Saturday night, TAO rocked Artserve with our first annual Coffeehouse Cabaret.  From the start, it was a perfect night.  The 100+ attendees entered the auditorium, which was aglow with warm up-lighting (with HUGE thank you Andy Ianacco and Nate Epstein) and candlelight bathed each table.  The food was plentiful, the coffee hot and delicious  with as many different creamers, sweeteners and accroutrements one could hope for.  But the real stars of the night were our fabulous member performers.

Kate Gemeiner started us off with a hilarious 5 minute stand-up comedy routine (What does the dyslexic rabbi say?  Yo!)  ... Oy, she brought the whole room to our feet in a standing ovation.  What followed was a non-stop parade of talent and guts.  Dan Cousin was wonderful and taught us that juggling with daggers looks much easier than it actually is. 

Then we were treated to a wonderful parable about Mr. Angry by Amichai Heppner, an inspiring vocal mantra/drum along by Peter Fox, selected songs and guitar accompaniment by Steve Einbinder and beautiful original poetry reading by Adam Atkin.  The Pufftations (Jenae Rubin, Rose Moussa, Vicki Lichtman and yours truly) did our own irreverent version of Puff the Magic Dragon.  I will only say this...we stopped the video cameras from recording, so use your imagination!

The crowd was further wowed by the vocal talents of Caren Vivado who sang to perfection and Laura Trong whose version of "Over the Rainbow" was simply divine.  (I'm pretty sure Judy Garland was kvelling!)  Then we sat mesmerized by  The Chickadees - Laura Launer, Maria Daszkal and our own Rebbitzen Paulina, who dedicated thier beautiful love song to their husbands.  Rifka Maidan provided funny introductions and was a perfect co-MC for the evening.  Thank you Rifka.  You stepped up with little advance notice and did an amazing job!

No review of this night would be complete without giving the greatest cudos to Bob Heaton.  Not only did Bob organize the talent and create fabulous background music, he wowed us with his singing & guitar playing.  He did both solo performing (we love those Beatles' tunes) and then, with Maria Daszkal, we were treated to a lovely rendition of "Dust in the Wind". 

Two surprise additions to the line-up Imone - who wrote and read a lovely "ode to TAO" and Jaya Launer  delighted us with their unexpected talent.  We look forward to including them in the line-up next year!  The evening finished with Rabbi Marc leading the TAO Orchestra (Bob Heaton, Maria Daszkal, Paulina Labowitz, Dan Cousin, Michelle Alva & Laura Launer) in some of our favorite music leading into a beautiful Havdallah service, led of course by our dear Rabbi Marc.  

As is always the case with these events, a huge shout-out goes to the many volunteers who made this evening as fabulous as it was.  Huge thanks go to our Board of Directors, whose commitment to TAO was underlined last night with this Member Appreciation event (free for our members.)  Our President, Sandy King, along with Jacci, his beautiful wife not only underwrote most of the delectables for the night, they also both worked tirelessly on the raffle, printing and generally picking up where the need was.  Following that lead, Pam Kelner was indispensable as she ran around collecting raffle items, shuttling between Costco, the temple office and more.  We are so grateful to have such loving and dedicated lay leadership.

Sue Reisman helped with whatever needed to be done; Rhonda Hey and Janice Weintraub manned our check-in desk and welcomed guests; Richard Grove and Jon Rosen did bartending turns (thank you to all of you who donated money for wine & beer); Marsha Freedman made delicious coffee and iced tea; Nancy Mendelson set a stunning buffet and Fleur Heaton worked hard to make sure we had all the supplies we needed.  Karen Rosenfeld, Trudi DiGrazia and Kathy Leonard were hugely successful selling raffle tickets and, at the end of the night, we raised enough money to cover the cost of the event thanks to their efforts and the generosity of our members and their guests.

There were so many more volunteers who helped and we are most grateful: Andrew Iannaco  for lighting, Adam & Gina Balsamo for their Sound Engineering, Peter Fox, Angela Gershenwald, Richard Grove and TAO Board Member Robert Zveibil.  And if I've left your name out, I apologize, but please know that all of your efforts were appreciated and played a role in making this event a success.  

All in all, it was a night to remember and talk about.  Look for it next year.  This event is definitely a keeper!!

With great love to each of you,

Anne Goldberg
Committee Chair, 
Member of the Board

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