CabaretFest Ptown Turns 25 with Gala Kander & Ebb Tribute – Who's on Tap to Perform

For cabaret fans and performers, CabaretFest Provincetown is one of the most jubilant immersions into the art form one can find. A weeklong series of performances in the evenings with master classes and workshops during the day, it is an abbondanza of heartfelt and humorous shows performed by some of the best cabaret artists from Boston, New York, and beyond. Producer Patricia Fitzpatrick has given each year a new theme to keep things fresh.

This year proves to be one of the most exuberant festivals ever, as CabaretFest Provincetown marks its 25th Anniversary June 2-8 with "All That Jazz: Celebrating the music of Kander & Ebb," who have written such high-spirited and jazzy numbers as "New York, New York," and "And the World Goes 'Round," and the Broadway scores to "Cabaret" and "Chicago," to name but a few.

While some crowd favorites like Nicolas King, Angela Bacari, Warren Shein, Sidney Myer, David Rhodes, and Dawn Derow will be returning, there are also many new faces or new duet combos that are being featured this year. Broadway veteran David Sabella and multi-MAC Award winner Carolyn Montgomery are each making their CabaretFest debuts, while Rhodes' partner, Jake Oswell, who has sung a song or two in past Festivals to huge cheers from the crowd, will be making his cabaret debut at CabaretFest. Mardie Millet, another returning CabaretFest favorite, won't be performing with her usual musical and marital partner Michael Garin, but instead has paired herself with Nicolas King in their first duet show. Another new twist in this year's CabaretFest is granting the Lifetime Achievement Award not to a singer, but to the highly esteemed piano accompanist, arranger, and musical director Tom LaMark.

Edge spoke with Sabella, Millet, Montgomery, Oswell, and LaMark about their Kander and Ebb connections, their debuts, and where Oswell finds his fabulous gowns.

Watch David Sabella sing "Mr. Cellophane" from "Chicago."

David Sabella, who now lives in Puerto Vallarta, is an operatic countertenor, but also can belt in his baritone range. He has performed on Broadway in a Kander and Ebb show, has been out his whole career, and has fully reinvented himself in his own second act as General Manager of Act2 PV, Puerto Vallarta's cabaret central.

EDGE: David, you originated the role of Mary Sunshine in the 1996 Broadway revival of "Chicago," which is still going strong. Given how long it's playing, have you gone back into the role again after leaving?

David Sabella: Yes, I played the role on and off for almost 10 years. I did the Las Vegas sit-down production for a year. Then I went back into the Broadway production for the 10-year anniversary, but I've not been back since 2006.

EDGE: Did you work directly with Kander and Ebb during the development of the revival? If so, what was the most memorable takeaway from working with them?

David Sabella: Yes, I worked closely with them during the revival's development. John Kander asked Rob Fisher, the music supervisor, to re-orchestrate the song for me because my voice was much more operatic. Mary's song in the original production was more like a radio theme song, but they said my voice was more operatic, so they used violins and flourishes. Once on stage, I was practicing the trills, and I went to the 7th, because that is the same as "The Jewel Song" from "Faust." John [Kander] is a big opera fan, and when he heard me, he said, "Keep that!" So, in my rendition the top trill goes to the 7th instead of the octave.

EDGE: Parts of your cabaret show, "Razzle Dazzle," which you will perform in CabaretFest, get very personal. What songs in your show do you connect with most personally?

David Sabella: The whole second half of the show turns to my personal journey being married and having kids, and that starts after "We Both Reached for the Gun." The "Roxie Monologue" is Roxie's truthful moment. I turn this into a truthful moment about me and couple the "Roxie Monologue" with "Life Is" from "Zorba" to talk about my husband and me fostering five children and adopting two of them. I pair "Married" and "Love and Love Alone," referencing that my husband passed away in 2019. We were divorced by then, but still close.

David Sabella performs "Razzle Dazzle" on Thursday, June 5, 2025, 6 PM at Post Office Café & Cabaret, 303 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657. Tix: $35. For Reservations, visit: https://www.provincetowncabaretfest.com/event-details/david-sabella-razzle-dazzle

Jake Oswell stands a statuesque 6'4" in heels, can usually be seen in elegant evening gowns and opera gloves, and sings like a meadowlark. It's no surprise to learn that he has been singing since he was four ("In my childhood bedroom," he confesses, "I was singing into a fake microphone pretending I was Judy Garland singing 'Over the Rainbow'"), took acting lessons since 4th grade, went to a performing arts high school in New York, and majored in musical theater at the Hart School in Hartford, CT.

EDGE: Is this your first full cabaret show?

Jake Oswell: Pretty much. I've put on two sort of shows for my birthday for the past two years, and for my friends I sang a handful of songs at a party. But this is the first real show. For this one I have a script that I co-wrote with David Rhodes, and I am working with Tracy [Stark] as music director. I am very excited to show everyone what we've been working on. It's all Kander and Ebb from a variety of different shows, and at least one song from the movie "Chicago."

EDGE: How has CabaretFest helped nurture your singing?

