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Post Office Café and Cabaret

    COMEDY

    Nothing Is Off Limits for Judy Gold

    Onstage and off, she’s fierce about family, politics, and being funny

    By

    The astonishing thing about the opening night of Judy Gold’s annual run at the Post Office Café & Cabaret wasn’t that she killed it. She did kill it, resoundingly, but she’s been performing in Provincetown since 1992, so that is to be expected. What was astounding was that she arrived onstage at all. Thirty-six hours earlier, she had boarded a flight in Jordan following a week spent mostly in Tel Aviv bomb shelters and a border crossing fraught with tension.

    Judy Gold. (Photo by Justine Ungaro)

    Gold had been to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as part of an Israel Pride peacebuilding mission organized by the Israeli Embassy. It was a trip layered with tragedy: the trip organizer was Sarah Milgram, the young woman who was killed with her boyfriend, Yaron Lischinsky, outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. — she’d been there for a talk about getting aid to Gaza.

    A social justice activist, Gold went ahead with the trip and was preparing to return home to New York City when Israel and Iran began exchanging fire. Every so often, she’d post short videos from the shelters. She was struck by the diversity of people waiting together for the next all-clear signal.

    “I wish people would go to Israel and see it for themselves,” said Gold. “It’s not all one thing. It’s diverse. The people there are from everywhere.”

    Occasionally, she’d furtively record a shirtless muscle bro walking by — letting her gay fans know that even in times of peril hotness finds a way. Although she never loses her sense of humor, Gold is serious about rising anti-Semitism. “It’s a huge problem,” she says. But she’s critical of Netanyahu and says that’s true for many Israelis. As for Trump’s claims about anti-Semitism at universities, the way she sees it, “He’s using that to advance his agenda.”

    Still, she says, “If you talk to living Holocaust survivors, they will tell you that the climate here in the U.S. now is exactly what it was in Berlin in the late ’20s, early ’30s” — when the Nazis began gaining power.

    Gold is adamant about the need for LGBTQ people, especially trans people, to come out and be seen and counted. Humor can change hearts and minds, she says, but personal connections are even more powerful.

    “The only way we’re going to change the world is if you come out,” said Gold. “Trans people have to come out and identify themselves now, just like gay people had to come out and let everyone know that whether they believe it or not, or think it or not, they know and love a gay person. You also probably know and love a trans person.”

    Gold has what the smart kids today call “platform agility” — she transitions between stand-up, writing, acting, podcasting, and social media, all the time writing new jokes with a precise awareness of cultural shifts. She is the author of two books: 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother and Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians We Are All in Trouble.

    Yes, I Can, published in 2020, is part memoir and part history lesson on free speech. It’s academic and funny. There’s also a lot of insight into how the comedy sausage is made. It should be required reading for anyone thinking of stepping up to an open mic.

    What is acceptable to audiences today has contracted in the past few decades. The mention of trigger warnings makes Gold roll her eyes and raise her hands to the sky. And no one rolls her eyes like Gold. It’s all in there — outrage, sorrow, perseverance, and also a quick check to make sure she got a laugh out of it.

    The audience hung on Gold’s every word as she talked about her trip. There were rapid shifts between pin-drop silence and explosive laughter. When the war drama could bring down the mood, she’d seamlessly switch to her favorite subjects: being Jewish, motherhood, and people who are annoying.

    What a great veteran comic like Gold brings to the stage is total mastery of breath. Breathing is as important to a comedian as it is to a ballet dancer or Olympic runner. The breath must move you from point to point, whether it’s physical, mental, or directorial, while always appearing effortless and unstudied. Hers is all that.

    Gold rose to fame in the ’90s alongside a wave of groundbreaking female comics like Janeane Garofolo, Margaret Cho, and Wanda Sykes. Their willingness to reveal their inner lives continues to influence stand-up comedy today. It also still upsets people. Gold says she has the hate texts to prove it.

    While her live shows are all about the funny, she hopes to leave the crowd, especially the gay men, inspired to show more support for women. “I often say this at the end of my act: ‘They made L the first letter in LGBTQ because guess who was there for you during your plague?’ ” she says. “Women’s rights are being taken away. We need to be each other’s allies and speak up.”

