Meet These 'Ladies Who Brunch' at Club Café this Sunday Morning

The Club Café's Napoleon Room is one of the only places in Boston where you can hear live music six days a week, every week of the year. Several of those days are curated by John O'Neil, who books shows on Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. But once a month (and sometimes twice a month, as is the case this October), O'Neil presents "The Ladies Who Brunch" on Sunday mornings, a two-hour cabaret event with three different powerhouse divas each time.

Boston is blessed to have such a cornucopia of cabaret singers, either seasoned, or emerging, the latter thanks to the musical theater programs at Berklee College of Music, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Emerson College. On the heels of the season opener that featured local favorites Eden Casteel, Michelle Currie, and Valerie Sneade-Roy, O'Neil presents his next installment of "The Ladies Who Brunch" on Sunday, October 20 at the Club Café's Napoleon Room featuring three more local favorites, Katie Connor, Lisa Gail, and Tracey O'Farrell.

These three women, though highly experienced performers, have never performed on stage with one another, as they will with the show's finale, and they are very excited to have this be their first time working together. They will each have opportunities with two small sets to shine individually, as well, and they have spent some time with EDGE to talk about what they will be bringing to the brunch table.

Katie Connor

EDGE: You just returned from a whirlwind tour of New York City with your daughter Lily (who is 12), which included the Statue of Liberty and a Broadway show ("SIX"). What was the highlight for Lily, and what was the highlight for you? And why wasn't your wife, Allyson, with you?

Katie Connor: It was Lily's first time to New York. It was so cute. When the music started for "SIX," she cried, she was so overwhelmed with emotion. She said, "This is so cool!" The highlight for Lily was definitely seeing her first show on Broadway.

Experiencing that with her was the highlight for me. And seeing Times Square at night. We took a horse and carriage ride in Central Park. She recognized a lot of views from movies and TV shows. At the Statue of Liberty, we walked up to the top of the pedestal, all 195 steps, I almost died. But I was so proud of myself that I made it. My wife, Allyson, couldn't come because she hurt her foot back in March and had surgery so she can't walk a lot until it is fully healed. So, we went with my ex-wife, Lily's other mom, with whom I had Lily.

EDGE: You are the queen of piano bar entertaining, which can be quite different than performing a cabaret show. Have you done solo cabaret shows in the past, and if so, how often?

Katie Connor: This is my second "The Ladies Who Brunch" show," and we did the Carpenters show last year. But outside of that, I haven't done much cabaret.

EDGE: How would you adapt your piano bar performance style to the cabaret format?

Katie Connor: I feel for me that it's quite similar. I've chosen some of my favorite songs from my material, Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Broadway, Etta James, The Carpenters, so it really won't feel all that different. My plan is just to say a little bit about why I chose each song, or what connects me to that song.

EDGE: Have you worked with musical director Tom LaMark before, and if so, how have you found working with him?

Katie Connor: I think he's wonderful. I worked with him recently a couple of months ago at one of my regular piano bar nights.

EDGE: Tell me about working with your co-performers in this show.

Katie Connor: We haven't worked together yet. I've worked with Tracey in the big shows we've done in the Moonshine each year. I haven't worked with Lisa, but we are all different, and that will make for an interesting show.

Lisa Gail

EDGE: Did you grow up in a musical household, and were your parents supportive of your pursuit of performing/singing?

Lisa Gail: My mother played the piano, and my father played the organ, and they both sang in the church choir. I loved the arts growing up. I would go to concerts at Symphony Hall. I gained a love of music from my parents.

Interestingly enough, they weren't supportive of me going into the arts as a career. When I was 12, I was in a Broadway National Tour of "Annie Get Your Gun." I was Annie Oakley's younger sister, the eldest of her three youngest siblings, opposite Beth Fowler as Oakley. I told my parents I wanted to pursue that as a career, but they objected. They wanted something more stable for me. So, I followed another path, and didn't pursue the arts.

EDGE: How did you get cast in this national tour?

Lisa Gail: I started to take dance class when I was five, and my dance teacher was a famous Rockette and had lots of New York connections. She sent me out for different auditions for various shows, including "Annie Get Your Gun," and I got it on the first audition. My mother traveled with me as my chaperone, all around the country. I was schooled with a bunch of child actors in the show. She saw a lot of the seedy side of the business. The drinking and the drugs, none of which were as prevalent as she had made it out to be in her own head, but she decided she didn't want that life for me. She was fearful for me.

EDGE: What did you end up going into if it wasn't performing arts?

Lisa Gail: I did so many different things, I did TV Production, which my college degree was in, but I wasn't using my talent. It was a technical job, a desk job. I wasn't working with people, just things. I also went into nursing as a career.

EDGE: How did you get back into singing and performing?

Lisa Gail: When I was working as a nurse, crazy hours, I couldn't perform. But I discovered I missed singing. To fix that, I got a 9-5 nursing job so I could perform more. I wasn't being fulfilled without singing and acting. That's when I started going to the open mics at Club Café.

EDGE: What genres of songs are you drawn to, and why?

