Cabaret

The first show of Theatre Project's 20th season is a hilarious turn-of-the-century Russian cabaret style entertainment, "Ah, Cabaret! Ah Cabaret!," presented by Theatre Buffo of Leningrad, an outstanding professional troupe of young clowns, musicians and singers.These highly trained Soviet artists (all are accomplishedmusicians) are under the precise direction of Isaak Shtockbant, an acclaimed director and teacher in the Soviet Union. (Buffo is Italian for clown).The five amazing men and four women engage in a skillful cacophony of sounds, warble songs -- some sung resoundingly in Russian -- burlesque traditional dances and perform perfectly timed Russian vaudevillian skits.

An anniversary qualifies as a good time to throw yourself a party. That's what the Red Branch Theatre Company is doing to mark its fifth season. Its two-night cabaret program on Saturday and Sunday, March 15 and 16, is a chance for the Columbia-based company to musically look back on past shows and also look forward to the shows ahead. "I think we were always a small company with lofty goals," said Managing Director Tiffany Underwood Holmes. "We've done a lot of really good theater in the past five years and brought things that were new and exciting to the area.

This summer, the Kennedy Center in Washington is presenting a cabaret series called the Broadway Songbooks, saluting American musical theater composers. The installment that opens tonight is called "A Swell Party: The Cole Porter Songbook" and honors the composer of such shows as "Kiss Me Kate," "Can-Can" and "Anything Goes."Tony Award-winning actress Melba Moore heads a quintet of singers that includes Baltimore School for the Arts alumnus Abe Reybold. The series is presented in the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater, where audiences sit on stage with the performers, in a nightclub setting.

Rebecca D. Dorsey, a Baltimore-born and -raised chanteuse, died Sept. 14 of ovarian cancer at her home in Sea Cliff, N.Y. She was 54. The daughter of a physician and a public relations executive, Rebecca Devereux Dorsey was born in Baltimore and raised in Glencoe and Homeland. After graduating in 1976 from Garrison Forest School, she earned a bachelor's degree in dance from Sarah Lawrence College in 1980. "She began studying singing at the Sorbonne, where she had gone to study French, and realized she had a voice," said her mother, Glorian Devereux Dorsey of Cockeysville, former director of public relations at The Baltimore Sun. "Then she came back and started studying acting in New York when she was in her 20s. " Ms. Dorsey modeled and had supporting roles in such films as "Wall Street," "Slaves of New York," "Working Girl" and several Woody Allen pictures, her mother said.

Chesapeake Music Hall is planning a supper club cabaret evening May 14 to raise money for the families of victims of the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.The music hall has doubled its admission price to $10 for the night, and will donate all the money from the gate to the Jefferson Memorial Fund, created to help victims' families with funeral, counseling and other expenses. Those who want to can pay the usual $5 admission fee, and that money also will go to the fund.Fifteen people died and 21 were injured when two students opened fire on their classmates and a teacher before killing themselves April 20 at Columbine High School.

It would be impossible, not to mention foolhardy, to choose one contender for the title of America's greatest songwriter. But if such a designation absolutely had to be made, a lot of money would be riding on Irving Berlin. There is such a startling amount of quality in the quantity of Berlin's songs (more than 1,200), and a remarkable consistency in terms of communicative power. A hearty sampling of that power is on display in "A Concert Salute to Irving Berlin," the fast-paced cabaret show onstage through the weekend at the Everyman Theatre.

Oh, those wacky Russians! That may seem like a contradiction in terms to those of us accustomed to scenes of bleak Soviet life, but wacky aptly describes Theatre Buffo of Leningrad, whose effervescent vaudeville-style show, "Ah, Cabaret! Ah, Cabaret!",is the opening production in the Theatre Project's 20th anniversary seasonAs novel as Soviet vaudeville may seem on these shores -- which Theatre Buffo is visiting for the first time -- the idea is also fairly novel in the U.S.S.R. Suppressed during the Russian Revolution and virtually eliminated by Stalin, cabaret theater has only recently resurfaced, due in part to the efforts of Theatre Buffo's producer and director, Isaak Shtockbant.

You might call it "cabaret verite."Center Stage's Head Theater has been totally, convincingly and stunningly transformed into a working cabaret for its production of Lanie Robertson's "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill."The multi-level seating area is filled with tables and chairs; there's a bar at the back, and waiters serve drinks throughout the show. So successful is this concept -- for which credit should probably be divided between director George Faison, set designer Christopher Barreca and Tom Sturge, who created the smoky, evocative lighting -- that it's difficult to imagine this musical biography of Billie Holiday presented any other way.But, in fact, this is an innovative approach to Robertson's 1986 off-Broadway hit, which was conceived as a traditional theatrical presentation.

The Anne Arundel Family YMCA will host a "YMCA Cabaret" at 8 p.m. tomorrow at Anne Arundel Community College. The black-tie event, which costs $100 a person, will feature entertainment throughout the evening, as well as acts that showcase jazz, theater, opera and dance. It will also have hors d'oeuvres, drinks and a silent and live auction. Proceeds will benefit the YMCA's Strong Kids Annual Giving Campaign, which assists children who cannot afford Y programs and services. Information: Lana Smith, the Y's executive director, at 410-760-4980, Ext. 223, or at lanasmith@ymcamd.

