It’s full-on summer, and that only means one thing: It’s time to be in love! Whether it is with yourself, with a partner, or with life itself, there is no other feeling it like.

What better time than now to enjoy a little cabaret? For those of you who aren’t familiar with Schroeder’s Club and Cabaret, it is the only intimate New York-style cabaret venue in San Diego. Schroeder’s showcases the vocalist and accompanist in a unique and intimate setting in the cabaret/night club tradition from the 1920s through the 1960s. Schroeder’s exemplifies true cabaret, complete with inviting ambiance, professional lighting and sound, a baby grand piano and candlelit tables.

Anyway, enough about the venue, lets get down to the show.

“Lush Life,” which takes place this Friday, July 15, at 8:00 p.m., is actor/artist/songwriter Angelo D’Agostino’s debut at Schroeder’s, and he is performing alongside a close friend of his, the well-known musical director and accompanist G. Scott Lacy.

The pair met at a rehearsal years ago. Lacy recalled, “I just remember Angelo standing in back of four or five people that were gathered at the piano for the first rehearsal. I could hear this voice somewhere in the mix, and when I pinpointed where it was coming from, I literally grabbed him by the collar and made him stand directly in front of me.”

D’Agostino remembers it differently, although no less dramatically, “’No, he said, ‘You! Stand here and don’t move!’ He scared the hell out of me. I was thinking, ‘Oh great, first day of rehearsal and I’ve already pissed off the musical director!’”

Little did they know they would become close friends after that successful musical production.

After D’Agostino’s frustration with a season of disappointing auditions and “flat offers” to play non-musical roles, he turned to Lacy for support. Together they thought out the idea for “Lush Life.”

“Scott and I got together one day over vast amounts of coffee to review a selection of songs that I had collected over time – it was really like my musical wish list – songs that I desperately wanted to sing,” D’Agostino said. “Halfway through them, we both realized we had inadvertently stumbled upon a theme.”

The theme D’Agostino talks about is actually the fact that most of the songs he had selected were jazz and blues classics – numbers like Madonna’s “Sooner or Later” from Dick Tracy and classics such as “The Man That Got Away” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” among others. All the songs had been made famous by popular female stars, though most had been written by male songwriters or composers, many of them gay.

“This is the music that I wanted to sing and had never had the opportunity,” D’Agostino said. “This is the music that I remember listening to time and time again… sinking into the pining, the longing, the majesty of unrequited love. “

But don’t expect to see D’Agostino in drag, or anything.

“When we realized that all of these men had penned these sometimes tragic but amazing love songs, we decided to attack the music from the male perspective.

“Regardless of your sexuality – everyone has the capacity to love – and to lose love,” he continued. “It seemed like the perfect-balance concept to me. A way to blend a question of intent, of storytelling, and the lush melodies of some of the best music ever made, an amalgamation of all of the things that make this music so timeless.”

Schroeder’s Club and Cabaret is located at the Westin Horton Plaza, 910 Broadway Circle in downtown San Diego. For tickets, visit this article online at www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link to their Web site.