Whole lotta Sheik'n: At the Keswick, Duncan Sheik blends pop and Broadway

HE'S A RIVETING, mellifluous folk-pop singer/songwriter. And an important new composing voice in musical theater.

Concertgoers will hear both sides - and three sets for the price of one - from Duncan Sheik this weekend, when the artist returns to the Keswick Theatre with a nine-piece ensemble in tow.

For starters, Sheik promises a set of that distinctive, plush chamber pop that first made him a star in the late 1990s, from "Barely Breathing" to "White Limousine." The ruminating stuff he seemed most focused on the last time we spoke, maybe four years ago.

Then, with help from its original-cast star Lauren Pritchard, Sheik will serve a set of his rockin' tunes from "Spring Awakening," that offbeat, boldly carnal and surprisingly successful saga of youthful lust in 19th-century Germany that won eight Tonys (including for best musical).

While recently shuttered in the Big Broadway Crash of 2009, "we had a solid, two-year run and didn't see it turn into a hoary old thing like 'Cats,' " rationalized Sheik in our chat the other day.

Softening the blow are the 18 other productions of the musical now or soon to be buzzing around the world, including a national tour due back at the Academy of Music June 23-28.

And for "act three" of his Keswick turn, Sheik will unveil his newest album and next of three pending stage musicals, "Whisper House." This one's an eerie, atmospheric song cycle revolving around the inhabitants - living and ghostly - of a remote Maine lighthouse.

Also joining Sheik throughout the night will be his regular support singer/keyboardist, Holly Brook, and a classy ensemble featuring French horn, cello and clarinet. All to evoke the sweeping, sophisticated aura that's always marked this composer's work, (far) off Broadway as well as on.

We touched a bit on all that in our recent schmooze.

Q: You've been on the road for a while now with this package. How's the new material going over with this big ensemble of yours?

A: Trying to bring together the pop and the theater audiences can be difficult in some towns. But I've gotta tell you, working with a group like this is the only way to fly - so much more fun for me when you have that rich, sonic thing happening, and you don't have to pull all the weight yourself. And it's the surprising good fortune of "Spring Awakening," frankly, that's enabled me to do the concert this way.

I'm breaking the cardinal rule of playing a lot of songs in a row from "Whisper House" that most people haven't heard before. But in order to make sense of the narrative, I kind of have to string them together. I give some info about the content and how the songs function, without giving away the farm.

The most controversial experiment of the show is that all the singing and instrument playing is done by the ghosts. They never talk, while the living characters who also appear in the show speak but never sing. So it's a "never the twain shall meet" thing.

Q: Putting out a show-score album first, then getting the musical staged, sounds like the way Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice got started with "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and then "Jesus Christ Superstar." Were those role models?

A: My mom took me to see "Joseph" when I was 8 or 9, but at the risk of sounding too big for my britches, Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" made a much bigger impression. Getting the music recorded first does grease the wheels for a production, just as having a hit show does.

You get a finished, professional thing, so people can hear and visualize what it is. Now we're going to premiere "Whisper House" on stage at the Old Globe Theater, in San Diego, next January. I've also had two other shows in development for five or six years, which is about as long, actually, as it took to get "Spring Awakening" going.

One's a musical about Nero and, at the other extreme, an adaption of the fairy tale "Nightingale." Lately I've been thinking, half joking, that I should just make records of them, too, so I can then get them onto a stage more quickly.

Q: You recently declared that "the idea of being a guy with an acoustic guitar who writes 12 songs and puts out a record of songs about who you dated and who broke up with you was completely uninteresting to me." So what does start your engines, nowadays?

A: To do things that are eccentric, that push the boundaries. When "Spring Awakening" was first staged, nobody was thinking of it as a big commercial thing until the end of the run at the Atlantic Theater (the pre-Broadway version), when we were selling out every night.

Now people are expecting these other shows to be commercial hits. I'm trying to manage their expectations.

Q: Which production of "Spring Awakening" has thrilled you the most?

A: The opening night in Helsinki was one of the most surreal experiences in my life. To hear it sung in Finnish, which is a very unique language, like no other, it's like you're in this dream. "Hmmm . . . I know this show, but the way it's coming out of these peoples' mouths, it sounds like the Women's Bulgarian Choir!" *

Keswick Theatre, Easton Road and Keswick Avenue, 8 p.m. tomorrow, $29 & $34, 215-572-7650, www.keswicktheatre.com.