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Cabaret producer Marilyn Levinson has lived in\u00a0Larkspur a dozen years.\u00a0But her work has thrived in San Francisco, with its impact felt throughout the Bay Area.<\/p>\n
We share muffins in a casual breakfast chat at Corte Madera\u2019s Il Fornaio restaurant. She laughs freely \u2014 and often.<\/p>\n
Her eyes and conversation sparkle almost as brightly as her tasteful diamond earrings.<\/p>\n
She charms me with her first few sentences.<\/p>\n
Clearly, she explains, cabaret \u201ccan be much more than a show in a tiny dark cavern by a stereotypically aging ex-Broadway songstress in a tight gown dripping with sequins.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sooooo much more.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m there to glean details about the performances she\u2019s generating at the Venetian Room of San Francisco\u2019s Fairmont Hotel.<\/p>\n
But I also get intriguing onstage, backstage and off-the-record stories about artists she encountered since she swapped lawyering for coordinating Cabaret Marin, which morphed into Bay Area Cabaret.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit\u2019s ninth season opened Oct. 28 with \u201cthe quintessential cabaret singer, Mary Wilson, in an intimate act that talks about her life after The Supremes,\u201d then continued Nov. 11 with Tommy Tune.\u00a0Another schedule highlight was a Dec. 9 encore \u00a0by movie-TV-Broadway star Peter Gallagher, who prompted one female fan to write, \u201cWhen he left the stage, I was ready to see his show all over again \u2014 and have his baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levinson finds it impossible to pick only one favorite local cabaret star or moment.<\/p>\n
But she did enjoy Tony-winner Lillias White spontaneously yanking off her sharp-pointed high-heels and saying, \u2018I\u2019d like to see how you\u2019d feel if you had to wear these shoes.\u2019<\/p>\n
Laura Benanti also delighted her by pulling out a uke and confessing \u201cthat when<\/p>\n
she was a girl, she thought Marilyn Monroe was so sexy when she played ukulele in \u2018Some Like It Hot,\u2019 then later realized that the ukulele wasn\u2019t what made her so sexy.\u201d<\/p>\n
This six-show season, her ninth, will end with a tribute by Oscar-winning lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman to the late Marvin Hamlisch, on the composer\u2019s June 2 birthday. Hamlisch had been the star when the Venetian Room reopened after being\u00a0dark for 21 years.<\/p>\n
Such offerings are a long way from Levinson\u2019s first Marin productions, which spotlighted an opera singer, Sondheim music and dog stories.<\/p>\n
Today, she says, \u201cwe try to mix it up, to aim things at difference audiences \u2014 like those of \u2018Rent,\u2019 Teen Idol and the older-crowd Chita Rivera appeals to.\u201d<\/p>\n
The producer\u2019s moment of truth occurred when the last Mabel Mercer Cabaret Convention at the Herbst \u201cwas not too well attended despite the great performances. Because it was sad to see the audience dwindling, I thought it important to educate the audience or potential audience to an expanding definition of cabaret.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levinson\u2019s introduction to the genre actually came at a little black-box theater in West Village in Manhattan, where she was living at the time. The singer, she remembers, \u201cmade me feel she was in dialogue with me in my living room, revealing herself. I just loved that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her intro to show biz goes further back than that, however.<\/p>\n
As executive coordinator of the precursor to the San Francisco Civic Light Opera, her mom invited stars such as Bing Crosby, Don Ameche and Mary Martin to their home.<\/p>\n
Levinson herself volunteered at the American Conservatory Theatre as a teen, later founded a jazz dance company, worked for Joseph Papp\u2019s Public Theatre, Broadway producer Arthur Cantor and became Yul Brynner\u2019s road manager for his final national tour of \u201cThe King and I.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then she went to Stanford Law School, becoming an entertainment and intellectual-property lawyer. She wed, had two sons, and cocooned in Larkspur.<\/p>\n
The most difficult part of her work now, she discloses, \u201cis the booking process, which begins in New York in the coldest month of the year and can go on for a full nine months after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
What makes it particularly tough, she says, \u201cis having to compete for talent with venues three or four times our size.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for her biggest reward, that\u2019s seeing what top-notch cabaret artists she can\u00a0snare.<\/p>\n
In that regard, filling out this season will be Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley, a Valentine\u2019s Day offering Feb. 17; Elaine Paige, March 1; and Nellie McKay paired with Chanticleer, March 23.<\/p>\n
Levinson started her cabaret business, she tells me, because she had experienced so much good cabaret in New York and didn\u2019t want to see the genre die.<\/p>\n
Obviously, she\u2019s succeeding.<\/p>\n
So all I can add is, \u201cViva cabaret!\u201d<\/p>\n