Dixie Carter, accompanied by pianist/arranger/songwriter John Wallowitch, invaded the beach last weekend for a benefit concert and scored not one but two standing ovations. What a show!

In town to help raise money for the Henlopen Theatre Project (HTP), Ms. Carter, accompanied by her actor/ husband, Hal Holbrooke, brought along her cabaret act from New York’s famed Carlyle Hotel and simply brought down the house.

A quintessential cabaret performer and song stylist, Dixie Carter uses equal measures of a well-trained voice, dynamic personality and impeccable dramatic skills - not to mention physical agility that would be the envy of a twenty year old, to wow the audience. Her first set of the evening featured some hilarious special material written by Wallowitch and performed firmly tongue in cheek by the songstress. Her rendition of "I’m 27" - which skewered most of Hollywood and its fixation on youth - was unforgettable.

Savoring the lyrics of some of this country’s finest songwriters, paying special attention to some seldom- heard song verses, Dixie Carter had her way with a handful of beloved standards. Her double-entendre laden staging of "I love a Piano" proved her to be as athletic as she is, well, very frankly, sexy as hell. It was a remarkable melding of feminine wiles and theatrical bravura! For the second half of the show, Ms. Carter joined accompanist Wallowitch with a sultry set of ballads, most notably a Gershwin medley and a hot arrangement of the tunes "Fire", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and finally, "Try to Remember (when love was an ember about to billow...)". It was sensational.

In the tradition of Marlene Dietrich, and latter day stylists like Karen Akers and Barbara Cook, Dixie Carter knows just what to do on a stage with a few potted plants and a great big concert grand. In fact, I think she’s the most exciting of them all. The sold-out crowd of local luminaries, theatre-lovers and other folks hoping to make the Henlopen Theatre Project a reality certainly seemed to agree.

People who know Ms. Carter only from her marvelous television turn as Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women should check out her cabaret CD’s and enjoy Dixie Carter’s other career for themselves. In fact, if Henlopen Theatre Project becomes a reality for the summer of 1999, another concert event such as this one is planned along with the potential of a two-show equity theatre season. It’s a dazzling possibility.