‘An Evening with Joseph Keckler’ an Evening of Surprises

On September 5, 2023, singer and writer Joseph Keckler filled The Dome at Yale Schwarzman Center with humor, wit, and Germanic opera. 

Adoring fans, interested students, and curious newcomers eagerly awaited Keckler’s arrival, anticipating his one-night-only, one-of-a-kind performance. The only people privy to the artist’s secrets were his production team; the audience would be in for a surprise. Keckler, whose repertoire featured absurdist, yet emotionally touching stories and songs, was well-prepared to deliver an unforgettable evening in the Schwarzman Center’s most intimate venue. 

The lights dimmed, and a hush took over the room. Keckler emerged from The Dome’s main doors and strolled to center stage. A single spotlight shone on him as he delivered a captivating monologue about his time living in the woods for an artist residency. Talking in low, dulcet tones, he enchanted the audience with a tale about mysterious sounds from the upstairs floor in his cabin and launched into his first performance of the night: “Ghost Song,” an operatic piece about the living bedding the dead. Keckler performed the piece in German with an English translation projected on the projection screen behind him.

Keckler expertly incorporated the projection screen throughout his performance. Besides displaying English translations of his songs, he also played films he had produced for “Goth Song” and “Strangers from the Internet.” The stage lights were dimmed during these films, casting an eerie glow on Keckler and an aura of mystery in the venue. Keckler glided throughout The Dome, walking back and forth between the aisles. He sat down in an empty chair in the front row, surprising the spectator next to him, and earning a few chuckles from the audience. He then stood on a stool during one of his songs—a feat of great balance and beautiful crooning. 

For his finale, Keckler performed “GPS Song,” which was based on a past relationship with a partner who spoke a language Keckler did not understand and gave him somewhat strange, but endearing nicknames, like “baby zebra” and “baby potato … lumpy and sexless.” The strings in the instrumental added to Keckler’s richly melancholic timbre, as he revealed his disappointment and shock of discovering that his former lover was having an affair. Keckler roamed the room slowly, pacing around, as if to mimic the sounds of a plaintive GPS: “Recalculating, recalculating, recalculating…” 

At the end of his performance, Keckler was greeted with a hearty round of applause. Tom Sellar, Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the David Geffen School of Drama, was invited to host Keckler in a short Q&A session. He initially asked Keckler about his musical inspirations and artistic work outside of music, as Keckler is currently working on a feature film called No Midnight, directed by Lauren Terruso. Audience members asked him questions about why he performs in different genres and languages, and his thought-process when writing music. 

“Some of my songs in English are characters I’m talking about. Those are more abstract. And the operatic material is autobiographical, even though it’s often trapped in states of ambiguity or being lost in the outskirts of your own life. I think the gesture of making them operatic and in another language allows me to be in two places at once, where I can be flat, colloquial, conversational … but then they’re essential and invoking a history and also somewhere else in the singing and the music,” Keckler said. 

Not knowing what to expect at the beginning, audience members were left mesmerized by Keckler’s talent and dynamism as a performer. At the end of the event, people chatted among themselves as they left their seats, praising his range as an artist and his musicality. Adoring fans approached Keckler for signatures and photographs, and he thanked each of them for coming to his performance—uniquely designed for and performed in The Dome.