My latest photo journal features images from the exciting grand finale of the 2025 five-time MAC-award-winning event, Mama’s Next Big Act, at Don’t Tell Mama on Monday, August 25.
Mama’s Next Big Act is an eight-week live performance competition mixing music of different genres, produced by Singnasium Artistic Director, multi-MAC/Bistro/Nightlife award-winning cabaret wizard, Lennie Watts. This is the eighth year in the running! Yaz (Yasuhiko Fukuoka) was the music director for the event and did a fantastic job accompanying the contestants (along with multi-award-winning Tracy Stark).
Every week, a panel of judges and the audience vote for the acts. Frank Dain is the permanent judge, along with Lennie Watts and a third guest judge, consisting of past winners as well as award-winning performers. I’ve documented seven Mama’s Next Big Acts, and it’s an amazing process! Every week, the contestants are challenged with choosing a song within an assigned theme. Comradery among contestants grows with each week.
The competition brought out contestants from all different avenues of music from theater to cabaret, and this year the winner was chosen from these top five contestants Linda Mironti, Imani Parker, Lenore Stefanik, Lauren Updyke, and Aaron Valentine. It was a tough decision as always (I don’t envy the judges)!
Each act was awarded by roaring applauses. As the judges tallied up the votes, the audience was entertained by songs from Mama’s Next Big Act host Lena Moy Borgen, Can Yasar and 2024 Mama’s Next Big Act winner, Evelyn Sullivan, accompanied by Ted Stafford.
This was Aaron Valentine’s third try at the competition (3x’s a charm)! The winner of Mama’s Next Big Act receives a $1500 stipend towards the production of a cabaret show, a feature article in Cabaret Scenes magazine, a poster and promo card design, a free class at Singnasium, a show poster hung on the DTM Wall of Fame, and this year, a fancy Ninja coffee machine!
What a wonderful experience for contestants, audiences and judges!
