Chicago Cabaret Week is expanding in 2026, bringing intimate, engaging and eclectic shows into more venues and neighborhoods.
Running from May 8 to 17, the festival features more than 50 artists across multiple locations including four new spots: Stars & Garters, Bughouse Theater, The Labyrinth Club and The Redhead Piano Bar.
This year’s lineup promises to be as diverse as ever, with vocal groups, burlesque performances, a play about the Equal Rights Amendment and tributes to Carol Burnett, Linda Ronstadt and Tony Bennett. The event is organized by the Working in Concert and Chicago Cabaret Professionals nonprofits, and tickets are priced at $30 or less to keep the shows accessible.
Chicago Cabaret Week is designed to keep the spotlight on the niche art form, even as local venues like Davenport’s close their doors, and others struggle to remain profitable.
“I’m feeling like the future is looking up,” said Anne Burnell, the festival’s managing director, who is also performing a tribute to singer Julie London. “We’ve got some boots on the ground making relationships with these clubs. The venues are keeping their minds open to having a lot of different offerings.”
Given the affordable ticket price, Burnell hopes that audiences will attend multiple shows as a way to explore both the venues in their neighborhood and experience the “joy of music.”
“I feel that music can speak to even the most hardened heart,” she said. “Especially in an intimate setting, and when you’re face to face with these performers, that can really change people. When they all have a shared experience, there’s more harmony in the world.”
Here are three standout performers in this year’s lineup.
Exploring ‘The Great Filipino Songbook’
After years of researching Filipino music, self-proclaimed history nerd Lou Ella Rose Cabalona has made a delightful discovery.
“There is a profound connection between Chicago and the Philippines when it comes to music,” said the Filipino American singer and Norwood Park resident.
That link was formed when influential Filipino composers Francisco Santiago and Nicanor Edelardo migrated to the city in the 1920s and 1930s, respectively. Both studied at the Chicago Musical College, which is now known as Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts. The men were pioneers of the kundiman, a genre of traditional Filipino love songs that also doubled as patriotic odes amid colonial rule.
Cabalona will expose local audiences to the musical style while telling cultural stories during “The Great Filipino Songbook” on May 15 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts.
“It’s heart-wrenching,” she said of the music. “It’s sad. It’s always about unrequited love. And unrequited love can also be parallel to longing for freedom and independence of a people.”
Accompanied by guest artists and her band, the SamaSama Project, Cabalona will also perform folk songs in Filipino languages. She said she is excited to share her heritage with the audience.
“I think the cabaret stage is perfect for that, because it is very welcoming of all genres, styles and kinds of people,” she said.
Before moving to the U.S. to pursue a career in IT, Cabalona was a musician and musical theater performer in the Philippines. Though she was exposed to traditional Filipino music, her recent studies have deepened her understanding of its origins and development. She even received a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council to conduct research in the country last summer.
“I feel like I have to have that foundation as an immigrant musician,” she said. “That’s where I get my inspiration for my artistry.”
Honoring jazz legends, from Josephine Baker to ‘Bricktop’
Like Cabalona, singer Ava Logan also traced the history of her musical influences. Last year, she traveled to France with Working in Concert’s cultural exchange program, Chicago Paris Cabaret Connexion. In Dordogne, she visited the chateau of iconic Black performer Josephine Baker.
“It was so emotional for me,” said Logan, of Orland Park, who is a veterinarian by day and a performer by night. She said she was inspired by Baker’s decision to move and build a life abroad at a young age.
On May 16 at Haven Entertainment Center, Logan will perform Baker’s signature song, “J’ai deux amours,” which is about her “two loves” — the U.S. and Paris. Titled “Jazz Zing!,” Logan’s show will also feature selections by Ella Fitzgerald, Alberta Hunter, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson and Dinah Washington.
“I want to highlight some of our pioneers who got us all started in jazz,” Logan said.
That list also includes singer Ada “Bricktop” Smith, another U.S. expat who grew up in Chicago and moved to Paris, where she operated several clubs. Logan will sing a rendition of Bricktop’s saucy “Insufficient Sweetie.”
“I don’t get an opportunity to perform things like that, so I’m really excited to do it,” she said.
Logan said her background in drama will come in handy for the performance; the D.C. native acted in theater productions in high school and later portrayed Fitzgerald in “Ella: The First Lady of Song” at the Black Ensemble Theater. She will also sing a number from that show, “Why Was I Born?” at the Haven, one of many historic jazz venues in the neighborhood.
“It’s very inspiring to perform in Bronzeville,” she said. “It’s an amazing history we have here in Chicago.”
Logan said she hopes Chicago Cabaret Week will bring some “healing” to audiences.
“We definitely need to have a fun side to our lives with all that’s going on in the world right now.”
Mash-ups by a ‘man-band’
Cabaret performer Kyle Hustedt also stressed the need for escapism, especially as people have become increasingly addicted to scrolling on their phones.
“People are socially starved, and they rely on these windows to other worlds that they don’t actually get to participate in,” said Hustedt, a flower designer by day who owns Bukiety Floral on the Near West Side. “In a cabaret, you do. There’s a different type of fulfillment that comes from a live performance in an intimate room.”
The Lake View resident creates engaging experiences as part of the Beaus, a “man-band” of professional singers that includes Kyle “Kiki” Russell, Olin Eargle, Dustin Lansbury and Justin Harnar. Along with special guests, they will bring a “Mashups and More” show to Stars & Garters on May 12.
The setlist will include Broadway tunes and blended pop hits. For example, one medley combines One Republic’s “Love Runs Out,” Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” Gloria Estefan’s “Turn the Beat Around,” the “Will & Grace” theme song and RuPaul’s “Supermodel (You Better Work).” Another merges James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)” with Tommy James and the Shondells’ “Mony Mony” and “I Think We’re Alone Now.”
Hustedt said the group will ask the audience to vote on artists they want to hear before the show.
“This is making us all very uncomfortable, because we have to be up on so many songs,” he said, laughing. “But we thought it would also be tremendously exciting.”
Hustedt formed the Beaus nearly a decade ago after studying opera at Northwestern University and transitioning into a career as a cruise ship singer. He formed a performance company called the Cabaret Project, and opened his own cabaret venue, the Monocle, in St. Louis. He even appeared in a Super Bowl commercial with Jennifer Hudson in 2015.
Through it all, the Beaus offered respite during the ups and downs of his career.
“The Beaus are a staple in my life,” he said. “We’re there for each other, more than just comrades on the stage.”