Cabaret Comico: A Salute to Comic Singers and Songwriters
GET TICKETS FOR THE NOVEMBER 13 CONCERT OF COMIC CABARET STARRING:

Rita Abrams, Kikelomo Adedeji, Nan Ayers, Lauralee Brown, Cecilia Capanna, Candace Forest & The Wild Women (Allison Lovejoy, Alexis Lane Jensen, Beth Wilmurt), Paul Frantz, Paula Gianetti, Lua Hadar, Claudia Landivar, Ray Renati, Brooke Michael Smith. With pianists Jason Martineau and Eryn Allen.

Cabaret Comico 2015 Cast Bios & Photos

Rita Abrams has won 2 Emmy Awards, 32 ASCAP Awards, and 3 San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for her musical comedy collaborations, which include New Wrinkles, Men are from Mars~Women are from Venus, For Whom the Bridge Tolls, and Just My Type.  Her Sony/BMG comedy albums with Dr. Elmo have earned her a gold record. Rita’s album containing her evergreen hit single “Mill Valley” (over 100,000 YouTube hits) has been re-released in Japan, and her Pride and Prejudice musical recently had its world premiere in London. Rita also writes humor books, greeting cards, and scripts for Velocity Entertainment.  www.ritaabrams.com

 

Kikelomo Adedeji
A dynamic and captivating singer, actor and cabaret artist, Kiké Adedeji uses her fluid and expressive voice to interpret diverse styles: jazz to Broadway, Gershwin to Sondheim. As an accomplished actress, she brings depth and meaning to everything she sings; go right to your soul with a Nina Simone song, break your heart with a ballad by Berlin, or leave you laughing with a Cole Porter tune. Kiké sings in English, French, Spanish and Italian and has performed in Los Angeles, San Francisco and London. http://www.kikeadedeji.com

 

Eryn Allen
Bay Area native Eryn Allen has worked as a full time Accompanist and Music Director for the past 15+ years. Her most recent credits include Company (SF Playhouse), West Side Story (Broadway by the Bay) & Les Misérables (Stars2000). She has also served as Music Director throughout the area for many shows including Until the Night, a Cabaret event for Tom Reardon at Feinstein’s SF, The Fourth Messenger, a new musical by Vienna Teng & Tanya Shaffer, and RENT (Stars2000). She has shared the stage with many well-known musicians & celebrities throughout her career, including Diana Krall, Dana Carvey, Eric Whitacre, Jon Evans, Bobby Shew, Carlos Santana, and Vienna Teng.  She is delighted to be joining forces with Lua Hadar, Jason Martineau & Company in this year’s Cabaret Comico!

Nan Ayers
Actor/Singer Nan Ayers has been performing around the Bay Area for the last decade. She was last seen this summer in Rita Abrams’ Musical, New Wrinkles, at Novato Theatre Company. https://www.facebook.com/nan.ayers.96

 

Lauralee Brown
Singer Songwriter Lauralee Brown has been playing in and around the San Francisco Bay Area for many years. She performs acoustic folk-style music playing guitar and singing classic standards along with many original songs. She also performs Jazz & Beyond with her group Lauralee Brown and Company. She founded and hosted Rancho Nicasio’s Singer Songwriter Series from 2010 till 2013, and now hosts a Singer Songwriter Lounge at Corkscrew Wine Bar in Petaluma. She is currently/also co-manager for West Coast Songwriters Organization’s San Rafael Chapter at the Fenix Theater. https://www.facebook.com/lauralee.brown.96

 

Cecilia Capanna
Although Cecilia Capanna is an Italian jazz singer and piano player from Rome, she makes her debut as a songwriter and comic singer in Cabaret Comico. Cecilia grew up surrounded by music and musicians: in her house there were often live music parties and concerts since her grandmother was a piano player and an amazing singer, while her father played jazz piano and sax.
When she was only 6 years old Cecilia started studying classical piano and she took part in the Choir of the Accademia Filarmonica of Rome, directed by Don Pablo Colino. Very soon she began to love jazz; Charlie Parker records were the soundtrack of the childhood super 8 films taken by her father. When she was 16 she started to study jazz vocals with Maria Pia De Vito at the Saint Louis Jazz Conservatory in Rome and she began performing, accompanied by some of the most famous jazz players in Rome, such as Riccardo Biseo, Paolo Di Sabatino, Jacopo Ferrazza, Massimo Moriconi, Enrico Zanisi and others.
Cecilia moved to California two years ago, where she leads her Dandelion Jazz Trio on piano and vocals.