    Her son Ben wandered past the camera as Gold was talking with the Independent from her New York City apartment, sending her on a riff about parenting. When Ben and his brother, Henry, were children, Gold says, she encouraged them to laugh at what they found funny but then to dissect the joke to understand why it was funny. She let them watch Family Guy and South Park. And, she adds, “I was really bad with bedtime.”

    Her boys’ childhood summers in Provincetown dispelled the magic of the theater from their imaginations at an early age, she says. “After Henry was born in 1996, I used to go on at the Post Office at seven and Varla would go on at eight-thirty. She would be getting dressed while I was onstage. There were times when I couldn’t find a babysitter, and Henry would be sitting back there with Varla putting her tits on.

    “I have to say, as a female comic with children, it’s harder on us,” says Gold. The upside, though: “We laugh a lot. Nothing is off limits.”

    Gold is funny and feisty even when she muses on becoming a grandmother. “I can’t wait,” she says, but then again, “There will be my ex, my current partner, and if my ex gets in another relationship there will be that person: I’m going to have to really fight for my position, but I’ll definitely be the fun one.”

     

    Fiercely Funny

    The event: What the FU Tour 2025
    The time: Every Sun., Tues., and Thurs. through Sept. 11, 7 p.m.
    The place: Post Office Café and Cabaret, 303 Commercial St., Provincetown
    The cost: $35 to $45 plus fees at postofficecafe.net

    CABARET

    Liz Callaway Passes on the Gift of Sondheim

    The Broadway star returns to Provincetown with an expanded musical world

    By

    Broadway singer and actress Liz Callaway has performed a half-dozen times in Provincetown but returns Aug. 30 and 31 to a different venue — and with a new honor as a 2024 Grammy Award nominee. That achievement came in an unexpected category: Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

    Liz Callaway is a 2024 Grammy nominee for her Stephen Sondheim tribute album. (Photo courtesy Liz Callaway)

    “My son sent me a Wikipedia page of all the people who had won or been nominated in that category over the years, and it was a ‘pinch-me’ moment,” she says. “To be nominated in the same category as Bruce Springsteen? That was not on my bingo card.”

    The news gave her a new perspective on her long career: “I’ve always felt like a big part of the theater community, but for the first time in my life I feel like a part of the music community,” says Callaway, 63. “I’d never thought of a Grammy for myself, unless it was maybe a show album. It’s a lesson that you never know what you can accomplish, especially in the second half of your life.”

    The nomination came for To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim, a live recording of her 2022 tribute to the late composer Stephen Sondheim at the nightclub 54 Below in New York. She produced it herself. It’s fitting that, of her eight solo albums, it’s the one to get Grammy attention because of how important Sondheim has been to her career.

    In a letter she treasures, Sondheim called her voice “crystalline.” On her album, Callaway calls Sondheim “a friend, a teacher, and a man who changed my life.”

    The first musical she ever saw, at age 9 or 10, was Sondheim’s Company. Her first Broadway role in 1981 was in Merrily We Roll Along. She has performed in multiple live concerts honoring him, appeared with Sondheim on TV’s Inside the Actors Studio, and was part of a star-studded concert version of Follies at Lincoln Center. Callaway’s regional theater credits include Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George.

    She’s sure that Sondheim songs — and most likely her rapid-fire showstopper “Another Hundred Lyrics,” a parody poking gentle fun at his tongue-twisters — will be included in these first-ever performances at the Post Office Café and Cabaret. “A Liz Callaway show needs Sondheim in it,” she says with a laugh.

    Past visits to Provincetown, her “happy place,” have involved concerts at other local venues, sometimes solo and other times with her sister and frequent co-star Anne Hampton Callaway. But the Post Office is new for her. She’ll be accompanied by John McDaniel, a Grammy- and Emmy-winning musician who’s hosting the venue’s Broadway series. The two have teamed up multiple times elsewhere in recent years (“He can play anything!” she says) and performed for benefits as well as on a cruise ship.

    “I have long been a fan of Liz’s gorgeous, crystal-clear voice and evocative storytelling,” says McDaniel.

