By John Amodeo***For cabaret lovers and performers, there can’t possibly be anything more gratifying than CabaretFest Provincetown, a weeklong bonanza of song, laughs and camaraderie shared by scores of performers, teachers, and audience members immersed in the art of cabaret.
Begun in 2000 by Boston-based cabaret impresario John O’Neil, and continued for a few years by Hyannis-based jazz band leader Bart Weisman, CabaretFest Provincetown is now in its 10th year being produced by the incomparable Cape 
Cod-based Patricia Fitzpatrick, who picked up and ran with O’Neil’s vision of a weeklong celebration of cabaret that combines performances by local and imported cabaret artists with workshops and master classes to help emerging and seasoned performers hone their craft.
Provincetown has always been known for its inclusive support of the arts, including and especially cabaret. So, to do this in Provincetown, quite literally at the end of the earth, separate from one’s daily cares, and to be completely among your tribe for a full week, is something in which cabaret lovers can truly luxuriate.
This year, Fitzpatrick, who can only be described as a force of nature, brought together performers from New York, California, Boston, Rhode Island, and Cape Cod to honor this year’s theme, The Golden Era of Night Clubs, from June 3-9.
Headlining this year’s event were Angela Bacari, Seth Sikes & Nicolas King, Sidney Myer, David Rhodes, Karen Mack & Elliot Roth, Michael Garin & Mardie Millit, Warren Shein, Rod Ferguson, Pamela Enders, Brian De Lorenzo, and Lynn Flickinger with half hour spotlight performances by Charles Evans, Francis Garner, Lisa Kantor, Vivien La Barbera, and Lynda D’Amour.
One thing Fitzpatrick has added to CabaretFest is the event’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and this year’s award went to Angela Bacari, who has been working as a performer, vocal coach, and talent manager for more than six decades. As a performer, she has played Playboy clubs around the world, opened for Rodney Dangerfield during an 8-week tour, and performed on various television variety shows. She worked for most of her singing career with the renowned pianist Mike Renzi, musical director for luminaries Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett and Peggy Lee, until his passing in 2021.
As Liza Minnelli’s vocal coach, Bacari helped Minnelli conquer her vocal problems and return to performing. Bacari also taught voice to an 8-year-old Billy Gilman, nurturing him to success three years later with his million selling hit “One Voice,” and continues to be Gilman’s manager nearly 30 years later. Part of a talented musical family, she is also grandmother to Nicolas King.
Past year recipients of the event’s Lifetime Achievement Award includes Karen Mason, Marilyn Maye, Steve Ross, Sidney Myer and Carol O’Shaughnessy.
Another award Fitzpatrick has added to the event is the Mike Renzi “Spotlight” Award, given to the most accomplished spotlight performer of the previous year. This year, the award went to Cape Cod performer Jeff Tagen. King, who worked almost exclusively with Mike Renzi for 16 years, until Renzi’s passing, was on hand to present the award. Poignantly, King sang “Some Other Time” (Bernstein, Comden & Green) to a track of Mike Renzi’s accompaniment, performing this arrangement for the first time in public, eliciting cheers and tears.
As in past years, the master classes were given Monday through Wednesday mornings, led by headlining performers Bacari, Myer, and Mack & Roth. New this year were two workshops, offered by Dottie LaMark, and Pamela Enders. Enders, an accomplished cabaret performer with a PhD in Psychology, was just the right person to offer a workshop on dealing with performance anxiety, colloquially known as “stage fright.”
It is a testament to Fitzpatrick’s commitment to cabaret that she considers these classes and workshops to be the most important part of CabaretFest. She feels great pride and joy that former CabaretFest student Rod Ferguson incubated his show at CabaretFest three years ago, performed it in New York later that year, and won a 2022 MAC Award for it. Others like Mardie Millit and Meg Flather have incubated shows at CabaretFest that have also gone on to win MAC Awards in 2024.
Cabaret performers are always appreciative of the support, talent, and friendship of their musical directors, and Fitzpatrick provided this year’s event with two “house” pianists, Boston-based Tom LaMark and New York-based Tracy Stark, both of whom added much depth and texture to the shows they accompanied.
