"It's like going into a bar and telling the person next to you your life story," says star Lori Rivera of Smoke: A One-Woman Cabaret. Which is a total lie. Instead, it's like going into a swanky little piano joint, warming up your highly professional pipes, and sashay-singing a bouquet of beautiful songs a witty baker taught you. (If you're a real food nerd, you'll know Joe Ortiz the song man from his oasis of a patisserie, Gayle's in Capitola.) The show is an ode to love so honest it sometimes hates love, and it finds Rivera, a former member of extreme a cappella band the Bobs, playing multiple characters and interacting with the audience during songs such as "You Intoxicate Me" and "We Took It Off the Menu." The show also plays one night at the gilded palace of cabaret, the Rrazz Room, on Oct. 6.
Saturdays, 6:30 p.m. Starts: Sept. 19. Continues through Oct. 3, 2009