    Beyond Sondheim, the show will likely include other composers who Callaway has championed over the years and with ’60s pop and stories.

    Callaway’s longest Broadway stage role was five years as Grizabella in Cats. She originated the role of Ellen in Miss Saigon and was Tony-nominated for Baby. Offstage, Callaway has provided singing voices for female characters in animated films: the lead in Anastasia, Odette in The Swan Princess, Jasmine in the Aladdin franchise’s The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves, and the adult version of Kiara in The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride.

    In a 2019 Provincetown concert, Callaway called that offstage voice work her “secret career,” but she’s come to realize the impact of that work. “People would come up to me after concerts and burst into tears, saying, ‘You were the soundtrack of my childhood,’ ” she says. “It introduced me to a new generation, and that’s really important to me. I want all generations to know my music, and sometimes Anastasia is their introduction.”

    A new generation has also embraced Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. Her 1981 Broadway debut in that musical infamously closed after just 16 performances. But the 2023 revival was a hot ticket and won four Tonys. Callaway and multiple 1981 castmates attended two performances and celebrated the revival’s success.

    She’s thrilled by the recent attention to Sondheim’s work, wanting up-and-coming theater students to learn his oeuvre. She’s had a career-long discovery of Sondheim’s music, noting that he wrote many songs for older female characters that she now feels comfortable performing.

    “And I can still sing songs I sang when I was younger and have a fresh interpretation of them because of my life experience,” she says. “His music is just a gift to singers.”

    Another Hundred Lyrics

    The event: Liz Callaway, with accompanist John McDaniel
    The time: Friday, Aug. 30 and Saturday, Aug. 31, 6:30 p.m.
    The place: Post Office Café and Cabaret, 303 Commercial St., Provincetown
    The cost: $65 and $90 at postofficecafe.net

    Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article, published in print on Aug. 29, incorrectly reported that Liz Callaway and castmates from the 1981 production of Merrily We Roll Along had attended the Tony Award ceremony for the 2023 revival; they attended performances of the revival.

    COMEDY

    Poppy Champlin Cracks Nuts and Jokes

    She’s performing at the Post Office Café as part of Women’s Week

    By

    Poppy Champlin has problems. Girlfriend problems. Luckily, she’s got a plan to remedy that.

    “I have an ex in Provincetown that I’m scared to see,” she says from her home in Rhode Island. “I have one here that I’m trying to break up with. I need to have a different girlfriend every night when I’m in P’town. Maybe I’ll start some sort of game: who’s dating Poppy tonight?”

    Comedian Poppy Champlin is coming to the Post Office Café. (Photo courtesy Poppy Champlin)

    Champlin returns to Provincetown for her 20th year to perform “The Funny Side of the Street,” during which she’ll meld written bits with improv, from Friday, Oct. 8 though Saturday, Oct. 16 at the Post Office Café and Cabaret.

    “You’re always writing, so you always have ideas that you want to try out,” she says. “In P’town, because it’s eight shows in a row, you bring a notebook of the new stuff. And you don’t put it all in one night: you pepper it in. A lot of the jokes will be written on site. My goal is always to engage the audience. I hate it when it’s just me doing all the work. I want them to help.”

    It’s hard to engage during a pandemic with people masked up, Champlin admits. “It’s really brutal,” she says. “The first time I encountered that, it was so scary it almost made me cry.” When she can’t see the audience’s expressions, she assumes they “hate” her, she says.

    It’d be hard to hate Champlin. Her stories are hilarious and her observations on the mark. Champlin also uses her killer voice for emphasis and song. She’s got four tunes that anchor “The Funny Side of the Street,” a show that mixes “pandemic crap, a little political crap, definitely relationship and sex stuff, and food stuff.”

    Champlin graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a B.F.A. After studying at the Second City Training Center, she moved to L.A. to continue her stand-up and acting career. Winner of “America’s Funniest Real Woman” on the Joan Rivers Show, she has appeared on Showtime, LOGO, Comics Unleashed, Comedy Central, VH-1, HBO, and Oprah. Champlin is a producer of The Queer Queens of Qomedy, with which she travels the country.