Following is a roundup of the individual shows that ran from Thursday through Saturday at CabaretFest. Given the theme of The Golden Era of Night Clubs, it is not surprising that there were three shows that celebrated Sammy Davis Jr. and also The Sands in Las Vegas. What is surprising is that there was almost no overlap in song choices or storytelling, each performer personalizing their shows enough to deftly sidestep redundancy.
Lynda D’Amour
“One Cool Cat: The Sammy Davis Jr. Songbook,” with musical director Tracy Stark
I try to see every show D’Amour does, because I know she will take me on an enjoyable trip through some wonderful musical canon. This is the third time I’ve seen her perform her Sammy Davis Jr. tribute, and it just gets better every time. Distilled down to a half-hour spotlight show, it is even richer, like a good reduction sauce. From her light and jazzy “Gypsy in My Soul,” to a sweet and wistful version of “Somebody,” D’Amour, who can belt to the rafters, also knows how to dial down her deliveries for the very intimate Gabriel’s. She showed remarkable breath control in a medley of “For Once in a Lifetime/Gonna Build a Mountain/Candyman” that allowed the true depth of the lyrics to be expressed, and she was riveting in the requisite power ballad “What Kind of Fool Am I?” Most unforgettable, however, is the touching story she told of how Jerry Jeff Walker came to write “Mr. Bojangles,” segueing into a poignant reading of the song during which you could hear a pin drop. She may have closed with “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone,” but after a show like that, how could we not?
Vivienne La Barbera
“Starr Struck with Kay Starr” with musical director Tracy Stark
La Barbera has shown some promise in her cameo appearances at past CabaretFests, but her full potential has been realized this year with her well-constructed tribute show to Kay Starr. Under Lennie Watts’ direction, she was composed, confident and beautifully poised throughout, with genuine enthusiasm for Starr’s artistry. Tracy Stark’s contribution to song choices and arrangements added panache to La Barbera’s jubilant deliveries. La Barbera brings a gravitas to her singing that may no longer be the mellifluous voice of her youth, but conveys a worldly wisdom worth even more, especially when she leaves her soprano range and goes into her better supported alto range, which I encourage her to explore further. But boy, can La Barbera sell a song. From her opening “It’s a Good Day/Hoop De Do” to “The Glory of Love,” La Barbera makes these well-worn songs her own. Especially interesting was her slowed down version of “Glad Rag Doll,” sung with visceral compassion. She followed this by quoting Starr saying that singers are actors set to music. La Barbera’s delivery did justice to that notion, bringing out the sadness in that song that is often lost in its more popular uptempo renderings. La Barbera also knows how to be fun, and her whimsical “Bonaparte’s Retreat” was exactly how to bring up the house after a touching ballad. I look forward to her next outing.
David Rhodes
“Soir Noir: a nightclub confidential” (MD Tracy Stark, director Lennie Watts)
Rhodes’ past cabaret work has been more theatrical, tightly scripted dramatic narratives. sometimes biographical, sometimes fictional, weaving into and out of song with a vaudevillian flair. In “Soir Noir: a nightclub confidential,” Rhodes steps into the world of more traditional cabaret, a refreshing departure, setting a vintage tone with his choice of material that includes work by Cole Porter, Noel Coward, and Nat King Cole, while stirring the pot with some more contemporary songwriters like John Forster and Dave Frishberg. Rhodes possesses considerable theater chops that make him a superb storyteller, turning any song into a one act play. And this show, with its well-formed arc, takes us on a delightfully decadent musical trip through a series of vividly drawn scenes.
