The March 9 MKE Creatives meetup featured a talk from Kaleigh Rae Gamache, and I’m totally late in posting about that meetup. Probably because 90% of what you need to know about it is right HERE. Buuuuuut, if you want the other 10%, here’s that for you, too!
The meetup was at our regular, awesome location – Anodyne Coffee, on Bruce. St. This month there were in attendance a CPA, a writer/photographer/saxophonist, a photographer, an actress/writer, a Spanish videographer (from Barcelona!), and a storyteller/actor, me, and our presenter – an opera singer!
Kaleigh, raised in Slinger, WI, has been performing professionally since 2014. She is constantly auditioning for roles in Milwaukee and around the country. One of her more memorable WI-performances was when the company she was with “ambushed Sturgeon Bay with opera!” The opera had been advertised as a “zany comedy with music”, which is a true description, but was not the traditional musical theatre the audience was expecting.
She works primarily with the Skylight Music theatre, and in their recent production of “Powder Her Face”, Kaleigh played SEVEN different roles! She doesn’t just perform exclusively States-side though. Kaleigh is rightfully proud of having traveled to Thailand twice in the past seven months to perform in two different operas. One of those operas only had two performances, but the company brought Kaleigh in-country for them! She mentioned that the jet lag is the worst with her Thailand travels, since she’s immediately on the go once she lands there. There’s no break – she arrives, has a shower to freshen up, and then it’s straight into 14-hour days of rehearsals!
Next month, she’ll be performing here in Milwaukee, in “Pirates of Penzzance.” Later this year, she’ll be going back to Thailand to be in a one-woman “monodrama” about Anne Frank (Kaleigh obviously has the travel bug, since she spent a year in Germany during her college years, and her Instagram page showcases pics from her regular jaunts). Because of her age and vocal range, Kaleigh often plays a certain kind of character – “I’m always a maid,occasionally a fairy, occasionally a princess, but always a maid.”
Kaleigh works primarily as an independent opera singer, but also flexs her creativity doing photography and social media for a local tapas restaurant, Movida. As much as she likes doing portraits for other performers in the opera realm, Kaleigh enjoys food photography because it allows her to take her time with it, and she doesn’t need to work about whether or not the food is feeling self-conscious during the shoot. 🙂
Regardless of what area of creativity Kaleigh continues to work in, I’ve little doubt that she’s going to have an impact. She’s talented, energetic, and passionate about what she does. Any opera company or creative agency would be lucky to work with her!
