Stephanie D'Abruzzo
In less than two years' time, Avenue Q star Stephanie D'Abruzzo has experienced a number of firsts: her first Broadway musical, her first Tony nomination and her first performance in a Tony-winning musical. Now, the skilled singer, actress and puppeteer is set to experience another first, a solo cabaret act. In fact, D'Abruzzo will make her solo cabaret debut this Monday, May 23 at the famed jazz club Birdland. The eagerly awaited evening will feature the talented performer backed by musical director Michael Patrick Walker on keyboards, Michael Croiter on percussion and Jim Donica on bass. I recently had the chance to chat with D'Abruzzo about her upcoming Birdland gig; that interview follows:

Question: How are you feeling about making your solo cabaret debut?
Stephanie D'Abruzzo: I'm feeling good. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. I think the most difficult thing has been finding someone who would actually give me the venue to do it! [Laughs.]

Q: How did the booking come about?
D'Abruzzo: I've known Jim Caruso for awhile, actually since right before [Avenue Q] transferred to Broadway. He had interviewed me [at the time of the] Drama Desk [nominations]. The Drama Desks in 2003 were not going to be televised — they were going to be webcast, so he was doing little interview bumps with some of the nominees to run in between [the awards]. Now, they never ran, but we just had the best time chatting. So I've known him ever since then. One day — I think it was around Christmastime outside the theatre — he was handing out flyers for the Birdland season. He had asked John Tartaglia to do a Christmas show, which Johnny had to cancel because he didn't realize that we had a show the Monday night that he had scheduled his show for. So, I go up to Jim and I said, "Jim, how is it you're asking everybody in the show to do something at Birdland except me?" [Laughs.] He said, "Why, do you want to?" "Yeeeees!" . . . So, that's how it came about because he's a swell guy. It was right at the time when he was scheduling the spring "New Season," so it was sort of "right place, right time."

I don't like giving away any of the titles because I think it reveals too much, but there are some great surprises — there are some great originals. Michael Patrick Walker is writing me an original song just for the evening, so it will be premiered that night. I am going to do Gary Adler's "If I Weren't Married." Alan agreed no night would be complete without doing that. I'm doing a Phoebe Kreutz song that I don't think any of the other cast has performed, and then there are things that are kind of obscure or [songs that have] not been sung in this venue. I really wanted the night to be different. There are great standards that I love that I would love to do on any other occasion, but I felt that they wouldn't be as fun or as appropriate for this night. I love Frank Loesser, I love the great old standards like "What'll I Do?" and "Cry Me a River," but for this night I didn't want to go down that path, I wanted it to be something a little special. Because, heaven knows, if I'll ever have the chance to do it again! [Laughs.]

Q: Have you had the chance to see much cabaret in the city?
D'Abruzzo: Not as much as I'd like because they're always on Monday nights, and half of the time I'm doing something else on a Monday night, and the other half of the time — well, I have to do my laundry some time. [Laughs.] So I don't really get a chance to see as much as I'd like to. The one thing I've noticed that I've enjoyed most about seeing other people's cabaret nights is when there's been something unexpected, something that I haven't heard them sing before or didn't think they could sing. I think that's what blew me away so much about Ann Harada's Ars Nova night, which I believe was one of the first cabaret nights I got a chance to see — certainly the first one by someone that I knew. And, for as long as I've known Ann, I had no idea the range that she had, I had no idea what she could do! I've shared a dressing room with her for years and I've been working on Avenue Q with her for years, and yet I had no idea what she was capable of until I heard her that night. So I knew that that's what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to surprise even the people who've known me for a long time, and I hope that I do.

Q: Will you have any guest stars — either of the puppet or human variety?
D'Abruzzo: No, this is going to be all me. The few little backup vocals that I've got going are going to come from my fabulous, three-piece band. Michael Patrick Walker will be on keyboards as well as music directing. I'll have Michael Croiter on percussion and hopefully some guitar — he can play anything. And, Jim Donica will be my bass player. He's a little trepidacious about the singing, so it'll probably just be two-part backup.

Q: You also had the chance to perform recently at the Sondheim Children and Art benefit. What was that experience like backstage and onstage?
D'Abruzzo: Oh my God! I normally, as a general rule, don't get nervous when I'm performing, [but] my heart was pounding. My husband, who was watching, said, "I don't know how you do it" because he was a wreck. I followed Marin Mazzie and came before Donna Murphy. . .

First of all, looking at the line-up and seeing how many of the [performers] that I knew was pretty staggering, and then the people that I ended up meeting for the first time that night was even more staggering. I was in a dressing room with Annie Golden and Ann Morrison and Becky Ann Baker and Rebecca Luker and Michele Pawk. And, I got to meet Barbara Cook for the first time . . . I found myself standing about three feet from Angela Lansbury. . . Yeah, I was a little petrified because it was big company to be in. You kind of felt like it was high stakes [and] you want to feel like you belong in that group you're being lumped in with. Thankfully, I felt good about what I did, and fortunately I wasn't alone in feeling [nervous]. There were a lot of people, seasoned people, saying, "Oh my God." Fortunately, for me, I sang "Sooner or Later," relatively simple if you're talking Sondheim lyrics and melody. There were so many people backstage looking over cards with their lyrics and going over them in their head. I was grateful to get one of the more straightforward Sondheim pieces because I don't know what I would have done [otherwise] . . . . It was an amazing afternoon/evening all around.