Making good use of the Provincetown setting, Rhodes opened with a cleverly arranged pairing of “Old Cape Cod/Entering Marion” that juxtaposed innocent admiration with double entendre, the latter tickling the audience with its glib references to local place names. Musically, Rhodes showed how well he can swing with a series of big band type numbers, like “Mack, the Knife,” Old Devil Moon,” and especially “How Hight the Moon,” with Tracy Stark on keyboard standing in ably for the big band. Turning on a dime, he delivered a heartfelt Porter Medley of “Your Fabulous Face”/”I’ve Got You Under My Skin”/”I Get a Kick Out of You”/”D’Lovely” and a tour-de-force power ballad delivery of the Dusty Springfield torch song “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” that paid homage to those torch bearers of the ‘40s and ‘50s. As if to illustrate this point further, Rhodes brought out his romantic partner Jake Oswell, introduced as “the beauty to my beast,” striking a femme fatale figure in a dark full length evening gown, heels, and full length evening gloves, all contrasting with and complementing his statuesque height, porcelain skin and thick mustache. Oswell stood center stage, barely moving a muscle, commanding our full attention with his smooth as silk singing voice and laser focused delivery of “Come Live with Me” and “I’ll Plant My Own Tree,” two rarely heard André and Dory Previn songs from the film “Valley of the Dolls.” Oswell brought home the latter song with a huge show biz finish that beautifully showcased his high belting vocal range. Rhodes was not afraid to get personal, telling a story both touching and hilarious about the kinship he had with his London landlord, who happened to be Noel Coward’s goddaughter, whilst studying many years ago at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Segueing into Coward’s “A Marvelous Party,” this became the comic high point of the show. He followed this with Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy,” which was the show’s dramatic high point, with Stark’s wistful piano interlude tugging further at our heartstrings. When Rhodes leaves us with “What a Wonderful World,” we have to believe that it could possibly be true.
Brian De Lorenzo
“Sammy and Sinatra at the Sands” (MD Tom LaMark)
(Full disclosure, De Lorenzo is this writer’s husband)
Brian De Lorenzo, who has explored the work of Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. in past shows has homed in on Sinatra’s and Davis’ work in Las Vegas for this outing, with an emphasis on Davis Jr., who he claims is one the best entertainers of the 20th century and too often underappreciated. Mixing some biographical stories of Davis Jr.’s misfortunes and successes with his songs gave dimension to the material and the man. De Lorenzo featured such classic Davis Jr. songs as ”As Long As He Needs Me,” “Birth of the Blues,” and “I Gotta Be Me,” the latter given a personal touch. De Lorenzo included a pairing of “Three Coins in a Fountain” with “Luck Be A Lady” that elicited cheers followed by another Sinatra standard, “Blues in the Night,” one of De Lorenzo’s signature songs which brought the audience to its feet, He continued the swinging mood with the sultry “Too Close for Comfort.” De Lorenzo is currently working on a big band recording with the Tom LaMark Orchestra, and with LaMark at the keyboards in this show, we got a preview of this highly anticipated recording.
Pamela Enders
“How Glad I Am: A Tribute to Nancy Wilson” (MD Tom LaMark)
Enders regaled an appreciative and cheering audience with stories and songs that gave shape to the great career of Nancy Wilson. This is a show that Enders has done before, and she continues to burnish it with new material and new arrangements of previously performed material to keep it fresh and exciting. Opening with the explosive Jules Styne/Comden & Green “Fireworks” (from “Do Re Mi”) was a good choice, showcasing her powerful vocals. She was sultry and sizzling on “I’m Beginning to See the Light,” and jazzy in “Don’t Take Your Love from Me,” that was sung with real heart. She waxed romantic on the wistful “The Folks Who Live on the Hill,” enhanced by a story of how Wilson lured her future husband with that song. Showing her comic side, she gave us a hilarious “Don’t Talk, Just Sing,” a delightful but obscure comic novelty song that deserves more airing. But the high points of the show are Wilson’s biggest hits, “You Can Have Him,” and “Guess Who I Saw Today” where Enders employed her full-throated belt and her great storytelling skills to great effect. When she brought home her penultimate number, the showstopping “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey,” played with a strident funk rhythm by LaMark, her big finish was the cherry on top that brought the audience to its feet. Some trouble with the stage monitors during the show had Enders sometimes ahead of the accompaniment, or going up on a lyric, a rarity in an Enders show, but that couldn’t spoil the appreciation of this richly delivered outing.
