An incredible number of songs, some 60 of them, associated with Frank Sinatra are in expert hands as these delightful and accomplished performers breezily offer them interspersed with occasional expert and entertaining comment. It is a great repertoire, and although paying proper deference to the fabled star, there is no tacky effort at mere imitation. Who could possibly recapture the real voice? Coming closest to Sinatra in looks and manner is Christopher Gines, and though he manages to suggest Sinatra’s style and phrasing, he establishes the music on his own terms rather than succumb to attempts at imitation.

The personable Eric Comstock provides the spirited piano accompaniment and contributes generously to the vocals. As for Hilary Kole, she is a gem of a pop jazz vocalist—no secret in the trade—and here she absolutely shines with her assortment of interpretations of Sinatra classics. Each performer is given plenty of opportunities to solo, but they also blend nicely together as a threesome, and throughout the show they interact with a sense of fun smoothly communicated to the audience. In fact, there is admirable smoothness to the entire swift-moving show, directed by Kurt Stamm and produced by Jack Lewin, with Richard Maltby, Jr. as production supervisor. Boots Maleson is on bass.

And what a collection of songs, starting off strongly with the trio’s “Where or When.” Gines further gives a sampling of what we are in for with “Oh Look at Me Now” and Kole dazzles with “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Comstock picks up the tempo with “Too Marvelous for Words.”

There are so many highlights that one can cite. Kole provides a compelling, fascinating “I’m a Fool to Want You,” and when she tears into “World on a String,” her jazz skills are wonderfully evident with her impressively creative scat trip. Comstock also has his super moments, especially with a sad, pensive rendition of “Everything Happens to Me,” and he and Kole team nicely with “Day In, Day Out.”

There are so many songs, so little time, even at a length of an hour and twenty minutes. A solution has been to group many of the numbers in medleys, as with a tribute to the movies encompassing songs Sinatra delivered on screen. There is also a “saloon tribute,” and what Comstock described as ‘the mother of all medleys,” a huge climactic section including snatches of “I’ll Never Smile Again,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “The Best is Yet to Come,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week” and on and on.

Producers Dale Badway and Michael Alden have turned the Dopo Teatro downstairs into a cabaret venue on selected nights, and the place was jammed on the Saturday when I came to see Ripley. The audience was youthful in comparison with the audiences customarily generated by cabaret. Ripley has amassed fans of her work and her style with a big boost from the internet. Her audience sat patiently awaiting her arrival, nearly an hour after the scheduled starting time. She offered no explanation for her lateness, and didn’t indicate that she needed one. But I certainly thought she did.

Taking the stage with her guitar, she mostly sat as she delivered her songs, interspersed with throw-away comments that defined the casualness of her style and audience communication. Ripley seems to get lost in her numbers, as she reaches for different vocal effects while she accompanies herself on the guitar. Her repertoire comes across as folk with a contemporary twist—that is leaning on the old patterns of folk singing, but putting her own pop spin on the approach, one more in tune with today.

The leader’s musical group consisted of expertise by Willard Dyson on drums, Kelly Friesen on bass and Ed MacCeachen on guitar, Each got a chance to solo impressively, including Hashim, who also kept the ball rolling with amusing patter.

Without a pianist, he and Huffman joked about putting the piano on stage to the best use a piano could have. It was with Huffman hoisting herself atop it and going through a bevy of sexual movements as she poured her all into “Some of These Days.” Sophie Tucker never looked like that. Lest anyone get the idea it was all physical, Huffman did justice to the song itself, investing it with unusual sensuality. She also turned on the sexual charm with “It all Depends on You.”

But Huffman was after more. She opened with a brassy “The Best is Yet to Come” but got more melodic with “Can’t We Be Friends,” then injected some fun with “The Sunny Side of the Street.”

I particularly liked her finale, “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” invested with the sort of passion one doesn’t usually find in that number, which Huffman brought to a rousing crescendo.

Did I say yet that she is also great looking?

The instrumental side of the gig made its own impact. Hashim and company played his own composition, a moody “Stay Away.” And where do you hear a number like “Rasputin Also Got the Blues”?