Jake Oswell: CabaretFest really piqued my interest in the art of cabaret. It is all the best parts of musical theater rolled into one. I have been a theatre queen my whole life. Cabaret is like theatre, [it's] where I get to be the authentic Jake that I want to be when I'm on stage. Honestly, Patricia [Fitzpatrick] has given me opportunity after opportunity. Once she realized I could sing, she allowed me to step forward. I'm so grateful to her for that.

EDGE: Where do you get your fabulous sense of style?

Jake Oswell: I've always been an appreciator of fashion. My mother and I look through fashion magazines together, we go together to the Fashion Institute of Technology fashion show, we go shopping and we try on lots of clothes. Lots of trial and error. I get most of my stuff from thrift stores. I spend as much time as I can sifting through every single piece. When I see something, I know instantly that it's for me. All the gowns I've worn in Ptown come from my favorite thrift store called Housing Works in Manhattan, and they are all $20 or less. They know me. When I walk in, they say, "Hey Jake!" When my mom and I go thrifting, she knows my style, so she'll pick stuff out and say, "Jake will love this," and she's almost always right.

Jake Oswell performs "Jake Oswell Does K&E Live Onstage" Thursday, June 5, 2025, 5 PM at the Crown & Anchor, 247 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657. Tix: $35. For Reservations, visit: https://www.provincetowncabaretfest.com/event-details/jake-oswell-jake-oswell-does-k-e-live-onstage

Watch Mardie Millet sing "I Wish It So" and "Make Someone Happy."

Mardie Millet has frequented CabaretFest the past several years. Two years ago she presented her very personal cabaret show about her connection with the late Stephen Sondheim, for which she received a MAC Award last year.

EDGE: You usually perform with your mensch of a husband, singer, songwriter, and accompanist Michael Garin. But at this CabaretFest, you are performing with Nicolas King. Have you ever done a show with Nicolas before?

Mardie Millet: I have never worked with Nicolas before, but we've been super-close friends since the minute we met in Ptown in 2018. Last summer he did a duo show with Seth Sykes, and I was like, I want to be up there doing that. I was talking to Patricia [Fitzpatrick], our fearless leader, after their duo show, and said, "I want to do a show with Nicolas King." I've worked with Michael for 20 years, and he plays by ear, and we sing what he can play, and that has limited my repertoire, even though between the two of us we know a thousand songs. But Michael can't do Kander and Ebb, and neither can I. Nicolas can, and working with someone else will stretch me. So, Patricia made her royal decree, and Nicolas called me and said we're doing a show. Together, we both know so many songs, and we get together to talk about the song list, and we say, "Did you ever hear Barbra doing a version of X, or did you ever listen to Frank Sinatra in France doing Y," and before you know it four hours have gone by.

We're having a ball putting this thing together. We are doing some duets. We are doing "Grass is Always Greener," and the entire song is personalized to us. Are all the made-up lyrics as good as the original? I'll say "no," but they are CabaretFest specific, and it's fun.

We are doing some classic Kander and Ebb duets – "A Tough Act to Follow" from "Curtains," and "I Move On," from the film of "Chicago."

EDGE: Your duet show is entitled "Their Coloring Book." With their songbook so ubiquitous, how do you make this Kander and Ebb show yours?

Mardie Millet: These songs lend themselves to it. It's their songs and their coloring book, but we are individual crayons that fill in the songs with our colors. There's something that any person can connect to in every single one of these songs. "Sometimes a Day Goes By" sounds as simple as a Hostess CupCake, but every line are lines we've said ourselves. You can deliver that song in any flavor in the Baskin-Robbins universe. That's the beauty of their songs. Their rhymes are always perfect; their lyrics sit in every musical phrase perfectly.

Then there is "Class," a song with a bunch of one-liners, sung by two people with no class, about class. The one-liners just land so well. With a song like that, you don't even have to know subtext. That song sings itself. It makes you feel very safe to sing a song like that. We just have to sing the words, and the audience will be in the palm of our hands. Pretty amazing.

Mardie Millet and Nicolas King perform "Their Coloring Book" on Saturday, June 7, 3 PM, at the Crown & Anchor, 247 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657. Tix: $35. For Reservations, visit: https://www.provincetowncabaretfest.com/event-details/nick-king-mardie-millet-their-coloring-book

Watch Carolyn Montgomery sing "Hey There."

As a New York-based cabaret performer, Carolyn Montgomery has an enviable number of MAC and Bistro Awards. She and her late ex-wife of many years, Lea, raised a son, Eli, together; Eli has grown to become a successful fashion model. Since her ex-wife's death, Montgomery has had her own second act, quite different from her first.

EDGE: You'll be doing your Rosie Clooney show in Ptown, but it has no Kander and Ebb songs in it. Is there any connection between Clooney and Kander and Ebb at all?

