Katy Moffatt's 'Midnight Radio' at BeeKay, Feb. 6

Over the last few months, TCT has been on a path of reorganization and renewal. The spring schedule of plays has been totally revised, and new plays and ideas are in the works.

Fiddlers Crossing has brought one-person concert-theatre pieces to Tehachapi, with performances by blues master Guy Davis and Celtic harpist Patrick Ball. With the success of those shows, the venue has been considering bringing in a series of one-person concert-theatre pieces.

It's natural, then, that the community theatre and the community's popular concert venue should join together to do just that. The AAUW (American Association of University Women) has signed on to help with the first show, as well, and will receive a portion of the gate for their scholarship fund.

The first in what is hoped to be a new series of performances over the years is Katy Moffatt in Midnight Radio, Saturday, Feb. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the BeeKay Theatre.

Katy grew up in Fort Worth, TX, where she felt she didn't fit in. "Dreams were not encouraged," she says. "It was a culture of expectations, of limitations, of invisible rules and lines that must not be crossed, where honesty was not valued. Everyone was expected to fit in. But I was a little red-haired girl who couldn't fit in."

Katy would go to bed at nine but set her alarm to midnight. She would then turn on her radio and listen to the music of Jimmy Webb and other songs talking of lost highways from Wichita to Phoenix, and to short stories of people and places far from Texas. The stories of women, particularly, gave her hope that she could, as she says, "dream my own path into existence.

"That Texas radio was filled with songs and stories of other places, and they told me where I wanted to be: Somewhere else, moving away, with no clear destination, but just away."

Katy bought a guitar from Montgomery Ward and began to write her own songs inspired by the dreams the radio brought to her.

"Out there, on the Midnight Radio, I heard the stories of other women and men, young and old, known and unknown, who, in many different ways, had dreamed their own paths into being. This musical road became my world, my path, and it all began with the Midnight glow of that plastic radio."

In her performance, as on her beloved "Midnight Radio," Katy combines her own music with stories of the lives of other women. She sings about Sojourner Truth, Wyatt Earp's wife, the great Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and others, real and imagined.

Musically, it's hard to put a label on Katy Moffatt. She's a little bit country and folk, a little bit rock, and mostly, a whole lot of beauty and soul. Katy was a pioneer in a musical style, now called Americana, that later infiltrated the popular culture through singers such as Alanis Morrisette.

Katy's grandmother taught her to play piano as a child, and she was inspired to learn guitar by listening to the Beatles. By high school, she was absorbing Tom Rush, Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen. During her college years in Santa Fe, she fronted blues and jug band groups, starred in a production of "The Fantastiks," and was cast as a folksinger in the film, "Billy Jack."  

Katy moved to California in 1979 and appeared on the groundbreaking album, "A Town South of Bakersfield," a compilation with kindred spirits such as Dwight Yoakum and Rosie Flores.  From there, she was cast as a singing performer in films, including "Hard Country," "Honeymoon in Vegas," and "The Thing Called Love."

Katy now tours throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Katy gave a regular concert in Fiddlers Crossing in 2014, and Tehachapi will be happy to welcome her back on the BeeKay stage.

Tickets are $20, and are available at TCTonstage.com, Tehachapi Treasure Trove, Tehachapi Furniture in Old Towne, and Fiddlers Crossing. Doors open at 7 p.m.