Her punch-lines come so fast that one can miss some of her funny asides. Her ability to create hilarity with her gestures, expressions and total demeanor seems to have increased. She continues to be one very funny lady who can convulse a room with laugher, as was the case when I saw her July 8, 2010 performance. One can realize the intense work that went into the act and admire how she builds it, but gives the impression that it is all casually flowing in free form. That takes special know-how.

“Did you see my movie?” she asked, and the audience responded with a rousing “yes.” Then she proceeded to ridicule the making of it. I saw the film, too (see review in the Film section of “Joan Rivers—a Piece of Work”) but there is nothing like catching Rivers in person. She has built her current act around the concept of hating certain types of people, although she does plenty of digressing along the way. She announces that she hates fat people and suggests that anyone who is fat leave. She says fat people complain of not being loved. But she says that isn’t true—their butcher loves them, their baker loves them etc.

She rails against Chinese women, anorexics, ugly people, ugly children, relatives—you name it. She says gay men make better audiences than lesbians and should sit in the front with lesbians in the back. She has the nerve to say that Hitler had a point, explaining that as a child she wanted to write him that she hoped he wouldn’t come to America, but if he did, she had a cousin Sheila she would like taken care of. She makes fun of Helen Keller as having been unable to tell a story at a party. One problem she has with blind people—you never get compliments from them.

Obviously it takes people with a broad, irreverent sense of humor to appreciate Rivers at her fullest, and that was the kind of audience she drew on the night I caught her act—her kind of crowd. This is New York, after all, and Rivers knows what appeals. Her joking explanation of why gay men have an easier time feigning orgasms than women is better left communicated by her on stage.

Jacobs makes no bones about her age, possibly because she doesn’t look anywhere near having celebrated her 80th birthday. It is a good publicity hook, as demonstrated by a very upbeat NBC interview that aired and is also on line, and an article on the Huffington Post website. But she really doesn’t need the angle. She commands the stage in her own right with a winsome personality and the sincerity and feeling with which she interprets the lyrics of her well-chosen numbers. From the minute she opened with “I Feel a Song Comin’ On,” she commanded audience attention.

Now that she has proved she can do it, the challenge is to get further bookings. She is in a special situation. Unlike older singers who have had full careers and are still at it, along comes Jacobs as a new entity waiting to be discovered. It is a pity that she didn’t have a show business career early on. But then, as her scanning of her life experiences reveals, she has had an otherwise rich run, including ups and downs (she lost a lover in a plane crash), assorted careers that included hat modeling, a daughter, Linda, who affectionately sings a number with her, and her 27-year happy marriage that makes up for previous failed marriages—all talked about in the show with informative and often amusing anecdotes. And Jacobs displays a pleasing sense of humor about herself.

The trajectory of songs chosen fits her theme. Skillfully accompanied on piano by Norma Jeanne Curley, Jacobs goes back in time to saucily imitate “Wee” Bonnie Baker singing “Oh Johnny.” She recalls World War II feelings with a poignant interpretation of “Something to Remember Me By.” Likewise with “The White Cliffs of Dover.” Her rendition of “Born in a Trunk” mirrors her show business longings, recounted in her stories of auditions and almosts.

Versatility is a precious commodity for a singer. Foster has cornered the market. Her range is exciting. Her appearances in Broadway shows (“Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Shrek the Musical,” “The Drowsy Chaperone” and “Young Frankenstein”) have revealed her as an outstanding musical comedy actress. This acting ability heightens her delivery in her new stint as a cabaret artist. She also has another valuable asset—a bright, appealing personality. When you blend those qualities with the range of her vocal prowess, you have a wonderfully entertaining act at top level hard to match.

In addition to putting over such numbers as “I’m Beginning to See the Light,” “Down With Love,” “N.Y.C,” “ My Heart Was Set On You” “Being Alive,” “Anyone Can Whistle,” and “Late Late Show,” Foster can unfurl comic surprises, as when she tears into “Air Conditioner,” with its amusing notion that “All you need is an air conditioner and you’re the man for me.”

She scores another coup when she strips away her initial sedate dress to reveal a sexy purple number beneath and romps through “I Don’t Want to Show Off No More,” with behavior that signals exactly the opposite. What’s more, she pulls out two falsies and tosses them into the audience. When to you see anyone do that?