After a successful run of the wildly funny theater happening "Tony and Tina's Wedding" at the Fells Point Cafe (20,000 saw the play), producer Howard Perloff has formed the new Fells Point Cabaret Theatre at the same location, 723 S. Broadway.According to Perloff, the cabaret will be a year-round theater venue offering musicals, comedies and dramas and some original scripts. Local actors from the Baltimore-Washington area will be cast as well as some New York professionals.First on the agenda is an audience participation thriller, "Murder on the Waterfront," a dinner theater package running tonight through New Year's Eve. Thereafter, the show will pick up its regular schedule, playing at 7 p.m. Fridays and 7 and 10:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 3 and 7 p.m. Sundays through March 10.The cost of the dinner theater entertainment is $29.95 a person except for the special New Year's Eve celebration ($75 each)

When the Columbia-based theater company Silhouette Stages does a Cabaret Night several times a year at Slayton House, audiences know that the singing, dancing, stand-up comedy and magic acts establish a direct and casual connection with them. Even the master of ceremonies does not stand on ceremony in a cabaret setting. Life will be even more of a cabaret at Silhouette Stages' upcoming Cabaret Night on Saturday, Feb. 4, at 8 p.m., according to the evening's master of ceremonies, Mo Dutterer.

Top off the day at an Autumn Cabaret, a pops concert and dessert buffet, Sat., Oct. 1, 7 p.m. at Oaklands Presbyterian Church, 14301 Laurel Bowie Road. Concert features the West Shore Piano Trio and Oaklands Chancel and Handbell Choirs. Tickets $15 per person or $50 a family. 301-577-5785.

In 1955, jazz pianist, songwriter and actor Bobby Troup recorded an album of songs with words by Johnny Mercer, who penned a wry poem for the liner notes. In those verses, Mercer, the lyricist for at least 1,200 songs, neatly summed up his craft: "I write because I love to write / And hope the words are not too trite … I do the best with what I have. " His best was extraordinary, as you can hear at Everyman Theatre in "A Concert Tribute to Johnny Mercer," which wraps up this weekend.

Of all the talent folks who have tried their hand at writing lyrics in the past century or so, few can match Johnny Mercer for freshness, catchiness, wit and charm — not to mention prolificacy. With more than 1,200 songs to his credit, Mercer might best be described using the title from one of them: "Too Marvelous for Words. " Everyman Theatre 's "A Tribute to Johnny Mercer," opening Sunday, will offer a sample of his works in a show directed by Vincent Lancisi. One of the singers in the production is Delores King Williams, who first suggested Mercer as a possible subject for the company's winter cabaret.

Vagabond Opera will wander into Baltimore on Friday night, bringing with it a reputation for delivering genre-bending, sometimes madcap entertainment. Based in Portland, Ore., the sextet takes its name seriously. "We sing real opera in our shows," says saxophonist Robin Jackson, "and fuse it with other things." In addition to arias, the group puts into the blender such elements as cabaret songs, klezmer tunes, Arabian and Balkan folk music, swing, belly-dancing and a cupful or two of camp.

Standing O inaugurated its first cabaret series in April 2009 when Debbie Barber-Eaton offered a show that defined the art form to a sold-out audience. Her show was staged not long after cabaret was brought to Germano's Trattoria in Baltimore's Little Italy, where it has gained popularity. "We're thrilled to be the trailblazers for cabaret in the Severna Park/Annapolis area," said Standing O founder Ron Giddings. "Although there are many in D.C. and Baltimore cropping up, we are the only place that offers the cabaret experience to locals."

"Saddam," a scathing satire on war that delivers a powerful dramatic punch, is having its world premiere at the Fell's Point Cabaret Theater through June 16.A work-in-progress, this play by Philadelphia writer Michael Elkin is based on hypothetical events inspired by the Persian Gulf war. Cleverly and perceptively written, in its present state "Saddam" has the bare bones of a potential hit.The action takes place in a sealed room in Baltimore that, like an H. G. Well's time machine, travels through the fourth dimension to locations in Riyadh, Tel Aviv and New York.

Toys aren't the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the dark, Weimar Republic-era musical Cabaret. But there's a toy train in director Molly Smith's divinely re-imagined production at Washington's Arena Stage. The train elicits appreciative chuckles from the audience when it makes its first appearance; when it reappears, however, this toy is anything but a plaything. The miniature train is just one of the inventive approaches Smith and her choreographer, David Neumann, have found to John Kander and Fred Ebb's 1966 musical.

Tracie Thoms says her style varies from day to day. "My everyday style can swing from super-casual to rock and roll to kinda chic. I say 'kinda chic' because I hate being uncomfortable. ...," says the actor/singer and Baltimore native. The Baltimore School for the Arts graduate took time out from her role on the CBS crime drama "Cold Case" to perform with current BSFA students at a Germano's Trattoria Cabaret. The look: Black cotton knit ruched Bird by Juicy Couture sheath dress.