Mabel Mercer

Created in 1985 as a not-for-profit arts organization, The Mabel Mercer Foundation serves to both perpetuate the memory and spirit of its legendary namesake and to stimulate and promote public interest in the fragile and endangered world of cabaret. As it approaches its twentieth anniversary, the Foundation and its efforts have been perhaps best summarized and recognized by a recent commendation from The Oakland Tribune: “Cabaret may not be thriving, but it is alive and well, thanks mainly to The Mabel Mercer Foundation and its support of wonderfully diverse talents.”

The work of The Mabel Mercer Foundation is constant and far-reaching. Among its many other functions, it exists as a central source of information for artists, presenters, promoters, and the general public. In 2003 alone, The Foundation logged over four thousand telephone inquiries; the office files include material on more than two thousand performers. As such, the small and dedicated Foundation staff works on a daily basis to develop and solidify a community of cabaret artists, producers, and audience members.

Aside from its day-to-day efforts to strengthen support for the art of cabaret, The Foundation sponsors performances and broadcasts by both new and established singers and entertainers. Most dramatically, The Mabel Mercer Foundation presents the annual Cabaret Convention at New York’s Town Hall. Since its inception in 1989, the Convention has hosted more than eleven hundred performers, all of whom work in their own ways to keep alive the tradition of cabaret in this country and abroad. (Among those who have participated in these extraordinary concerts are Michael Feinstein, Andrea Marcovicci, Julie Wilson, Margaret Whiting, Maureen McGovern, Liliane Montevecchi, Ann Hampton Callaway, Karen Akers, Craig Rubano, Jeff Harnar, Wesla Whitfield, Paula West, Klea Blackhurst, KT Sullivan, and Barbara Carroll.) The Foundation spends approximately $100,000 on each Convention yet continues to keep the vast majority of tickets for each performance priced at an incredible $25 per seat. This enables virtually everyone access to not only these incomparable entertainers but to their timeless repertoire as well.

Women of the First Chicago Cabaret Convention: Clockwise from top left: Andrea Marcovicci, KT Sullivan, Georga Osborne, Spider Saloff, Julie Wilson, Klea Blackhurst, Colleen McHugh

The outreach of The Mabel Mercer Foundation is perhaps even more astounding when one realizes that their efforts have been accomplished without the aid of any major corporate funding or underwriting. Their activities are supported entirely by ticket sales and contributions, which not only finance the aforementioned Cabaret Convention but such other projects as Mad About the Boy, the one-hundredth birthday anniversary celebration of the words and music of Noel Coward, presented at Carnegie Hall in December 1999.

To further expand the scope of its charter, The Foundation has showcased fledgling talent in a season of cabaret newcomers at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. The Foundation has also sponsored a young people’s performance series to expose upcoming audiences to the appeal and glory of the great classic popular songbook…and to its highly personal cabaret interpretation and style. In 1995, The Foundation presented “Grand Nights for Singing,” its first summer music events at Town Hall. The success of those performances — which featured forty cabaret entertainers — led to a highly successful encore celebration, “A Swell Party,” in summer 1998.

The Mabel Mercer Foundation continues its efforts outside New York as well. There have been four Cabaret Conventions in San Francisco, two in Chicago, and similar events in Philadelphia and Palm Springs. In summer 2004, The Foundation returns to East Hampton for its second annual Cabaret Convention on Long Island. It has also served as cabaret consultant to The Mayfair Regency Hotel in Chicago and The Bellevue Hotel in Pennsylvania.

Internationally, The Foundation debuts the premiere London Cabaret Convention in 2004 as the gala finale of a two-week Musical Voices celebration at The Greenwich Theatre. (Earlier in England, The Foundation helped to produce the BBC Radio American Cabaret Series and — with Ruth Leon — the BBC’s “Mabel’s Babies” programs.) Future international plans include the participation of The Mabel Mercer Foundation in the Sydney and Adelaide, Australia, cabaret conventions, both of which have patterned their activities on the format and style of the events created by The Foundation at Town Hall.

The American Songbook is one of our national treasures. Thus, the art of cabaret is a gateway to an eternal appreciation of such geniuses as George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, E. Y. Harburg, Burton Lane, Duke Ellington, Leonard Bernstein, Frank Loesser, Cy Coleman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, and Stephen Sondheim, among many others. That American popular music and cabaret should — and must — thrive is the avowed declaration and dedication of The Mabel Mercer Foundation. As such, their efforts continue on a daily basis to promote the traditions so eloquently and unforgettably exemplified by Mabel Mercer, arguably the supreme cabaret artist of the twentieth century.