Candace Forest
Candace “Candy” Forest composes music for voice, solo piano, chamber and full orchestra. She’s just returned from a month in Tuscany where she was composer-in- residence at the Casa Masaccio Center for Contemporary Art in San Giovanni Valdarno and guest faculty at the Sillabo Language School teaching English Through Song. She is currently collaborating with Allison Lovejoy on a new show for the Wild Women of San Francisco, The Best Bad Things. Her full-length works include Viva Concha! Rose of the Presidio based on the life of Concepción Arguello and All In This Together, a full-length family orchestra program of ecology and animal songs which was premiered by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in 2003. http://candaceforest.com

 

Paul James Frantz
Brilliant! Incomparable! Amazing! Irresistible! – these are just some of the words you will find in the lyrics of Paul James Frantz.  Born in the same year as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, Paul took a different path, choosing to follow his heart and turn his back on fortune and fame – a decision explored in his song, “A Lifetime of Regret.”  Paul’s songs have been heard in shows including “Musical Cafe,” “Lush ‘n Roulette,” “A Few Choice Words,” and “Red Hot & Fabulous.”  He is currently working on a musical adaptation of a short story by Oscar Wilde. http://pauljamesfrantz.com

 

Paula Gianetti is a Bay Area performer currently residing in Marin. Recent credits include New Wrinkles (Novato Theater Company), Nunsense (Tri-Valley Repertory Theater), Fiddler on the Roof (Novato Theater Company), and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (Tri-Valley Repertory Theater). She is a member of the long running east bay Cabaret show, Reel Blondes. She holds an M.A. in Theater from New York University, and when not on stage teaches Drama, Dance, and Language Arts.

 

Alexis Lane Jensen
Alexis Lane Jensen is an active and versatile performer in the Bay Area.  She has worked with such organizations as West Edge Opera, Oakland Opera Theater, Pacific Edge Voices, Berkeley Playhouse, Contra Costa Civic Theater, Lamplighters Musical Theater, Altarena Playhouse, Cinnabar Theater, Actors Ensemble of Berkeley and Ray of Light Theater.  Ms. Jensen is an avid fan of new work, and has premiered many new compositions by local composers.  She is also an accomplished interpreter of the music of Kurt Weill and his contemporaries, and performs their work as often as she can!

Claudia Landivar is thrilled to join the Wild Women and Cabaret Comico for 2015! A mezzo-soprano, she recently appeared in Verismo Opera’s productions of Il Tabarro, as La Frugola, Madama Butterfly as Suzuki, and in Suor Angelica as the Abbess and the Monitor.  She was delighted to perform with the inaugural cast of  Viva Concha as the village strumpet with a merry laugh. A graduate of the Shepherd School of Music, where she studied with Frances Bible, Claudia now studies with Susan Nance. She and her musical partner, Osvaldo de Leon have recently launched their own company, Phènix Opera.

 

Allison Lovejoy performs the masters, old and new, with passion and intelligence. She has performed as a concert pianist and chamber musician, musical director and vocalist in the USA and Europe for over 20 years, and has produced four albums, including Nocturnes for Piano.  She received her Masters degree in Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Allison is also a noted cabaret and theatre composer, accordionist and vocalist, winner of San Francisco’s Best Modern Cabaret Award in 2009. Her original cabaret rock opera, The Seven Deadly Pleasures had sold-out runs at the A.C.T.. Costume Shop in 2014 and the SF International Arts Festival in 2015. She is thrilled to be a part of Cabaret Comico and The Wild Women of San Francisco. http://allisonlovejoy.com

 

Jason Martineau is an award-winning composer, pianist, arranger, and instructor, and has been active in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1995. He is a graduate of the University of South Florida, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Manhattan School of Music, and has composed numerous works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo piano, and chorus, as well as a full-length musical, multiple film scores, and over 200 songs, both instrumental and vocal. Dr. Martineau has recorded more than ten CDs in various genres, and has also been featured on numerous other artists’ recordings, as pianist, music director, and producer. He provides scores, arrangements, original compositions, soundtracks, sound design, accompaniment, private instruction, and musical direction for a diverse and eclectic client base. jasonmartineau.com

Ray Renati
Ray is thrilled to appear in Cabaret Comico for the second year. He has been performing in the San Francisco Bay Area for for decades as an actor, singer and musician. Recently Ray was seen as Henry Higgins in Pygmalion at the Pear Theatre in Mountain View, a company he started with a few other performers in 2002. He will be directing the play, The Mountaintop, also at the Pear Theatre, in December and January. He is currently writing a one person show that combines  country, standards, and musical theatre. http://www.rayrenati.com

 

Brooke Michael Smith began singing and songwriting at the age of 8, often performing at the request of her spunky Italian Grandmother. Brooke started her career as a modern dancer and later toured the South and Northwest as a singer/songwriter. More recently, she attended the Saint Louis Cabaret Conference and opened for Tony Award winning composer, Jason Robert Brown. Brooke made her solo cabaret debut at Society Cabaret in August and is a producing company member with SF’s FOGG Theatre. www.brookemichael.com

 

Beth Wilmurt is a long-time local performer having acted in over 50 plays in the Bay Area as well as performances in NYC and as far as Berlin. She started out in Musical Theater but has since been involved in every aspect of the Theater Arts.  Music is still a big part of her life as she has been a very busy Choir Director for the past 15 years. www.bethwilmurt.com