Carolyn Montgomery: The show I'm doing at CabaretFest is "girlSINGER: A Celebration of Rosemary Clooney." It's not a Kander and Ebb show, but I can say she was a muse for Kander and Ebb. Kander and Ebb were over the moon for Rosie's voice. They were briefly involved in discussions to write a musical for her, but they realized they couldn't write what she sings, and she couldn't sing what they write. Their styles were too different, so they backed out. John Kander and Rosie were born a year apart from one another. It's amazing he's still alive [Kander is 98]. He and his husband have a place upstate and stay there unless they have something happening in the city.

EDGE: Do you have any personal experience with the Kander and Ebb songbook, or any direct experiences with John Kander and Fred Ebb?

Carolyn Montgomery: I certainly have sung my share of Mama Mortons in cabaret shows. I've met both Kander and Ebb through my career. John heard me sing at Town Hall at "Broadway by the Year." He was gracious and lovely.

EDGE: You've said in a Forbes interview that any popular song can one day become a classic. As the Executive Director of the American Songbook Association, do you believe that the work of Kander and Ebb has crossed over from popular into classic?

Carolyn Montgomery: I think there are specific parameters, as well as some more vague ones that make a song a classic. When a song is sung and recorded over and over again, it becomes a classic. There are literally thousands of companies performing "Chicago" around the world. There is a heat to their music. A kind of sexiness. You are compelled to listen.

EDGE: How did you and your late ex-wife meet?

Carolyn Montgomery: I met my wife Lea at the Monkey Bar in Ptown in 1991, and we lived in Ptown for five years. Performing in Ptown again is coming full circle for me.

Lea was a little dyke with many A-list gay male friends. I was performing at The Crown & Anchor at the time. We raised our son together. But after she passed away, I met a man, and we've been happily married for 11 years. Previously, I haven't spoken much about my first marriage in entertainment interviews, but in the times we live in now, I feel compelled to be vocal about my queerness.

Carolyn Montgomery performs "girlSINGER: A Celebration of Rosemary Clooney" on Friday, June 6, 2025, 5 PM at Post Office Café & Cabaret, 303 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657. Tix: $35. For Reservations, visit https://www.provincetowncabaretfest.com/event-details/carolyn-montgomery-girlsinger-a-celebration-of-rosemary-clooney

Watch Brian DeLorenzo sing "Just In Time" and "Fly Me To The Moon" with Tom LaMark on keyboards.

Tom LaMark, a Boston-based pianist, arranger, conductor, and accompanist, is far too unassuming for someone who has played with Phill Woods, Dizzie Gillespie, Johnny Hartman, and Buddy Rich, and to have accompanied Aretha Franklin and Donna Summer. He has accompanied nearly every cabaret singer in the Boston area, and has been music director for a number of cabaret singers' big band recordings with the Tom LaMark Orchestra, for which he has also done charts and arrangements. He can still be found weekly accompanying singers at the Club Café's Napoleon Room.

EDGE: Playing with major performers in the industry, have you ever been star-struck?

Tom LaMark: I'm not easily star-struck. I've done this for so long that I've realized that they are just people, too. They don't always hit 100%, just as none of us do. Working with Buddy Rich, he was the world's greatest drummer, and he would tell you that himself. But he was. He was unbelievable. Sometimes it is difficult to be on stage with them, because my concentration would drift away from what I was doing and on to them. I accompanied Anthony Newley on a cruise ship once, and I was so drawn to what he was doing, I forgot what I was doing. I worked with Aretha a few times with an orchestra, and marveled at how she could work an audience into a frenzy.

Fame doesn't guarantee they are really good. Some people who won't ever achieve that fame are better than the famous people, and are often more pleasant to deal with. The magic can happen anywhere. I've performed in good gigs, and when the chemistry is right, it's a wonderful thing.

EDGE: You're receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at CabaretFest. Looking back on your career, which is far from over, what would you say are some of your proudest moments?

Tom LaMark: That's interesting. A very proud moment for us is when we receive a compliment from someone who has the creds to give a compliment. Not an overblown "That was great," but a more thoughtful compliment from someone who I respect means so much. Doing shows that work, that you realize you had a big hand in, is very gratifying. I might add, some wonderful moments with me are in the recording studio, which is like a second home to me. When I'm given the opportunity to hire wonderful musicians and everything works like I expected, or better, that is so gratifying for me.

EDGE: How do you feel about getting this Lifetime Achievement Award?

Tom LaMark: I think it's very cool that it's going to an accompanist/musical director and producer, and not a front-line performer. It's a benefit to all my fellow instrumentalists and accompanists that this award is recognizing a support person. The award should go to all of them, because they are special and talented people. I salute all my fellow accompanists who use their talents and years of experience to help that person up front. The beauty of the business is you never stop learning or growing. There is always something new. It never gets stale.

Tom LaMark's Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented at the "All That Jazz Brunch" on Sunday, June 8, 2025, 11:30 AM at the Provincetown Inn, 1 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657. Tix: $60, or included with a $350 VIP Pass that admits holders to all shows/workshops and special events: For reservations, visit: https://www.provincetowncabaretfest.com/event-details/carolyn-montgomery-girlsinger-a-celebration-of-rosemary-clooney