Welcome to the Official DUETS BY SINGLES Homepage!
"What is Duets By Singles?", you ask.
Duets By Singles is a cabaret act, co-conceived and performed by two best friends - TJ O'Connell and Jared Lopatin - the two handsome young men whose pictures you see further on down the page. We started the show back in college because we found that women got all the good songs! Besides, the songs are usually lamenting or complaining about men - something we do quite often. If not, they were about the bond between friends, and that's something we understand as well. We hand-picked a grouping of songs that we felt would weave together well to create a short 1hour/1 hour and 15 minute show.
The show opened in the spring of 2003 at Muhlenberg College, where we both went to school. That same summer, we took the show to NYC to perform a few performances at Rose's Turn. For the past two years, various shows have kept us apart from each other, so Duets By Singles was left to the side for some time. Now, the show has been revived, dusted off, and given a whole new script with a few new songs thrown in.
* * Duets for a Single Night at The Duplex! * *
Thank you to everyone who came to Duets on the 24th! We had a lot of fun and we hope you did too! Keep an eye on this page to see when and where the next show will be!
You want to know about us? Here ya go.
Jared is originally from Philadelphia, PA. In the extremely early days, he made the commute to NYC to audition for commercials and films and the like. Quickly deciding that this wasn't he wanted to do with his childhood, he didn't return to performing until he was 12 years old. His mother, seeing his lack of something to do, took him to an audition for a musical version of Jack and the Beanstalk. He was offered the role of "Jack" and there was no going back.
| 
|
Though he dabbled in performing back when he was old enough to learn to walk (read: upstaged his dad at his own gigs, mainly because he was just too freakin' adorable), TJ officially caught the acting bug in third grade when he was cast in his class musical "Feeling Your Oats" as the Big Cheese. (Yes, he actually was a wedge of cheese.) After making such a spectacular debut as an important part of a party platter, how could he not persue this?
|
|
|
The theatre bug had bitten hard and deep. He performed in community theatre shows from there on out, soon honing his skills through voice and dance classes.
He headed off to college at Rider University to study elementary education and psychology, but by October of that year, had switched his majors to theatre and english and added a dance minor. A year later, he was ready to transfer schools completely. He transfered to Muhlenberg College in 2001 and graduated from there in 2003.
Post college, he spent a year in Indiana working at the Roundbarn Theatre at Amish Acres, performing in their 2004 season. A week after he returned to the east coast, he moved to NYC with a few friends. Four months later, he was back in Philly performing at the Walnut Street Theatre. He ended 2005 in Endgames - his first official NYC show (ironically, sharing the experience with TJ).
To pay the bills, he works as a temp for the New York State Department Of Health - yup, he's a government person. Scary, isn't it? For more information on Jared, go to Jared's page
| After paying his dues to fairly rewarding results, theatrically, in high school, he continued his passion for theatre at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he earned a B.A. in unemployment...oh, sorry, theatre and dance. (Incidentally, he became the first male dance major at the school and now barely dances.)
Upon graduation from school, he mooched off his mother for about a year, before biting the bullet and moving to Astoria with one of his best friends. He was fortunate enough to have most of his core college friends moved to New York City either before or just after him, and they're all in the twentysomething life together.
As a day job, he works at the Rockefeller Group Business Centers on Wall St. (and his mother can say her son works on Wall St.) answering phones and dealing with general corporate bulls*** for about 60 different companies. It's a living.
He would like to thank you, the loyal DBS Groupie (a more fun name to be thought of later), for checking out the site and being a faithful follower of Duets by Singles. Who needs men when you've got fans?
|
Where it all began...
We were introduced by a mutual friend of ours back in 1999 at a theatre-sponsored dance at Muhlenberg. Not exactly hitting it off famously to begin with, we spent the evening observing a gay couple dancing together. Naturally, we found the boys attractive, but each of us only found one of them attractive. Such was the beginning of a tenuous friendship, for we could see that we wouldn't be fighting over the same boys.
Over the next two years, we would talk intermittently online, but since we really had very little in common as far as friends and environment was concerned, there really wasn't a whole lot to talk about. Boys were always a possible subject, but as you can see, the name of our show is Duets by SINGLES and things weren't much different back then, so there weren't a lot of boys to talk about.
Then the transfer was made and we were in a show together. A movie quote came out of one of our mouths and the other placed the quote. And in that moment, our friendship solidified into something much more tangible. Since then, we've only grown closer, but never in a romantic sense.
Since we were both performers and had been in a few shows together, as well as having directed and choreographed each other in vaious performances, we eventually decided it was time to create a show just for us. And so Duets By Singles was born, if only in theory, and it still had no name. We quickly figured out what kind of music we wanted to sing. We had a strong friendship and a mutual interest in boys, so songs that revolved around that seemed to be best. The only problem was that they were all songs for women. So, we took that and made a show around it. The name came later. We presented the idea to our college as a social event, got a venue and started rehearsals. Somewhere in this process we acquired an accompanist. Word got around and when the show was finally performed, there was quite a decent turnout.
I don't remember whose idea it was to take the show to NYC, but somehow the idea was planted in our minds, and we started hunting for a venue to perform it in. As it happened, we had another friend that worked as a bartender sometimes at Rose's Turn and we checked it out. The woman in charge worked with us and gave us two nights. Our loyal fans followed the show to NYC and packed into the bar to see us perform, and that very same summer, Duets By Singles had its NYC debut.
As mentioned above, Duets By Singles has been out of commission these past two years, but like Cher's farewell tour, it's back and ready to be performed again. We look forward to seeing new venues and new faces in the crowd!
Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Contact us at [email protected]
Sign Guestbook
View Guestbook