For decades, Herb Zavidow owned State Cleaners.
Paul Newman would pop in at the Post Road East/Imperial Avenue business. He’d borrow a few bucks, for ice cream a few steps away at Baskin-Robbins.
The Westport Country Playhouse — a few steps in the other direction — was a steady customer. They brought costumes from every show before, during and after runs.
State Cleaners in 2019. It’s now Calico. (Photo/Dave Matlow for WestportNow)
Herb’s daughter Marilyn worked at State Cleaners on school vacations and holidays. She marked, bagged and ragged many of those costumes.
And dreamed of wearing them onstage.
A talented singer and dancer, Zavidow created and performed from elementary school through Greenwich High. She wrote, directed and acted in many GHS and Summer Youth Festival productions. Her friends signed her yearbook: “See you on Broadway!”
Zavidow began as a theater major at Northwestern University, then graduated with a degree in speech from Emerson College. She headed to San Francisco, for an audition with the American Conservatory Theatre.
But before that tryout, she was cast as the ingenue lead in a new musical, with a new theater company.
The plot thickened.
The company was a cult, using theater to recruit. Under a predatory leader, Zavidow was scooped up for 9 months.
Finally, she found the strength to get out. But the experience was traumatizing, and she left the theatrical world.
Marilyn Zavidow
She received a social work degree in gerontology from Boston University, then became a staff writer for a Massachusetts newspaper.
Zavidow moved on to corporations, writing semiconductor training and building strategic sales proposal teams for 3 global companies.
In 1990, she returned to Westport.
Along with a 60-hour-a-week corporate career, she began doing community theatre. She acted in Westport, New Canaan and Concord, Massachusetts.
Zavidow used her theatrical training to write one-woman shows. “Love Lessons” and “Next” were fundraisers for Bread & Roses, the home for AIDS patients in Georgetown.
She learned a lot from Ted Simons, her first musical director. They did the nursing home circuit and speciality shows. He worked on her CD of original songs, and they co-wrote the score for a children’s musical.
Simons introduced Zavidow to Manhattan voice coach John Mace. She studied with him, while he also worked with Bette Midler, Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson.
Zavidow advanced to writing and performing cabaret shows. She landed gigs at Tavern on the Green, the Russian Tea Room, Hofstra Stage, and corporate celebrations.
Her Cole Porter show was a successful fundraiser for the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum and Town Players of New Canaan. Along the way she created 3 more CDs, with Broadway and cabaret musical director Don Rebic.
Marilyn Zavidow, on stage.
Putting aside performing during and after a long period of caregiving to loved ones, Zavidow explored ancient spiritual teachings. She became a yoga teacher.
But once again, she felt an urge to create and perform. After doing stand-up workshops with Christine O’Leary at the Ridgefield Playhouse, the idea for “Karma Kabaret” was born.
Zavidow quotes Joseph Campbell: “We must let go of the life we had planned, to accept the one that is waiting for us.”
She did.
“I made my peace that there would be no Tonys, Grammys or Oscars winking at me from my étagère,” she says.
“But the creating never stops. And what you create is an expression of where you’re at in your life’s journey.
“Where I’m at now is using the art of cabaret and Broadway parody to share in an entertaining way the ideas and learnings I’m exploring to answer the big questions: What is this life all about, in this body, in this lifetime, on this earth, in this universe, in this creation of everything?”
She calls “Karma Kabaret” “kind of like Robin Williams meets Streisand meets TED Talks meets Einstein meets Buddha meets Broadway meets Zavidow. There’s even a singalong!”
‘Karma Kabaret: The Spiritual Journey and All That Jazz!’ will play to full houses tomorrow (Saturday) and July 19 in the Westport Playhouse Lucille Lortel Barn.
It’s part of their Barnstormer series. She’ll be joined by Chris Coogan on piano and John Mobilio on bass.
At this stage in her life, Zavidow says, “I just want to put some goodness out there in the world. I’m doing that with my yoga teaching at the Westport Y, and in Fairfield and Samford.
“That’s why I wrote ‘KK.’ Maybe what I’m learning on my life journey will help others on theirs.
“When people call the show soul-searching, illuminating, inspiring, thought-provoking, authentic, intelligent, insightful, poignant, witty and fun — their words! — and someone says ‘it touched my heart,’ I know I’m doing that. And that’s my statuette winking at me.”
From behind that great State Cleaners counter in the sky, Herb Zavidow may be winking too.
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