Broadway Fave Cady Huffman Performs at Feinstein's

Tonight and tomorrow night, Tony-winning tongue-in-cheek temptress Cady Huffman will slink, wink, and joke her way through a rare San Francisco engagement at Feinstein's at the Nikko.

A month ago, she had only the vaguest idea of what her show would consist of.

"Out of the blue, a few weeks back, I got a call asking if I'd come out to San Francisco," Huffman explained in a phone conversation. The statuesque actress - who had a Tony-nominated run as a showgirl in The Will Rogers Follies, and won a 2001 Tony for originating the role of Ulla in "The Producers" - hadn't done a cabaret act in a couple of years.

But she'd also never performed cabaret in San Francisco, which made the proposition irresistible.

"My career really took off in San Francisco," Huffman recalls. "It's where I made my mark as a teenage drag queen!"

The Santa Barbara-born Huffman grew up in community theater, but made her first major professional appearance at age 19. As a birdcage girl in the original San Francisco company of "La Cage Aux Folles" (A local revival will be mounted this summer by Bay Area Musicals), Huffman's job was to seamlessly blend in with the sequined showboys.

"This was back in 1984, and as much time as I had spent with gay men backstage until then, this was a whole different situation! We opened during Pride Week. Sylvester was in our opening night audience. We had a float in the parade."

"It was the first time," she remembers, rather exultantly, "That I saw someone being pulled around by their nipple rings!"

"I made tons of friends in San Francisco," Huffman said. "I think the city and the gay community really made sense to me. Because, in a lot of ways, I never really felt that my outsides really matched my insides. I always say that I'm like a naughty Italian boy in the body of a Nordic showgirl."

It's her trademark blend of sexy and funny that Huffman ultimately decided to showcase in her new cabaret act which, over weeks since she first discussed it with the Bay Area Reporter, has taken on its shape and its title: "Tom Boy, Show Girl."

Unlike one of her past solo shows, a tribute to Rogers & Hammerstein, Huffman says, "I'm not going to do any standards. I know them all, I can sing them. But that's not where I'm choosing to go. This is going to be a little subversive for the cabaret setting, not what you might expect. There will be nursery rhymes, hip-hop, and I will play the ukelele."

Huffman's repertoire will include a couple songs she performed on Broadway, but also tunes made famous by Nina Simone and Keith Urban. Not to mention "I'm a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch" (Recorded by everyone from Arthur Godfrey to Imogen Heap, that one may actually qualify as a standard.).

While Huffman says that after debuting her new act here, she'll bring it to 54 Below in Manhattan, most of her time of late has been spent on non-stage ventures.

"I'm working on an app for comedy and comedians. And I did a webseries [www.heswithme.com]. All the young Broadway performers are really using the web to build their careers. I wish we had the internet and social media back we were doing 'The Producers.' But we were busy marveling at the arrival of Tivo."

Huffman shared some of her other upcoming projects. "I've got a writing partner and we're putting together a TV pilot. I've directed four shows downtown. I did the same thing as an actress for thirty years. I'm ready to throw some spaghetti at the wall. I just want to create art and collaborate with great people."

If she had to winnow down the possibilities and choose one more art form to cap off her career with, what would Huffman opt for?

"I'd love to be a rock star. It would be great to be Roger Daltrey."

She pauses. "Or Taylor Swift."

Cady Huffman performs her cabaret show, 'Tom Boy, Show Girl,' a night of unusual songs. $50-$70. 8pm. $20 food/drink min. May 12 & 13, 8pm. Feinstein's at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.cadyhuffman.com www.ticketweb.com