Jonathan Schwab

Colleen Powers conducts Amtrak trains in blue polyester by day, but at night she becomes lounge singer Dame Powers. When she's not crooning out lyrics such as "Every day, I'm a-getting stronger," the 38-year-old master of the double life is catching the attention of railroad passengers with a resonant "All aboard!"

Powers is a lounge singer at the Tremont Boston Hotel's Encore Lounge. She began singing at open mic nights at Frank's Steakhouse in Cambridge in the late 1990s, and her vocal coach, John O'Neill, introduced her to the Encore Lounge.

Dame Powers ended up winning the Silver Note amateur vocalist contest in 2000. She not only won, but also scored the Encore Lounge gig she still has today.

The Encore Lounge brings in the theater crowd with show tunes and piano accompaniment and has a different lead singer each night, but sometimes Powers performs two or three nights a week, filling in for other performers.

"Don't be afraid of the mic!" she shouts to the crowd, attempting both to get a break and encourage patrons to get up and sing. As long as the pianist can play it, patrons can sing whatever they want.

David Ballard, a performing arts major at Emerson College and regular at the Encore Lounge, says Powers "really knows how to just grab the audience and pull you up there. She's really welcoming. She's like, 'Come on up. Please, sing. I don't want to be doing all this.'"

Mary Callanan, the regular Friday singer at The Encore Lounge, says that Powers is different than the other singers.

"She's dirty and funny and then can break your heart with a ballad," Callanan says, "the things I think, she'll actually say."

Callanan says she admires Powers' persistence and willingness to perform whenever she can.

"She's got a crazy job and then she comes and does this," says Callanan.

Onstage in a skirt and heels, it's hard to imagine Powers rocking the blue polyester Amtrak pants.

"I live by the motto, 'If you've got it, flaunt it," she says. And flaunt it she does, preferring stage clothes to her railroad clothes.

Donning the blue Amtrak suit and matching cap, she conducts trains from Boston to New York.

"You're on the road a lot, but you always get back to Boston," says Powers.

"It's very, very similar work; service to those around you," she says, comparing the two careers. She says she meets all kinds of people, not just ones who come to hear a lounge singer.

Powers has acted in musical theater in different parts of New England and her ultimate goal is to go into musical theater full time. She'd be willing to travel to do it, but she says she is happy to be close to her older brother and his family.

"I'm not opposed to going to New York, but it's very important to be near my family," she says. "They just live one time."

In addition to acting and singing, Powers also writes and directs when she has the time. In 2002 she performed in a one-woman show she wrote, called "Dear Diary," about her own love affairs and how they went awry.

"I've never been married and I don't have any children, but I'm taking applications," she jokes.

As much as she enjoys her day job, she doesn't want to do it forever.

"A lot of people end up there, but you very rarely leave," says Powers, "as much as I love the railroad, I don't want to be a 60-year-old woman working on a train."

Photos courtesy of http://damepowers.com.

Jonathan Schwab can be reached at jschwab@theoysteronline.com

Updated 03/25/2006   |   Permalink