“Viva Las Vegas!” (with MC Warren Shein, and MD Tom LaMark)
This annual tradition of the Friday night gala continued this year, with nearly 20 performers, most of whom were already performing shows at CabaretFest, plus others simply making guest appearances like Eden Casteel, Jo Brisbane, Jeff Tagen, Lisa Gail Johnson, and Dawn DeRowe. DeRowe opened the festivities with a raise the roof delivery of “This Could Be the Start of Something Big” that whipped the audience into a frenzy and set the tone for the rest of the evening. One showstopper after another followed, ensuring that this tradition will live on in future CabaretFests.
Karen Mack and Elliot Roth
“Live at the Sands”
Vocalist Karen Mack and vocalist/pianist Elliot Roth, both longtime veterans of the New York cabaret and theater scene, have been working together since they partnered during the pandemic to keep in practice during lockdown, a fortuitous union that has turned into a dynamic musical partnership that radiates joy and affection wherever they go. Their CabaretFest, show, “Live at the Sands,” honored the work of Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis, Jr., Tony Bennett and many others, choosing a captivating collection of songs that only rarely repeated songs already performed by others in the Festival, not only a testament to the huge canon of songs by the singers they honored, but to Mack and Roth themselves.
Mack’s honeyed vocals add a lovely patina to any song, but she especially made “Imagination’ (Van Heusen/Burke) and “Where or When” (Rodgers/Hart) utterly swoon inducing. Roth, whose smooth jazz vocals evoke the smoky sounds of Mark Murphy or Kurt Elling, also elicited sighs during Sinatra’s “Please Be Kind” and especially on “As the Water Loves the Stone,” a gem he plucked from Adam Guettel’s recently closed “Days of Wine and Roses.” As good as these two are individually, they are dynamite together, combining and complementing each other’s strengths to delicious effect, as when they launched into “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” at breakneck speed with an incredible vocal dexterity that had us in awe. A word on Roth’s piano playing: this is some of the best playing around, from his lush underscoring for Mack’s “Imagination,” and his sizzling arrangement for “Some Like It Hot,” to making that electronic keyboard sound like an acoustic upright on “Birth of the Blues,” a number Roth sang in the Off-Broadway production of “Our Sinatra” when he replaced Eric Comstock, who originated the role. Their encore, “That’s All,” with Mack singing a cappella to Roth’s bongo like percussion on the seat of a nearby stool was as entertaining as it was unique, with rapid fire tempo that still managed to leave a sweet taste in our mouth and wanting more. This is the second year they’ve headlined CabaretFest, and something tells me it won’t be their last.
Michael Garin and Mardie Millit
“From the Borscht Belt to 8th Avenue”
CabaretFest veterans and favorites Michael Garin and Mardie Millit, partners on stage and in life, have typically been a matched duo, each taking equal prominence in their shows, until last year, in their CabaretFest show, “Sorry-Grateful: One Sondheim Story in Letters and Song,” where Millit stepped into the limelight and Garin receded to allow Millit to tell her very personal story. She reprised this show many times over in New York, garnering a 2024 MAC Award for Best Female Vocalist. This year it was Garin’s turn, where he honored his Jewish heritage by celebrating the music from the old country, Yiddish, Greek, Arabic, Egyptian, Moroccan, and Cuban, and demonstrated how, through 19th and 20th century mass migration to the United States, it influenced the jazz standards of the Great American Songbook in ways we might not have otherwise appreciated.
Speaking professorially from the piano, often standing up between songs to tell his stories, Garin was utterly captivating, placing dots on an imaginary blackboard that represented original songs from Eastern Europe and North Africa, and connecting those dots for us to draw a line directly to early 20th century Manhattan’s 8th Avenue, continuing to the Borscht Belt circuit of the Pocono’s Jewish resorts of The Concord, Grosingers, and The Pines, colloquially known as the Yiddish Alps. This show could have amounted to little more than an informative Ted Talk, except for one thing: Garin and Millit are hilariously entertaining, with improvised schtick reminiscent of Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie, or George Burns and Gracie Allen. These two modern day vaudevillians can make you laugh so hard you barely realize they’ve also made you think.
