CCAT Cabaresque stage series expands in 2016
A host of local performers will join Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the Beatles on stage at the Cambria Center for the Arts Theatre this season, Cambria’s Allied Arts announced.
Not the real Sinatra, Martin or John, Paul, George and Ringo, of course, but this year’s schedule includes tributes to those performers beginning with “The Kings of Cool,” a Mardi Gras Party scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. Feb. 6.
The second season of Cabaresque performances features The Fab Eight in “Beatlemania” on its schedule, May 28-29.
Theater Director Nancy Green launched the Cabaresque project in 2015 as “kind of an experiment.”
With the success of that experiment, the performance series is almost doubling in scope this year.
“Last year was the first full year of our Cabaresque series,” said Barbara Beane, who handles publicity for CCAT. Four performances in the series were “very well received,” she said.
“With the success of last year’s performers, we will have seven Cabaresque performances and maybe a couple more if we can fit them in,” Beane said. “There will be a variety of talent from singers, a dancer, a one-man monologue performance, a magician, and a nostalgic rock group.”
Jazz series moving
The expansion of the Cabaresque series will help fill a void left by the Famous Jazz Artist concert series, which the CCAT hosted last year but won’t be returning in 2016.
Instead, Charlie and Sandi Shoemake will be moving their shows to Painted Sky Studios — which itself is moving from Harmony to Cambria.
“The series is going to continue on at Painted Sky Studios at 715 Main St.,” Painted Sky owner Steve Crimmel said.
No opening date has been set for the new location.
Shoemake shared one reason for leaving CCAT after the 2015 season. “The grand piano at CCAT was on loan and was taken back,” he said. “Nancy Green tried vainly to have somebody make a donation of an instrument they didn’t need, but it didn’t happen.”
The Famous Jazz Artists series began at The Hamlet at Moonstone Gardens in Cambria, but moved to Paso Robles in 2012 when that venue closed. (It’s since reopened as Centrally Grown.) The series returned to Cambria last season.
Cabaresque series
Cabaresque kicks off with performances by harpist Jill Poulos and her troupe in a St. Patrick’s Day prelude March 12 and 13. Like all Cabaresque shows this year, performances will be on two consecutive dates (7:30 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays) — the exception being “An Evening with C.S. Lewis,” which includes a 7:30 p.m. show Friday, July 1, as well as shows July 2 and 3.
Poulos’ original and traditional Celtic songs are featured on her CD “Beneath a Jeweled Sky.”
Other Cabaresque shows on this year’s schedule are as follows:
▪ April 2 and 3: Café Musique.
▪ May 21 and 22: The Village Wizard, Rick Bruce.
▪ May 28 and 29: “Beatlemania,” The Fab Eight.
▪ June 11 and 12: “Isadora Duncan Lives,” danced by Lois Ann Flood.
▪ July 1 to 3: “An Evening with C.S. Lewis” by David Payne, starring Philip Crowley.
▪ Sept. 24 and 25: “Ortega …”
▪ Dec. 17 and 18: “It’s a Wonderful Life,” annual live radio play.
Featured plays
The theatre has also scheduled three featured plays:
“Our main play performances are ‘I Hate Hamlet,’ a comedy; ‘Company,’ a musical comedy-in concert; and ‘Love Letters,’ which will run for four weeks with four different casts for each week,” Beane said.
Bill Weatherford will direct “I Hate Hamlet,” set for April 15 to May 8, and Nancy Green will direct “Love Letters,” with a scheduled run of Oct. 21 to Nov. 13. “Company” will run from July 22 to Aug. 14.
All seats are $20, $15 for CCA members and groups of 10 or more, or $5 — at the box office only — for students with IDs. For information on all plays and Cabaresque performances, go to cambriacenterforthearts.org. Tickets are available online at brownpapertickets.com, at the CCA Gallery, which is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, or at the box office one hour prior to a performance.
‘The Kings of Cool’
First up is “The Kings of Cool,” a fundraiser for the theater, with tickets priced at $100 each. (Visit the Cambria Center for the Arts Gallery at 1350 Main St. or call Green at 927-5951 for more information.)
The black tie-optional presentation of a jazz tribute to Sinatra and Martin features “a cabaret style performance reminiscent of the Las Vegas shows the ‘Rat Pack’ did in the ’60s,” Beane said. “The cast does a tribute to, not an imitation of” the performers, featuring impromptu comedy bits and — as encouraged by the theater — audience participation.
Chad Evans, Bobby Horn, John Laird and the theater’s musical director, Brett Mitchell, are featured, along with the Brett Mitchell Trio.
This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 9:59 AM with the headline "CCAT Cabaresque stage series expands in 2016."