    Champlin left L.A. in 2011 to return to Rhode Island, to her father’s “rundown shack in the woods.” She bought out her brother, who left a bunch of tools there. She used those tools to fix up the house and, when the pandemic struck and her traveling ceased, she decided to build raised beds for her garden. After she started talking about building beds (“I have been caught with a carrot in bed — it was a long time ago”), someone wanted to buy one. She’s been making things from wood ever since, and she found a new amusement: nut cracking.

    “When winter came, I started making nutcrackers for some reason,” she says. Champlin gave them as gifts last Christmas. Her friends were so impressed that she’s now making them to sell. “Instead of traveling this year and finding jobs,” she says, “I just made nutcrackers to make enough money to survive.”

    Doesn’t stand-up comedy provide an audience that carpentry doesn’t? “Well, the nutcrackers, they talk to me,” Champlin quips.

    She has found another side job, however, that involves a microphone: auctioneer. It’s a great way to help support nonprofits. “People keep bidding because they want to hear more jokes,” she says. “It’s a free show.”

    Now she’s back to real life, and back to Provincetown, where she can start misbehaving, in a sober way.

    “When I was still drinking and drugging, I had three girlfriends in the same week, and slept with all of them the same day,” Champlin says. “I think two were in a relationship, so that was dangerous. I was actually facilitating their breakup. That’s good: ‘facilitating their breakup.’ I should use that.”

    Street Smarts

    The event: Poppy Champlin, “The Funny Side of the Street”

    The time: Friday, Oct. 8 at 4:30 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 9 at 9 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 10 through Saturday, Oct. 16 at 8:30 p.m.

    The place: The Post Office Café and Cabaret, 303 Commercial St., Provincetown

    The cost: $25 at postofficecafe.net

    our picks for the week of Sept 2 through August 8

    Indie’s Choice

    By

    Watch Like a Hawk (Thursday, Sept. 2)

    Truro Connections — a collaboration between Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, the Truro Historical Society, the Truro Meeting House, and Payomet Performing Arts Center — hosts the Red Hawk Singers and Dancers, an indigenous performance group, on Thursday, Sept. 2, 5 p.m. The event will take place at Edgewood Farm, 3 Edgewood Way in Truro. Registration is free at castlehill.org.

    Snakes in the Grass (Thursday, Sept. 2)

    Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St., continues its backyard concert series with the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble on Thursday, Sept. 2, 5 p.m. Founded by Ken Field, the funk-inflected brass band plays New Orleans-inspired tunes. Bring a lawn chair or blanket. Tickets are $25 at wellfleetpreservationhall.org.

    Apple of My Eye (Thursday, Sept 2-Friday, Sept. 3)

    Rebecca Bruyn teaches “Introduction to iPhoneography,” a two-day workshop at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, 10 Meetinghouse Road, on Thursday, Sept. 2 and Friday, Sept. 3, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Bruyn will teach students how to make arresting images with their devices with an emphasis on post-production. Registration is $250 at castlehill.org.

    Under the Hammer (Friday, Sept. 3)

    The Provincetown Art Association and Museum’s 34th annual consignment auction will be on view at 460 Commercial St. starting Friday, Sept. 3. Consigners will receive 80 percent of the “hammer price,” with PAAM receiving the other 20 percent. The auction, officiated by Jim Bakker, will be held online at liveauctioneers.com, closing at 7 p.m. on Sept. 25.

    Rhiannon Giddens performs at Payomet on Friday. (Photo courtesy Rhiannon Giddens)

    Banjo on Her Knee (Friday, Sept. 3)

    Rhiannon Giddens, co-founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and recently appointed artistic director of Silkroad, performs at the Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in Truro, on Friday, Sept. 3, 7 p.m. Giddens — a singer, fiddler, and banjo player — recently released the album They’re Calling Me Home with percussionist Francesco Turrisi. Tickets are $75 at payomet.org.

    Kindred Spirits (Saturday, Sept. 4)

    Heather Greene, CEO of Milam and Greene Whiskies and author of Whiskey Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life, will host a live and virtual book event at East End Books Ptown, 389 Commercial St., on Saturday, Sept. 4, 5:30 p.m. The event, which includes a tasting, is $5 suggested donation at eastendbooksptown.com.

