San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The Artist’s Life
We profile singer Nathan Marken, who tours with the Kinsey Sicks.
Nathan Marken might seem all sparkles. There are the glittering dresses he wears as part of the “dragapella” group the Kinsey Sicks, whose 25th anniversary show, “Things You Shouldn’t Say,” plays Oct. 5-6 at Marines’ Memorial Theatre. There are his two roles in “The Speakeasy,” the walk-through, immersive theater piece that conjures the effervescent, Art Deco glamour of the Prohibition era.
When he’s not performing, there’s also his own sparkling badinage. Give this actor and classically trained, lyric baritone a prompt, and he’ll run with it like he’s already written a rat-a-tat scene of a 1930s radio show in response. In an interview, the one time he didn’t answer a question instantaneously, he apologized: “Sorry, I was trying to think of something really sassy to say.”
But Marken, 37, has another part of his life that couldn’t be more serious: as a volunteer and activist with local nonprofits. A biking enthusiast — “It’s the best way to see our city,” he says — he’s volunteered for a decade with San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, even making it his charity beneficiary when he rode the 350-mile Climate Ride California in 2011. He serves on the board of directors of Lesbian/ Gay Chorus of San Francisco. And he does administrative work for Impact Bay Area, which teaches self-defense skills to women and other hate-crime targets.
Marken says he was inspired in part to “use what I have in a meaningful way” by Barack Obama, for whom he was a campaign volunteer in 2008.
In his blend of razzmatazz and humanitarianism, he’s an apt representative for the Kinsey Sicks anniversary show.
The Artist’s Life is a recurring feature that shines a spotlight on the talent who help make up the rich tapestry of the Bay Area’s cultural life.
When the drag, a cappella quartet was first envisioning its 25th anniversary, members planned “a retrospective show on the group’s history, with dashes of nostalgia,” Marken says. But then “the election happened.” Founding member Benjamin Schatz, who will retire from the group after the run of “Things You Shouldn’t Say,” used his own life story to fashion a “call to action” and “a celebration of our queer community” in the show, Marken says. And it’s all performed in enormous wigs, technicolor vintage dresses and eye shadow as thick as plaster. Marken’s character in the troupe, Winnie, was raised by “a band of radical lesbian Tupperware ladies,” according to the Kinsey website.
A native of Danville, Ill., Marken grew up doing community and dinner theater, show choir and Renaissance
madrigals, finding his way to San Francisco in 2006 to get his master’s degree in voice performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He was referred to the Kinsey Sicks by Ed Decker, artistic director of New Conservatory Theatre Center, where he had just performed in the musical “Xanadu.” He joined the quartet in 2015. What makes the Kinsey Sicks special is that they’re “not afraid to be silly and take risks,” Marken says. They never merely sing; they never merely do covers. “We make statements,” he says, and they’re open about their agenda.
He cites a song in “Things You Shouldn’t Say” that parodies various TV theme songs. To the “Green Acres” melody, the group sings, “The White House is the place to be, and Vlad Putin got this job for me.” Marken performs with “The Speakeasy” when he’s not touring with the Kinsey Sicks (which takes up to half his time). To perform one “Speakeasy” role — Eddie, a cabaret emcee loosely modeled on Eddie Cantor — he switches from the “girl drag” of the Kinseys to the “boy drag” of showman masculinity: chest out, hips relaxed, stance perched on the balls of the feet. (“Frankly I wish I were in high heels for the role,” Marken jokes. Counterintuitively, that would make it easier to carry himself in character.)
Volunteering and activism absorb much of his time. With the Bike Coalition, he’s served as the captain of an Energizer Station on Bike to Work Day and as a bicycle ambassador to get more San Franciscans biking. The coalition advocates for infrastructure that can resolve many road-sharing conflicts between bicyclists and drivers, he says.
“It’s not an us vs. them,” he says, but two different perspectives on the same problem.
Marken got involved with Impact Bay Area after taking one of its bystander intervention courses shortly after the 2016 election. “People are just seeing ugly things now,” he says. “I have a lot of privilege being a white, straight-presenting man. I can pass.” But he’d seen videos of attacks on “someone who’s marginalized,” with bystanders “doing nothing.”
“We have a responsibility to de-escalate,” he says. “Mainly I got involved because I wanted the tools.”
Now, as an Impact Bay Area administrator, he communicates with students and helps raise money. If it’s not as glamorous as singing as Winnie, Marken sees it as one more way to contribute to something “really valuable.”
The Kinsey Sicks are “not afraid to be silly and take risks.” They never merely sing; they never merely do covers. “We make statements.”
Nathan Marken, performer, activist