This Cabaret version of Kevin Davis’s One in a Million is much tighter and thought provoking than the one done in Harlem in 2024. Reduced to 6 actors and Davis’s Jazz Catz Band, the show was much more focused and better at story telling. Davis also made the book much more aware of the country’s unacceptable moves against diversity and the increasing intolerance against anyone identified as “different”. Davis’s extraordinary musical skills are always a treat.

What the audience missed in this festival setting was a live band accompanying the singing of the onstage characters. One can only imagine the what the opportunity to hear all of Davis’s score played live, both for how much it might have helped the actors and to let the audience capture the beauty of Davis’s score, would have enhanced the audience experience.

The cast for this show appears to have been selected more for acting skills than vocal ability. Raquel Sciacca’s “Little Red Riding Hood” seemed to own the character in ways I don’t recall her doing in 2024. J. Singh’s Gupta and Karen Vigo owned the stage as the feuding married couple. The balance of cast was engaging in every scene they performed.

But the show did suffer from the lack of amplification for the performers in this festival setting. The inability to amplify and modify voices with sophisticated sound engineering showed that only Rayvon Johnson had the type of voice that would be welcomed into an extended run. The rest of the cast had quality church choir voices, but not the strength to fully own a song and make the audience long for more.

Doing One in a Million as a Cabaret, rather than a full production allows Davis to explore haw well various scenes work and how new additions help or hurt the narrative. The disadvantage is that it necessarily leaves what the audience sees as a somewhat disjointed group of skits rather than a whole that hurls toward a powerful conclusion. It is an excellent exercise for an author working to make their show better.