped on the phone with John Cameron Mitchell to discuss Cassette Roulette, his career, and more.

The Pitch: What’s the difference between performing on stage vs. performing on screen?

Mitchell: Oh, well, God, you know, film takes millions and takes many, many years. You’re almost exhausted with your own idea by the time you do it. When you’re on tour, it’s a bit more advanced time, but the absolute purity of being on stage–especially with Amber Martin, who just revitalizes my soul–is a really important thing for me. I found that performance feels like a destiny. I have to keep doing it and I always will be doing it, whether it’s just me telling the story to 50 people in a cafe or a 5000 seat theater in Korea.

Our last show was Origin of Love, in which Amber was more of a backup singer and guest, but she is such a brilliant talent that people don’t know as well as they should. She’s as important as Bette Midler. She’s like a cross between Bette Midler and Gilda Radner, because of the kooky, zany characters that she does.

The way I’m showing her off is with this idea of a giant cassette which has two wheels, one for each of us, with all songs from our career on the wheel. The audience spins it and chooses our songs. That way there’s a variety. There’s a sense of anything can happen and usually does. I’m often smoking pot on stage while Amber singing her new country song, “I Left My Weed in Texas and That Ain’t Cool.”

We’re very much like one of those ’70s Rolling Thunder or Mad Dogs and Englishmen kind of shows, because we just pick up people as we go. We were just in Nashville and we worked with a Grateful Dead drag cover band and a comedian country singer who’s brilliant. New York, we’ve got Patti LuPone, Amanda Palmer, and a new trans singer named Superknova. And then later it’ll be others. Whoever’s in town.

There’s a sense of “anything can happen,” and that is our ’70s/’80s aesthetic: “Come one, come all. All music is dance music. Don’t be afraid of anything. Don’t separate yourself.”

Are there certain songs which you sing, regardless of the wheels of fate?

I do a couple of Hedwig songs, just to give them some red meat. I make sure Amber does at least one or two of her characters, just in case she doesn’t spin it. She does a brilliant character called Brenda Smell, who’s a meth-addicted former truck driver lounge singer in a Ramada Inn and her Reba McIntyre, which is cubist. I mean, it’s truly cubist. All you have to do is look at a video and you know what I mean. I’d say about 30 to 40 percent are standards. The rest is completely random and it works. It’s flexible.

Doing Hedwig, part of the reason I wanted to do it is because I could have a real sense of improvisation, like I admired when I was young. I very much admired rock shows and punk shows because anything can happen and on stage, I was a little felt hemmed in.

I remember doing Secret Garden on Broadway, and I kept changing notes, which you don’t do on Broadway, and so there’s a sense of, uh, joy with that, you know. I love the interplay we have. Anything can happen. I mean, that’s the natural thing on stage: you’re with people, you’re feeling good. If you only do stuff in the studio, you feel kind of lonely, and you lose the hope and humanity. Being in the same rooms performing keeps me hopeful.

How’d you meet Amber Martin?

Paul Dawson and P. J. DeBoy, who were the stars of Hedwig, were starting a club. Really, a party to save Julius’ bar, which is the oldest gay bar in New York. It was starting to be in danger of going the way of every other not particularly lucrative business. It was an old man’s gay bar, which we loved about it. It was our local bar.

We wanted to have a party, which we called Mattachine, which was a gay rights group. We honor various queer heroes, and they sometimes come and we play music–a lot of old music, a lot of old rock and soul and funk and new wave and jazz so the older folks feel comfortable too, you know? We just added young people to the bar and now it’s thriving.

Amber was someone that P.J. brought in. I think they had a country gay night, ’cause she’s from East Texas and sings really well. There was a kind of sense of joy in her absolute mayhem. And I felt like I was learning from it, you know? I’ve had a hoot acting right and left, but I don’t think I’ve had more fun than when I’m doing Cassette Roulette

Given that you’ve a longtime connection to Kansas, does performing here offer up something different?

I think I’ve got my buddies coming in from Junction City and Kansas City. One of my ex-girlfriends is now, of course, a lesbian. She lives in Kansas City with her wife and son, and they’re wonderful. Another buddy’s coming in from Junction City who’s fantastic and spends a lot of her energy rescuing dogs who need help. Hopefully Marilyn Maye will come visit. She’s the best, one of the greats, and one of the last. I’m hoping she’ll come.

I’m very excited to come, for the first time to the Kansas City area, which remains a kind of secret good place to live for queer people. A small, queer, but interesting scene. Every state has a couple of places where you don’t have to worry about being different, but you still have the kind of down home community feeling that smaller places have that I love. That’s why I moved to New Orleans and I’m standing in my house, getting ready to do a bit of a photo shoot for an architectural magazine.

John Cameron Mitchell & Amber Martin in Cassette Roulette is Friday, November 10, at Johnson County Community College’s Yardley Hall. Details on that show here.