So You Think You Can Be a Cabaret Star

On a crisp Saturday morning in late February, Rachel Murdy joined a group of singers of various ages and experience levels at the 92nd Street Y and sang “Party Hat,” delivering the refrain “I’m going to put a party hat on my cat” with a playful spark.

Murdy, a seasoned 56-year-old performer and director, had brought along her 7-year-old Chihuahua, Bibi. “I’m not a cat person,” she noted. But she said she could relate to the lyric, which advocates tackling loneliness with giddy defiance.

Joe Iconis, the composter, lyricist and performer, who had been swaying enthusiastically throughout Murdy’s presentation, approved. “You’re so right on,” he said, as he would repeatedly when the participants, chosen from a pool who had submitted videos, performed. “It’s about a human being looking for a connection.”

The group had gathered for a cabaret performance workshop that aims to foster fresh talent in a classic art form that has long been pronounced dead, only to rise again and again. Each had prepared a song by Iconis, whose musicals include the Tony Award-nominated “Be More Chill” and “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical,” set to arrive in Washington, D.C., in June.

“I’ll do anything I can to help light a fire, especially in young people,” Iconis said in an interview, “to show them you can have all those things that are exciting about pop singing and also learn how to interpret the lyric, and make the performance of a song a dramatic experience.”