I could tell you about the songs, but I don’t know any of them, mostly sung in their original languages, and my Yiddish, Arabic, Ukrainian, and Greek is a bit rusty. What I can tell you is how Garin made me feel as he described the small 8th Avenue club scene, mostly gone now, where this music was kept alive by an old school group of musicians amongst which Garin came of age as a musician himself. So personal was this story, Garin was often verklempt, and so were we along with him. When she wasn’t singing backup or the occasional Edie Gormé standard, or wisecracking between songs, Millit stood to the side, clearly kvelling. This was the debut of this show, and Garin claims it is a work in progress, but what we saw was as finished a piece of gobsmacking entertainment as you could find anywhere. But as he polishes it, and it shines even brighter, if he performs it near you, go see it. You won’t ever see 8th Avenue the same way again.
Angela Bacari
With the Tom LaMark Trio: Tom LaMark, piano; Dave Landoni, bass; John DiSanto, drums
Angela Bacari may have been winning a CabaretFest Lifetime Achievement Award, but producer Patricia Fitzpatrick made her sing for her supper. And fitting for a diva of Bacari’s stature, Fitzpatrick gave her an opening act: MAC Award winner Rod Ferguson. A Boston native son, and perennial favorite at the Club Café’s Napoleon Room, where his self-deprecating humor and broad smile endeared him to everyone he met, Ferguson nevertheless left Boston for New York, where he took performance classes, enlisted in some very productive vocal coaching and met a man, not necessarily in order of importance. Returning to CabaretFest, Ferguson beamed brighter and sang even better, and still made us laugh like we were kids. His quick five-song set included his well-loved over-the-top hilarious version of Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual,” and an uptempo “What’ll I Do” while impersonating Elvis Presley. But it was his closing number, “The Otter Song,” a tongue twister of a list song, brilliantly executed, that brought the house down. Now that’s an opening act!
Angela Bacari owned the stage the minute she stepped on it. For 90 minutes, she rocked, sizzled, swung, crooned, and balladeered into our hearts. Cut from the same cloth as her voice student Liza Minnelli, Bacari gave 110% the entire show, with an energy level at 81 that singers half her age would envy. Her set was well-constructed and relaxed, as if we were at a party that she was hosting. And at this party, she served up some delicious dishses, such as her opener, “What a Difference a Day Makes,” a beautifully stylized “As Time Goes By,” and a vocally rich ‘It’s My Band,” dedicated to her band, The Tom LaMark Trio. But it was her signature song, “How Do You Keep the Music Playing,” (Michel LeGrand/Alan and Marilyn Bergman) that rocked the rafters and brought the audience to its feet in the first of several standing ovations. Honoring Minnelli’s first husband, Peter Allen, she knocked “I Go to Rio” out of the park, and like Allen, gave everything she had and more. Being a good hostess, she brought on several guests to join her on stage. Her grandson, Nicolas King, an accomplished jazz and cabaret performer, accompanied her on the keyboard for “How Do You Keep the Music Playing.” Her daughter Lisa Bacari Ferrari, King’s aunt, joined Bacari for a high-octane duet “No More Tears/Enough is Enough.” Ferrari then moved us with Neil Sedaka’s heart-wrenching ballad, “I Should Have Never Let You Go” which showcased her lovely voice, with gorgeous harmony provided by her mom, showing that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Another proud moment in this “This is Your Life” show was having her one-time student, successful pop/country artist Billy Gilman to join her for two songs. The first was a touching solo ballad by Gilman, “Spend Another Night,” a song he recorded when he was 12, and hasn’t sung in 25 years, but conveyed the love he still feels for Bacari, who has been his mentor and career manager for the past three decades. They then launched into a powerful Barbra/Judy duet of “Happy Days are Here Again/Get Happy” that brought on a standing ovation before the last thrilling note was finished. Showing she can also be a goofball, she introduced her husband, Al Lorenzo, also a performer, who shook, rattled and rolled his way through “Blue Suede Shoes,” in a note perfect impersonation of Elvis Presley, replete with white unitard, sunglasses and wide wale sideburns, with LaMark letting his hair down and tearing up the keyboards. When Bacari finished with the stage anthem, “What I Did for Love,” it was clear this is her passion, and it always has been, and her welled up emotion came through in her powerful vocals that nearly overcame her. That song alone could have merited her the Lifetime Achievement Award, and still, the pageant we saw throughout this show proved that the award was well deserved.
