Dawn Derow
Sing Happy
Post Office Café & Cabaret, Provincetown, MA, June 7, 2025
Reviewed by John Amodeo
Singer Dawn Derow performed a beautifully crafted show for the 2025 Provincetown Cabaret Fest, called Sing Happy. It was devoted to the many strong women in shows with scores by Kander & Ebb. CabaretFest was themed as All That Jazz: Celebrating the Music of Kander & Ebb, and Derow honored that theme and the songwriting duo in a show that was a highly polished, well choreographed (by Jason Reiff) and tightly directed (by David Sabella). It was filled with an array of Kander & Ebb showstoppers and the high belting that have come to define their songs.
Derow has a beautiful, well-trained husky voice that she employed with meticulous technique. This enabled her to build, cascade, decrescendo, and belt without breaking a sweat. It was a joy to hear her finely honed phrasing and precise diction so that you understood every word. So much thought had gone into this show. Derow was dressed in a simple, tight, black-sequined and satin leotard and stockings, and she used those as a base to add various costume pieces that seemed to materialize before our very eyes to enhance the song or tell the story. I haven’t seen that much dedication to stagecraft in a cabaret show in quite some time.
She opened by evoking the strongest of Kander & Ebb’s women, Sally Bowles (or Liza Minnelli, since they are nearly inseparable). Derow entertained and mesmerized us with “Don’t Tell Mama” (Cabaret) and she put her body into just about every possible dance position one could using only a simple café chair. As she sang, some movements were performed in slow motion or held in suspension which created vivid imagery. Derow is such an accomplished actress, and she made each song into a one-act play. “Arthur in the Afternoon” (The Act), another Minnelli vehicle, raised the sensuality bar another notch by using lyrics and choreography (and that café chair) to create a character that was entirely believable.
The showstoppers kept coming, one after another. There was a hilarious “One of the Girls” (70, Girls, 70) made even funnier with some amusing patter. Then “Two Little Words” (Steel Pier). which was introduced by Kristin Chenoweth in her Broadway debut, became an impressive coloratura soprano tour de force for Derow. Of course, there was “Sing Happy” (Flora, the Red Menace) to which Derow gave the full Minnelli treatment with some powerful singing, big smiles, and jazz hands. Another of Flora’s songs, “A Quiet Thing,” could have been quieter without the belting treatment Derow gave it, though she pulled back for a sweetly beautiful finish; that was much appreciated. It wasn’t until “Isn’t This Better” (Funny Lady) that she got vocally small and pulled us in with her reflective introspection and soft vocals. The show could have used more of this.
The show’s dramatic high point, without disclosing any spoilers, was one of the most memorable sequences I’ve encountered on a cabaret stage. It used songs from Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Cabaret to comment on the state of the world today. It was utterly riveting, breathtaking, and devastating. It was further enhanced by a gorgeous musical interlude by her 10-fingered orchestra, Ian Herman at the piano, who played beautifully throughout. This was where we finally met the real Dawn Derow and not one of the characters she was creating within her songs. As comfortable as Derow is on a cabaret stage, her theater training hasn’t entirely allowed her to break the fourth wall for an entire cabaret show, something she could work on as she hones this show—and hone this show, she must. Sing Happy was simply too good to perform just once.