    Voices Carry (Sunday, Sept. 5)

    Hyannis Sound performs online this week as part of Great Music on Sundays @5. The award-winning collegiate a capella group of male voices from across the U.S. will present music arranged by former and current members. Watch free via YouTube on Sunday, Sept. 5, 5 p.m. Visit ptownmusic.com to donate.

    Broadway Beckons (Sunday, Sept. 5)

    The Art House presents Tony Award-winning actress and singer Beth Leavel performing one night only at Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St., on Sunday, Sept. 5, 6:30 p.m. Accompanied by Seth Rudetsky on piano, the event is a fundraiser for Sandy Hook Promise. Tickets range from $50 to $150 at provincetownarthouse.com.

                                                                                   

    Branden and James perform at Pilgrim House this week. (Photo courtesy Branden and James)

    Cover Artists (Sunday, Sept. 5 – Wednesday, Sept. 9)

    Cello and tenor duo Branden and James return to Pilgrim House, 336 Commercial St. in Provincetown, from Sunday, Sept. 5 through Thursday, Sept. 9, 7:30 p.m. Their show, “Broadway Under the Covers,” celebrates music from Hamilton, Wicked, Dear Evan Hansen, Mary Poppins, and West Side Story. Masks and proof of vaccination required. Tickets are $35 at pilgrimhouseptown.com.

     

     

    Piano Men (Monday, Sept. 6)

    Jon Richardson and Todd Alsup will tickle the ivories and belt out pop hits by Elton John and Billy Joel in “Elton & Billy: Greatest Hits Live” at the Crown & Anchor, 247 Commercial St. in Provincetown, on Monday, Sept. 6, 9 p.m. Tickets are $39 at onlythecrown.com.

    Fresh Air (Tuesday, Sept. 7)

    The Eastham Painters Guild will gather at Coast Guard Beach in Eastham for its second-to-last free outdoor event of the summer, “Plein Air Painting in the Cape Cod National Seashore,” on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. More information at easthampaintersguild.com.

    Manchester By the Sea (Wednesday, Sept. 8 – Friday, Sept. 10)

    The Post Office Café and Cabaret, 303 Commercial St. in Provincetown, presents “Melissa Manchester: An Intimate Night” from Wednesday, Sept. 8 through Friday, Sept. 10, 7 p.m. The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter released her first album, Home to Myself, in 1971 and has released 20 since, including this year’s RE:VIEW. Tickets are $50 at postofficecafe.net.

    Twisted Sisters (Thurs.)

    By

    Five-strong vocal powerhouse Divas With a Twist, backed by Grammy-nominated musicians, will perform songs by Aretha Franklin, Queen, Bruno Mars, the Temptations, and others at the Post Office Café and Cabaret, 303 Commercial St. in Provincetown, on Thursday, Aug. 26, 7 p.m. Tickets are $25 at postofficecafe.net.

    Flip the Script (Sat.)

    By

    Suzanne Westenhoefer performs at the Post Office Café and Cabaret, 303 Commercial St. in Provincetown, from Saturday, July 31 through Aug. 31, 7 p.m. Westenhoefer, the first openly lesbian comedian to perform on Late Night With David Letterman, celebrates 25 years in comedy with an unscripted show that dismantles stereotypes. Tickets are $25 at postofficecafe.net.

    Comic Relief

    By

    Kristen Becker performs “Dykotomy,” a “self-identified comedy” show at the Post Office Café and Cabaret, on Friday, July 23rd and Saturday, July 24th at 7 p.m. “Born in the rust belt and raised in the bible belt,” Becker “dances gingerly back and forth between drunken redneck and woke women studies major.” Tickets are $25 at postofficecafe.net.

    Time Warp

    By

    Mike Flanagan and Lisa Bello host “’90s Night” at the Post Office Café and Cabaret, 303 Commercial St. in Provincetown, every other Thursday at 10 p.m., July 15th through August 26th. Take a trip back to the turn of the 21st century for a sing-along night of “Old School Dance” favorites. Tickets are $25 at postofficecafe.net.

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