But that’s child’s play compared to what I saw her do on the night I attended. Foster has cups labeled “Ho” and “Pimp,” and she makes a to-do about extracting slips of paper with song titles at random for her to choose and sing. After some manipulation to get what she preferred to do at the moment, she launched into “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from “Dreamgirls,” sung on Broadway by Jennifer Holliday and in the film by Jennifer Hudson. Foster gave a fabulous imitation of the sort of belting associated with them, only more so, thanks to the satirical twist that she piled on in her own over-the-top style. I can only say wow, as more than anything else on the program this cemented the impression of her breadth of talent.

“Thank goodness for those who read The New York Times,” she mused, to applause from an audience who knew what she was talking about. Indeed, the couple my wife and I were sitting next to was there because of having read that influential notice. The upshot is less of a need to prove oneself in the demanding struggle for recognition on the cabaret scene, even after years of experience, exposure and affirmation of skill. Constant has done it all—from Broadway to frequent appearances on late night television in the years of the master, Johnny Carson, to appearing at City Center in an Encores! production of Sondheim’s “Follies.” But cabaret is where she gets to shine as the perennial chanteuse, and this time around there was more abandon in her performance and the impression that she didn’t have to work as much at winning over an audience. Already primed, the audience was with her from the very start.

She quickly rewarded it with Serge Gainsbourg’s “Merde a l’Amour,” an amusingly coarse French way of expressing the feeling of “to hell with love.” It was a spirited put-down of amour and the audience loved it, as I did. She continued with Jacques Brel’s “Bruxelles,” which she called the only optimistic song Brel ever wrote. Constant appeared to be having more fun than usual as she dispensed background information about her material.

She repeated some history that she used in her previous show about the uprising in Paris in 1968 and the changes wrought, as well as the journey of “Comme d’Habitude” from a French hit into Frank Sinatra’s blockbuster “My Way.” There was a touching moment of tribute to the Greek actress Melina Mercouri, who married American film director Jules Dassin, and to Dassin’s son Joe, who wrote the music to “Je Suis Grecque” (“I am Greek,”) and Constant sang it in what she envisioned as a Mercouri style. One of her tender, wistful numbers was “My Dad” (Mon Vieux),” which she sang with plenty of heart, and she sailed through an extensive repertoire of songs by an assortment of French composers, some well known to American audiences, others not.

Constant is fortunate to be working with the superb musical director and pianist Russ Kassoff. “He is only available Sundays and Mondays,” she said, “which means I can only do the show on Sundays and Mondays.” Otherwise, Kassoff is conductor for the Broadway show “Come Fly Away,” for which he leads a large, impressive orchestra. Constant kids Kassoff quite a bit, but he helps her out by joining in song on occasion, and it is clear they enjoy working together.

Super smoothness characterizes Oberlin’s program, abetted significantly by John Weber, musical director and pianist extraordinaire, and Sean Smith’s skill on bass. The show has been directed by Eric Michael Gillett. Nearly all of the selections are with both lyrics and music by Loesser, although as duly noted, he had collaboration on some numbers.

Oberlin has an added quality—her good looks and self-assured manner. She is blonde and elegant in her form-fitting black gown, decorated simply with a glittering flower shaped pin, and wearing teardrop earrings. She sets the bar for her purity of tone and interpretation at the outset with “If I Were a Bell” from “Guys and Dolls,” sung with utmost clarity and attention to detail. She liltingly sings such ballads as “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You” (music in this case by Jule Styne), “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” from “Guys and Dolls,” and “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So” from the 1947 film “Perils of Pauline.”

Although Oberlin avoids trying to pump up her performance with glossy showmanship, she demonstrates how much fun she can have with certain numbers. There is Loesser’s 1941 whimsical spoof on the practice of songwriters appropriating classics and turning them into pop numbers—“Then I Wrote the Minuet in G.” She playfully sings “Bloop, Bleep!” and “Rumble, Rumble, Rumble,” and scores entertainingly with “Hamlet,” a satirical rendering of the Bard’s play that Loesser wrote for Betty Hutton for the 1949 film “Red, Hot and Blue.”