Sidney Myer (with MD Elliot Roth)
When you need a good palette cleanser between powerful cabaret acts, there is no better choice than Sidney Myer, the king of droll. Myer, who received the CabaretFest Lifetime Achievement Award several years ago has since been a staple at CabaretFest to absolutely everyone’s delight. It doesn’t matter how often you see him sing his signature songs, and how well you see the punch lines coming, seeing and hearing Myer’s deadpan delivery of them still makes us belly laugh. The song, “Between Men,” that regales us with the lessons learned between relationships is a hilarious tour-de-force in Myer’s hands, and is a song I would love to see find its way into more cabaret acts. And he can’t leave the stage without singing “It’s Nice to Have a Man Around the House” or there might be a riot. But he really surprised with a poignantly romantic “That’s Him” (from “One Touch of Venus”), confessing that as a child, seeing Mary Martin sing this in the show, he never imagined one day he would be performing it in Provincetown during Pride Month with the man he loves and is married to in the audience. And he wove a magic spell with his Pride pairing of “I Can Sing a Rainbow/Bella Notte,” eliciting deep sighs all around. Simply put, Sidney Myer is a treasure.
Seth and Nicolas (with Jonah Wheeler, piano; Dave Landoni, bass; John DiSanto, drums)
Two years ago, these two accomplished solo performers, Seth Sikes, a cabaret performer and Nicolas King, a Mel Tormé-styled jazz vocalist met cute on an 8th Avenue sidewalk at 1 AM, discovered their common love for Great American Songbook standards, and have been a singing duo ever since, touring nationally and internationally, often in the same week. Sikes, whose cabaret career over the past 12 years has focused on tributes to Judy Garland, and King, who grew up under the wing of Liza Minnelli, touring with her for 10 years during his teens, and refers to her as his Auntie Mame, have learned from the best, and in old school style don’t know the meaning of “Let them leave wanting more.” Like every show of theirs, individually and as a duo, this show was simply effervescent, with a palpable joy that only comes from performers who absolutely love what they do. It doesn’t hurt that Sikes and King also can belt like nobody’s business. It’s no wonder they call themselves, The New Belters, and for Provincetown, they’ve combined their two shows, “The New Belters,” and “The New Belters Sing MGM” and stirred in a few new numbers to come up with a new show tailored especially for CabaretFest.
With virtually every song being a showstopper, one can only say that the highlight among highlights included a pairing of “That’s Entertainment” with the tongue twisting “Stereophonic Sound,” a medley of “I Want to Be a Showstopper/There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This/Something’s Coming,” and a fun upbeat opener, “Two of a Kind,” that couldn’t have been more on point. Two other medleys jam packed with MGM and Broadway hits proved that the talent that pours out of these two is just unstoppable. And with Sikes’ longtime musical director on hand, Jonah Wheeler, a one-man orchestra on the keyboards who can also sing, the duo became a trio, singing the goofy “Triplets” from MGM’s “The Bandwagon.” A dramatic high point was their tribute to Anthony Newley, with a finely crafted pairing of “What Kind of Fool Am I?/Who Can I Turn To?” singing each separately then over one another then coming together on the final lines for a huge finish that blew the roof off the Crown & Anchor. And since nothing they do is nice and easy, they closed with a powerful “Come Back to Me” that really cooked, ably abetted by the band that rocked on all cylinders, leaving the happy audience fully sated, and checking the internet for when and where would be their next shows.
All gallery photos by John Amodeo
