An Evening At Macri Park

Google Maps uses the following descriptors to summarize Brooklyn’s Macri Park: “a laid-back, dimly lit watering hole with cozy interior and a big backyard.” “Gay bar.” “LGBTQ+ friendly.” It also notes that there are no takeout or delivery options.

For singer-songwriter Seán Barna, Macri Park is more than those simple descriptors. His second album and Kill Rock Stars debut, An Evening at Macri Park, is his tribute to its community, his scene, and a time in his life when it was the center of his world.

Before we proceed, some housekeeping: “evening” is a bit of a misnomer here. As Seán explains, the bar’s long-running drag show, Mondays on Mondays, kicks off with two sets at midnight (as in Tuesday morning) and 1 a.m.–gay noon–before a beloved open mic. With all that in mind, the evening might have you home by 10:30, but not 10:30 p.m. And there’s a whole lot of life to be lived between sunset and sunrise.

A self-described “semi-professional” musician since he was 14, Barna played drums for Deaf West Theatre’s Los Angeles production of Spring Awakening and on the national Broadway tour for The Producers, but it took a trip to Berlin’s Club Legarré, and its English-speaking open mic, to find his own voice as a songwriter and performer. His new album is a collection of stories, vulnerable and openhearted, of his New York. In his words, “It’s a character study of the bar itself. It’s a safe space, but there’s alcohol, drugs, sadness, and your own demons.”

Recorded in Rochester, Seán wrote late into the night as producer \[producer!\] and his kids slept. Moving fast, Macri Park became the center of a song cycle documenting giddiness, grief, history, and everything in-between. He enlisted friends, including Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz and David Immerglück, harpist and songwriter Mikaela Davis, Danielle Ponder, and Maria Taylor, to bring his world to life.