Recalling how a switch was made for “I Believe in You” in the 1961 musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” Oberlin recounts how the leading character came to sing the song to himself while looking into a mirror instead of it being sung as originally planned with the leading lady singing to him. (I still have visions of how gleefully and egotistically Robert Morse performed the number in the show.) Oberlin adds charm to her egoistic celebration as she sings while pretending to peer into her imaginary mirror.

After dispensing a another bit of history, Oberlin sings “Traveling Light,” a song cut from “Guys and Dolls,” and “Wanting to be Wanted,” cut from “Most Happy Fella.”

She also does something unusual for her encore. Reaching once again into the fertile “Guys and Dolls,” Oberlin returns after extensive applause to sing “More I Cannot Wish You” without amplification. The utter clarity invites speculation as to how effective she could be singing even more numbers with her natural, un-miked voice.

Two runners-up were also chosen, with their awards being spots in the Mabel Mercer Cabaret Convention to be held next fall. Second place went to an 18-year-old newcomer to the cabaret scene, Nicolas King. Third place went to already notable cabaret performer Sidney Myer.

Sheehan was impressive with her selections, “Mad About the Boy” and “Here and Now.” She did one without a mike, thus demonstrating her appealing voice in its natural state. The attractive, dark-haired singer exhibited an effervescent style that connected well with her audience and was skillful in use of body language to indicate how comfortable she was with her outpouring of enthusiasm. Sheehan was a bit excessive with some of such abandonment, but her genuineness hit a mark with the judges as well as the audience

As a young man, King is far from the Coward era and his singing of “A Room With a View” was in a pop style at odds with the wistfulness one associates with Coward. But his “You Were There” was more attuned and pensive. One thing is clear. King has a strong voice, a striking personality and bids to have a rising career.

Sidney Myer is in a class by himself. He has great comic timing with lyrics and can charm with a whimsical attitude that brings hilarity to his interpretations. His “Men About Town,” was a gem of wry sophistication, and his “The Bar on the Piccolo Marina” was a superbly amusing rendition of a well-known Coward piece about a woman who kicks up her heels after her husband dies.

Other highpoints included Lumiri Tubo giving her modern but nonetheless respectful interpretation of “You Were There.” (A number of those performing duplicated songs; there were no restrictions on what they could choose.) Tubo also gave an entertainingly rousing take on “Why Do the Wrong People Travel?” A strong emotional impact came with Kevin Dozier reaching deep into his feelings to convey the beauty of the meaningful “Matelot.”

Others vying were Joyce Breach, Judy Butterfield, Anne Steele, Stearns Mathews, Sarah Rice and Carole Bufford. Donald Smith, Executive Director of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, introduced each performer.

Rodgers, with his mischievous smile and his ebullient personality, tears into his piano keyboard with gusto and pours his passion into whatever he chooses to sing. He works with a perfect team of Brian Glassman on bass, Danny Mallon on drums and Joe Ravo on Guitar, and together, they make music with plenty of bounce. Mark Waldrop has directed.

Rodgers has achieved distinction as a songwriter, as well as for performing in person and as a recording artist. He led into the show with his own swinging “Take Another Chance on Love,” and treated the audience to his own hit, “Home to Mendocino,” which he said he composed after being intrigued by seeing the word Mendocino. Other compositions of his that he included were “She,” as well as “One More Moment,” the lyrics for which he wrote with Lina Koutrakos, and “The Best of You in Me, which he wrote with Richard Barone.

Rodgers mixes styles, doing a spirited “Jailhouse Rock” as well as an American Songbook number he calls his favorite, “Too Marvelous for Words,” with music by Richard Whiting and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Rodgers put his own jaunty imprint on “Any Place I Hang My Hat is Home,” by Harold Arlen and Mercer, and he excelled with the classic “Birth of the Blues,” music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Buddy G. DeSylva and Lew Brown.

He can be especially great when he sings a song with which he can have plenty of fun, as evidenced by one of the evening’s highlights, “Huggin’ and Chalkin’,” with music by Clarence Leonard Hayes and lyrics by Kermit Goell. It is a rousing, funny number about a fat woman and a lover’s effort to chalk her dimensions, with someone else chalking her from around the other side. Not politically correct these days, referring to the woman as a blimp, but still an affectionate look at a lady the singer adores even while having fun at her expense. The number is a definite audience pleaser and Rodgers made the most of it.