Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea Cabaret Series Tunes Up for 2025

When it comes to circuitous careers, few are more fascinating than Donna Rubin’s. A classically trained ballet dancer originally from Canada, the Bridgehampton resident first gained acclaim in the late 1980s in the starring role of Meg Giry in the original Canadian company production of Phantom of the Opera. By 1994, she’d made her Broadway debut at Lincoln Center in a revival of Carousel starring Audra McDonald.
For the next two decades, she ran New York’s first hot yoga studio, bodē NYC, which she co-founded in 1999. She also produced an award-winning documentary called An Improbable Dream about her days as a student at Canada’s National Ballet School. In between, she developed a passion for cabaret while working as a hostess at the Triad Theater on the Upper West Side following her stint in Carousel.
“That’s where I got introduced to cabaret, and it was fascinating to me,” recalled Rubin, who relocated permanently from Manhattan to Bridgehampton with her husband, Elliot Matlin, and son, Ari, during the pandemic, where she continues teaching yoga and mentoring instructors in her home studio and volunteers at the local Democratic party in Southampton.
“Cabaret was a whole new mysterious world to me. I just loved the fact everyone who performed was so talented and they were creating their own shows. I found that very refreshing, especially coming from the ballet and musical-theater worlds, which are much more structured, where you have to do exactly as you are told.”
With a seemingly endless penchant for reinvention, it is hardly surprising that Rubin managed to parlay this into yet another impressive chapter in her ever-evolving career. Beginning July 5 through August 30, she will be coproducing the second annual Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea cabaret series at LTV studios in Wainscott complete with café-style seating, a baby-grand piano, and a full bar.
“We’re really trying to establish this as a new venue for cabaret, hopefully for many years to come,” Rubin said.
Added LTV’s creative director Josh Gladstone, who is coproducing the series, “Since the pandemic there has been more of a push to make our largest studio, which is a soundstage but not big enough to for commercial television production, more available to the community in different ways. It is a terrific flexible black-box theater space that now has a proscenium stage configuration, state-of-the-art lighting, and audio and seating capacity for about 250 people. It is the perfect place for intimate performances, and for Hamptons Songbook by the Sea, particularly, it gives people a chance to be up close with first-rate talent and is a wonderful addition for us.”
Kicking things off opening night will be the legendary chanteuse Marilyn Maye, who at 97 years young still performs regularly, including in a show this past Monday night at Carnegie Hall. She is also a much-in-demand vocal coach and holds the record for the most appearances for a singer — 76 — during Johnny Carson’s reign as host of The Tonight Show.
In her upcoming show. Maye will be paying homage to the king of late night — who would have turned 100 in October — featuring vintage video clips from her Tonight performances.
“It’s all about Carson and all the songs he loved from the Great American Songbook,” said Maye, whose most recent performance on the East End in 2003 was at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.
On July 11, veteran Broadway song-and-dance man Lee Roy Reams will be tipping his tophat to another show business icon, his close pal Lauren Bacall, in a show he calls Me and Betty. The 42nd Street Tony nominee first became chummy with Bacall in the early 1970s, when they appeared together in Applause, for which she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.
“One of the great friendships and love affairs I had in my life was with Lauren Bacall,” said Reams, who debuted the show in January at 54 Below in Manhattan. “I thought it would be an interesting journey to take with an audience, so I did and I’m looking forward to doing it again in the Hamptons.”
During week three, on July 19, see singer, actress, and recording artist Liz Callaway, best known for having provided the singing voices in animated films like Anastasia, Aladdin and The King of Thieves and The Lion King II. She also originated the role of Ellen in Miss Saigon on Broadway, and with her sister Ann cowrote the theme song for the 1990s sitcom The Nanny, on which they both sing.
“I haven’t been to the Hamptons in ages, and I love it out there, so I’m thrilled to have an excuse to be there to perform,” Callaway said.
Others on the lineup include:
Saturday, July 26, 7:30 p.m.: Eric Comstock and Barbabra Fassano, Hirschfeld’s Broadway (hosted by David Leopold)
Saturday, August 4, 7:30 p.m.: Steve Ross, Karen Murphy and Maria Abous, Best of the Versed Strikes Back! (Produced and hosted by David Alpern)
Saturday, August 16, 7:30 p.m.: KT Sullivan, Mark Nadler, Natlie Douglas and Marta Sanders (Nice Work if You Can Get It — A Cabaret Jubilee (in association with The Mabel Mercer Foundation)
Saturday, August 23, 7:30 p.m.: Craig Rubano, Take the Moment
Saturday, August 30, 7:30 p.m.: Moipei, Mary, Maggy, and Marta Moipei, Moipei Embraces New York
Performances for Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea are underway now at LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road, Wainscott.
For more information, visit ltveh.org/hss2025 or call 631-537-2777