Last Saturday night’s final Cabaret Kiki show at Theatre 99 was, like the previous two, so sold out that a line formed of those willing to trade arms, legs, and firstborn children for seats. Audience members walking to the back of the Bicycle Shoppe and T99’s entrance had to navigate around what seemed to be a hilariously vocal black bag lady camped out in the driveway. Once in the theatre, they saw that a closed-circuit camera was capturing everyone’s response to the woman and projecting the scene onto a giant screen on stage. The chagrined parties who gave her a wide berth were even more embarrassed when she appeared on stage in the second act as (surprise!) Kiki herself. The Lowbrow happens to go way back with Kiki — otherwise known as longtime CofC theatre professor and crack actress Joy Vandervort-Cobb — and was happy to see her once again fucking with people, something she’s a master at.
Cabaret Kiki’s six performances at Buxton’s East Bay Theatre during Piccolo probably won’t feature Vandervort-Cobb — or the four moonlighting Charleston Ballet Theatre dancers who make the show such a deliciously naughty romp (Stephanie Bussell, Charles Glunk, Danielle Forestall, and David McAllister). But the band, aka the Dangerous Strangers, will be hosting some top local musical guest artists. Hopefully that’ll include regular husky-voiced Kiki songstress Cary Ann Hearst. Listen to that voice on the below clips from Saturday’s show and tell me you don’t hear hearts cracking wide open all across the room. (Many thanks to the talented Molly Hayes for the photos on this page.)
“My Love for You”
“Hungry Boys”
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