RAZZLE-DAZZLES plus Films and a Play!

With a tip of the hat to the "Razzle-Dazzle" song from the musical Chicago, we are calling the song-and-multi-media presentations of cabaret history our "Razzle-Dazzles." Added to the mix is a set of film screenings to launch the conference and a visit to the play "Master Class" at the close of the conference.

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SUNDAY, October 28

1 PM: Film screenings

Chicago premier of the musical documentary film, The Torchbearers: Cabaret, a romance in words and music presented by the film director Cheryl E. Grant.
Grant interviews a panoply of cabaret artists from Paris and New York City, including Yves Mathieu and Cassita at the Lapin Agile, Kitty Carlisle Hart, John Wallowich, Andrea Marcovicci, Maude Maggart, Jason Graae, Michael Feinstein, Alex Rybeck and more.

The Torchbearers blends documentary and musical forms, shedding light on the vital role that the art of cabaret has played: introducing new social concepts and mores to the mainstream, putting politics in perspective, and serving as a platform for some of the best and brightest talent. Many of cabaret's recent top performers, writers, producers, and reviewers show how cabaret is "an intimate and raw romance between artist and audience; a highwire act with no net (and a two-drink minimum)." The film is produced and edited by Julia Cook and Cheryl E. Grant.
"It's about intimacy... It's a quiet art in a very noisy society." Stephen Holden, New York Times.

A film short: Au Cabaret, an homage by painter/singer-songwriter Christian Stalla

Preview of David Marienthal's documentary on the iconic Chicago supper club Mister Kelly's

Preview of XXY, a cross-border multi-arts exploration of essences of womanhood and the "feminine" in seven portraits, created by Clotilde Rullaud

A film short by Claudia Hommel and Jason Madeja: Ovations for a Wise Man and a Fool. A Vocal Canvas film melds two songs, Bravo pour le clown and Elizabeth Doyle's Like a Tree with photographs, art masterpieces, and circus workers.

Q & A with the filmmakers Cheryl E. Grant and Julia Cook-Ravel, Clotilde Rullaud, David Marienthal, Adam Carston.

3:30 PM: Razzle-Dazzle #1:
"Le Cabaret New Yorkais" (by Jacques Protat from Dijon; Elizabeth Doyle at the piano)
Jacques Protat, author of the only academic study ever made—in English or in French—of contemporary American cabaret song performance, is distilling his PhD thesis and singing the songs as a Razzle-Dazzle for the Cabaret Connexion. Le Cabaret new-yorkais, théâtre intime du Great American Songbook [New York Cabaret: intimate theatre of the American Songbook] takes a look at the cabaret scene and art form that was reborn in the 1980s in Manhattan, "conserving the Great American Songbook through creation."

5 PM Razzle-Dazzle #2:
"110 years of Cabaret in Chicago" by Charles Troy and June Sawyers. Holly McGuire and Elizabeth Doyle provide the songs.
Followed by a Q & A with the presenters.

This Razzle Dazzle is made possible in part by a grant from Illinois Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Illinois General Assembly.

Co-sponsored by Global Voices, a program of the International House
International House University of Chicago—Assembly Hall
1414 E 59th St, Chicago, IL 60637. Phone: (773) 753-2270
Light refreshments provided by the Global Voices program.
$20 for all three events. $50 for VIP reserved seating. Free to U of C students with valid ID.

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SATURDAY, November 3

8 PM: Razzle Dazzle #3:

The modern French song was born in the "Cabarets Artistiques" of the Belle Epoque (1881-1914). In the 1880s, in reaction to a certain vulgarity that tends to develop in the Café-Concert, the songwriters defend their conception of the "Bonne Chanson" by creating the "Cabarets Artistiques". The lyrics of the songs are now true poems and the music emphasizes the meaning of the text and sometimes even magnifies it.
Yves Bertrand, grand-nephew of the Montmartre-chansonnier Marcel Legay, invites you to better understand the genesis of what will become "la chanson à texte" of the twentieth century. Presented with images of the Belle Epoque and accompanied by live examples of the "Bonne Chanson", sung by Claudia Hommel, Elizabeth Doyle, Mylène Launay, Françoise Miran and Maryline Rollet.

9 PM: Razzle-Dazzle #4:
Celebrating the French Women of Cabaret (Françoise Miran of Nice)

DePaul School of Music Recital Hall, 804 W. Belden, Lower Level

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SUNDAY, November 4 at 2 PM

TimeLine Theatre produces this glorious, raw, and bittersweet look at one of opera's most formidable talents, Tony Award winner for Best Play in 1996. Witness a master class conducted by legendary opera diva Maria Callas. Glamorous, demanding, and unapologetically herself, Callas critiques and regales a new crop of opera's finest. Both frustrated and amazed by the students thrust before her, she escapes into recollections of the glories and failures of her past.
Cabaret Connexion guests get to witness this "Master Class" at a specially reduced rate when purchased here at our website.
Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont (on the same set of our Tuesday night concert). Stay for the post-show discussion with members of TimeLine's creative team and representatives of the Cabaret Connexion. $40.

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