MAC to School 2025: 10th Anniversary Weekend of Artistry, Community, & Song

On the morning of Saturday, September 27, Don't Tell Mama — the beloved Hell's Kitchen piano bar and cabaret venue — filled up earlier than usual. Attendees clutched coffee and registration packets, trading greetings with the easy familiarity of a community that has grown up together. This was MAC to School 2025, the Manhattan Association of Cabarets' 10th annual educational symposium, and the energy in the room made clear that a decade in, the event has lost none of its momentum.

Spread across two venues — Don't Tell Mama on West 46th Street and Studios 353 on West 48th — and two full days (September 27–28), MAC to School offered a packed roster of master classes, panel discussions, workshops, and showcases designed for cabaret artists at every level. With a registration fee of $100 for MAC members (and $175 for non-members, with the option to join MAC simultaneously for only $65), it remains one of the most accessible intensive learning opportunities in New York's live entertainment scene.

10 Years of "School"

MAC to School was founded in 2015 under the stewardship of Lennie Watts and board members Stearns Matthews and Kim Grogg, who programmed the first three years. Jennie Litt — one half of the songwriting and performing duo Alpher & Litt with her husband, composer-pianist David Alpher — came on board in 2018 and has served as full producer since 2020 (with the exception of 2022, when board member Natasha Castillo programmed the event).

Litt's background is as eclectic as cabaret itself. A Harvard and Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate who came to songwriting through fiction writing, she met David Alpher at the MacDowell Colony and, as she puts it, discovered she could finish a lyric considerably faster than a novel. Her literary sensibility and deep investment in cabaret as both tradition and living art form have shaped MAC to School into something more than a workshop weekend — it's a space where the community reflects on what it does and why it matters.

MAC President Julie Miller, a NYC-based producer and general manager who has helmed the organization since 2023 after serving as Vice President for 13 years, was a visible and warm presence throughout the weekend. Under her leadership, MAC continues to pursue its founding mission: advancing the art and business of live entertainment, supporting emerging and established artists alike, and building audiences for a form that too often flies under the mainstream radar.

Saturday: Synergy, Repertoire, & the Body as Instrument

The weekend opened with "Director/Singer: Synergy x 5," a workshop in which five directors — James Beaman, Karen Kohler, Jennie Litt, Gretchen Reinhagen, and Geoff Stoner — were paired with five singers to work in real time on songs of the singers' choosing. With Matthew Martin Ward at the piano, the session offered a rare glimpse into the collaborative alchemy of director and performer: how a single song transforms depending on who's shaping it, what questions they ask, and what stories they help unearth. The directors brought strikingly different approaches — ranging from attention to physical staging and lighting, to deep dives into subtext and personal narrative — and the takeaways were as varied as they were illuminating.

The morning concluded with a wide-ranging panel discussion, "The Wide World of Cabaret Repertoire: Choosing It, Sleuthing It Out, and Making It Your Own," moderated by Jeff Harnar and featuring panelists Chip Deffaa, Karen Kohler, Michael Lavine, Jane Scheckter, and Lennie Watts. The conversation ranged from how to locate obscure sheet music (the New York Public Library, the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, and iReal Pro all made appearances) to the art of making a song feel new. Lennie Watts brought his expertise in arrangement and mashup; Michael Lavine, a collector and archivist, spoke to the detective work of tracking down lost repertoire. Practical wisdom abounded: name the songwriter when you post about a song, not just the singer; read through and speak the lyrics before you sing them; change the style — ballad to uptempo, or vice versa — to find the song's hidden life.

The afternoon shifted venues to Studios 353, where movement educator Mary Lahti led an energizing "Head-to-Toe Body Warmup for Singers" — a reminder that the voice lives in a body that needs its own preparation. Later, Lennie Watts helmed "The Arrangement Experience," working with a small group of participants and musical director Tracy Stark to reimagine classic songs from the Golden Age of Broadway. "The process is the only thing that's guaranteed," Watts noted, a line that felt like a thesis statement for the whole weekend. The day's final session was a "Cabaret Performance Master Class" with Nicolas King — a performer who has toured as Liza Minnelli's opening act and shared stages with Carol Burnett, Linda Lavin, and Tom Selleck — whose firecracker energy and expert coaching brought out specific, surprising interpretations from each of his five participants.

Sunday: Social Change, Iconic Recordings, & the Press

Sunday morning at Don't Tell Mama began with "Reimagining Iconic Recordings," led by neo-Weimar star Kim David Smith and his longtime musical collaborator Tracy Stark. The session tackled one of cabaret's perennial challenges: how to make your own a song that seems to belong entirely to someone else. Through lyric exploration, stylistic experimentation, and what Smith described as alternative "road-mapping," four singers worked to find their own way into songs with towering recorded legacies.

The morning's centerpiece was the "Songs of Social Change Showcase," hosted by Tanya Moberly and musical-directed by Dan Furman. The showcase felt both timely and necessary. Songwriters David Alpher, Daniel Cainer, Matt Corriel, Beth Falcone, Dan Furman, Marcus Goldhaber, Nona Hendryx, Jennie Litt, Doug Mishkin, Elaine Romanelli, Tracy Stark, and Tom Toce were represented, with their songs performed live and interspersed with songwriter interviews. The set list ranged widely: a wry portrait of door-to-door activism ("Making a Difference"), a comic lament about canceling Amazon Prime ("It's Time"), a searing meditation on gun violence rendered in nursery-rhyme style ("Heather"), a protest waltz ("Hot Time Comin'"), and the rousing, participatory "One Big Union," drawn from a show about labor activist Joe Hill — with the audience singing along by the end. Sheet music was made available after the showcase for anyone inspired to bring these songs into their own sets.

Over lunch, Jason Ellis offered a practical "Meta Tools" session on leveraging Facebook and Instagram to promote cabaret shows, covering everything from algorithm-gaming to the merits of a great mailing list. The afternoon proceeded at Studios 353 with "How to Get a Good Review: The Cabaret Press in Conversation," moderated by NiteLife Exchange publisher Scott Barbarino and featuring Alix Cohen, Frank Dain, Will Friedwald, Elysa Gardner of The New York Times, and Bart Greenberg. The panelists were candid and collegial: have a director, prepare your song list with accurate titles and credits, reach out four weeks in advance, be patient, and above all, have a good show. "Good and interesting are different things to different people," Gardner observed — a useful reminder that critical reception is never a formula.

The weekend concluded with what may have been its most theatrical session: "Timing Is Everything," a master class with the inimitable Sharon McNight, who arrived with strong opinions about comedy, spontaneity, and the difference between a rehearsed gesture and a natural one. Six participants brought songs ranging from classic cabaret to Mel Brooks, and McNight sent each of them away with something specific to chew on.

What Makes Cabaret Irreplaceable

I followed up with Julie Miller and Jennie Litt about what makes cabaret unique among performing arts. For Miller, it's the elimination of the fourth wall — the way cabaret's small rooms and unmediated presence between performer and audience creates an honesty that she called "pure and moving, and at times even cathartic." For Litt, it's the particular alchemy of the song itself: music, rhyme, story, and the human voice combining to transport the listener somewhere they couldn't get to on their own. "Cabaret is a tradition and a living archive of song," she said, "as well as being an ever-evolving art form that embraces the new." It's the one performance space, she observed, where a vaudeville song from 1910 and a Taylor Swift hit can sit side by side and speak to each other.

MAC to School, at its best, embodies exactly that: a weekend where history and the present tense are in constant conversation, where established artists share hard-won wisdom with newcomers, and where the community that makes cabaret possible gathers to remind itself why it does what it does.