Cabaret-by-the-Sea honors the special craft with oomph.

Carnegie Hall-seasoned cabaret artist Mark Nadler has a theory about most performers.

“When most people sing a song, they really just are impersonating their favorite performance of that song by Sinatra, Streisand or whoever,” he says from his New York City home. “But cabaret isn’t impersonating – it’s about finding your own voice, and ultimately making it a very specific reflection of whoyou are.”

Nadler arrives this week for a gig at the Carl Cherry Center with his decades-long friend Barbara Brussell, herself a cabaret singer. They met at a mutual friend’s wedding in New York in the ’80s, and now reunite for a specific mission. “Cabaret-by-the-Sea is my way of wanting to cultivate this art form here on the Monterey Peninsula,” Brussell says. “I had a vision to bring cabaret as I know it to this beautiful place.”

Her journey began when her brother took her to see cabaret legend Charles Aznavour. “He is like the French Dean Martin,” Brussell says. “I saw him in a live cabaret show and he blew me away. “

A visit to New York with her mother further sealed her fate. It was musical theater by day, and the same tunes reinterpreted in piano bars and clubs at night.

“I’ve always been a musical theater person,” says Brussell, “but it was about wanting to do the whole show myself from my point of view, instead of being a character in someone else’s play.”

She left the Monterey Peninsula, where she grew up, in 1981, and bounced from New York to Los Angeles and back.

Nadler was once called “a young Victor Borge who can also sing and dance.” The pianist echoes the sentiment. “I do sing, I do play the piano and I do tap dance. I also sometimes do very physical comedy like Borge did. So I’m delighted by the comparison because I always thought Victor was really, really funny.”

The day after the show the duo offers a master class. “I think Cabaret-by-the-Sea is a sensational idea,” Nadler says, “so that’s why I’m coming out to do this. I have quite a few cabaret friends here in New York, so once Barbara gets things established she’ll have a really great roster of talents to draw from.”

A TASTE OF NEW YORK CABARET with Barbara Brussell and Mark Nadler 7:30pm Friday, Nov. 11. $20 online atwww.brownpapertickets.com; $25 at the door.

MASTER CLASS IN CABARET with BARBARA BRUSSELL and MARK NADLER 1pm-4pm Saturday, Nov. 12. $30/participants; $20/observers at www.brownpapertickets.com. Carl Cherry Center, northwest corner of Fourth and Guadalupe, Carmel. 869-8167, www.carlcherrycenter.org.