Lisa Gail: I love songs from the '20s, '30s, and '40s, specifically. I liked them before they became popular. There is nothing like the lyrics of a Dorothy Fields song. They capture something emotionally that expresses something I couldn't express without that song. I love Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, and Linda Eder. I love Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, and Debbie Reynolds. I've been in the cabaret scene off and on since the 1980s and I feel like I'm just developing my repertoire. In the '90s, I'd been going to the old Napoleon Club in Bay Village, open mics at Diamond Jim's and In Stages. I headlined a show there once, with your husband Brian [De Lorenzo].

EDGE: What can we expect from your two small sets at "The Ladies Who Brunch?"

Lisa Gail: You'll be hearing some good old alto Broadway belting, some 1940s classics in medleys, a Broadway standard, and some beautiful love songs.

Tracey O'Farrell

EDGE: We haven't seen you perform in a while. What has life been for Tracey on and off the stage?

Tracey O'Farrell: Life looks little bit different. My youngest has gone off to college. Pete and I are navigating life as empty nesters now. The pandemic was a period of transformation. I've been in education as my career, which afforded me the opportunity to do theater. I worked at Reagle Theater in the summers and did theater during school holidays. When the pandemic hit, working remotely, it made me reevaluate how I would be spending my time. I had a license in practical nursing and took steps to renew it and went back into nursing. An opportunity fell in my lap to blend my nursing background and performing background to become a recreation specialist for people with special needs like autism and create community activities for them. They were looking for a person with a fine arts background, and that was me! It has become a fulfilling part of my life.

But the schedule is crazy, and my performing is limited to the 1-2 nights a month I host at Club Café. I was in Club Café last night with Eden Casteel. I have done some performing with my individual students. In Foxborough, we did a workshop with my students, exposing them to different aspects of theater. That's something I'm working on growing. It's a neat way to work the performing part of my life into what I'm doing at work.

EDGE: When did you start singing/performing?

Tracey O'Farrell: My mother always says I sang before I talked. I started dance lessons at four, joined the church choir, and was in school plays. At a time when the musical "Annie" was popular, I was in every production of "Annie" within 25 miles. My high school had a strong show choir, like in the show "Glee," and we were a national event show choir. I went to the Hart School in Connecticut with a BFA in musical theater. Out of college, I performed in Boston. I did the Spirit of Boston. I met my first husband then, and we had a honeymoon baby. Then everything happened with my first son. And after my son passed away, I stopped performing for a really long time. Years later, I met and married my husband, Pete. Shortly after we married, my college voice teacher passed away and I went to her funeral, and it was filled with all these amazing voices and performers, and I was awestruck. Pete said, "If this is what makes you happy, you should be doing it."

David Friedman spoke and performed at that funeral. I didn't know that until years later when our paths crossed again, and we started working together. When Pete and I came back from the funeral, I called John O'Neil. It was the first call that I made. He had been coaching me for theater auditions years before, soon after I had graduated from college. I had no idea if he was still actively coaching, but he was. That's how I got started again.

EDGE: Who were some of your vocal influences growing up, and even more recently?

Tracey O'Farrell: When I was very little, I loved Debbie Boone, Crystal Gayle, and Juice Newton. At Club Café, we all perform show tunes and Great American Songbook, but everybody develops their own little niche. For me, pop music is what I gravitate towards for a good chunk of my set list. I don't do a cover that sounds like a pop recording, though. I will interpret it more deeply. I am also selective about the pop songs I sing. I brought a tape of a pop song to [musical director] Jim Rice, and he asked what show this is from. But it was a country song, and those songs also tell stories.

EDGE: What draws you to a song in any of these genres?

Tracey O'Farrell: It's almost always the lyrics and the story that the song is telling. Often, when I perform those songs, I'll see people singing along. A lot of times people will say, "I love that song. It's so catchy," or "It makes me think of this time in my life." I love that these songs bring you back to a time in your life. Musical theater doesn't do that to me. Pop music puts a time stamp on the song and on our lives. It can elicit a memory for people in the room you are performing in. When I'm creating a set list, I'm creating a mix tape from the soundtrack of my life.

EDGE: Will that be reflected in your sets for "The Ladies Who Brunch?"

Tracey O'Farrell: Yes. It's way more challenging to pick two small sets of three songs than one large set of six. I tried to choose two sets that are reflective of the types of music that I perform, but also reflective of the type of music the audience for "The Ladies who Brunch" would enjoy. For my second set I open with a song I always open my second set at Club Café with. It's called "I've Got Issues," by Julia Michael. It's a fun, quirky song that breaks the ice for the open mic singers that I would invite up when I host. I like to take some risks with my repertoire.

EDGE: What do you think of being combined with your other two co-performers for this show?

Tracey O'Farrell: I've seen both of them perform before, and I think they are both tremendous. We get to unite forces and have variety in one hour. It is a great concept that John [O'Neil] came up with: Have a nice meal and hear three different performers who each bring something different to the table. I was thrilled when I heard who I would be performing with, because I think the world of both of them.

John O'Neil presents "The Ladies Who Brunch," featuring Katie Connor, Lisa Gail, and Tracey O'Farrell on Sunday, October 20th, 11:30 am at the Club Café's Napoleon Room, 209 Columbus Avenue, Boston, MA. Tickets: $20- $25. For reservations, follow this link.