Frank Olivier’s “Twisted Cabaret”
Frank Olivier’s Twisted Cabaret is a one-man show with a cast of a dozen characters, each more talented and demented than the last. Frank has performed around the globe, bringing his world class comedy juggling act to literally millions of people. In this show, Frank delivers more than just amazing juggling and comedy. Each night Frank takes on a dozen different roles performing a dozen different acts as well as singing and dancing his way into your heart.
Frank’s Humble Beginnings
Frank started training for his current career at the age of 11 years old. “Before that, I was lost. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life.” By 13 he was performing in a local circus and had a regular spot on San Francisco TV.
After high school, and flunking out of Ringling Brothers ‘Clown College’, he took to the streets. Entertaining tourists for tips in San Francisco during the days, in the evenings he could be found hanging around the local comedy scene. He was soon a regular on many of the comedy club stages, often performing on the same bill with a young Dana Carvey, Robin Williams, or Whoopi Goldberg. Frank quickly became known as the funniest juggler on the scene but he also began collecting an eclectic array of variety skills. Magic, knife throwing, mind reading, unicycling were just a few of the performance skills he mastered.
Success!
On his first trip to New York, planned as a vacation, he borrowed a friend’s juggling props for an audition, and landed a feature spot in the Broadway hit ‘Sugar Babies’ with Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller. He toured with them for the next 3 years, winning standing ovations, rave reviews, and a nomination for a prestigious ‘Helen Hayes Award’
Since then he has appeared everywhere: ‘The Tonight Show’, N.Y.’s Lincoln Center, European tours, shows for 20,000 screaming cowboys at the Calgary Stampede, shows for royalty, comedy clubs, The ‘Casino De Monte Carlo’, comedy and theater festivals around the world. Japan, Africa, Israel, Spain.
Twisted Cabaret is born
In 1995 Frank began gathering these diverse skills together into a single show. He spent years creating routines around each skill even creating props, costumes, and individual characters. In 2001 Twisted Cabaret opened in San Francisco for a six month run. Frank was joined on stage by Paul Nathan (the lowly stagehand-turned-emcee in the show) and the Twisted Cabaret Band. At that time it was the longest running variety show in the city’s history. Since then Frank and his lowly assistant turned MC have mounted the show as far as the United Kingdom for the prestigious Glastonburry Festival where it has been repeated selected for the finale show in the Festival Theater.
While his verbal comedy is top notch, his physical humor along with the visual nature of his skills and his delight in what he is doing, transcends any language barriers, making him a delight to watch for audiences all over the world.