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But with the encouragement of everybody else in the workshop, she did, singing "So In Love," and getting a nice hand from the audience of 80 or so. "Thank you all," she said. "By day, I am a tortured soul, but tonight....." There were Lynn DiMenna 50, and her daughter Meredith, 23, who took the workshop together because they thought it would help their relationship. "It did, too," said Lynn, who lives in Darien, Conn., and hosts a weekly cabaret interview show on a New Rochelle radio station. There was Carmen Dunn, sixty something, just divorced and so scared of singing in public, she said, that it took three years to screw up the courage to take the workshop. "Well, hello, dry mouth," she said after her number, which was greeted warmly. Most of the 15 were finishing their first workshop, but Ivan Farkas, the computer consultant, has taken it 47 times, a record that seems as safe as Joe DiMaggio’s streak. "I’m really hooked, " he said. Farkas, an upper West Sider, performed in a tuxedo covered with spangles, and a pair of sequined gloves. Sprinkled in his hair was more glitter and his number, a tonque-in-cheek bit about Paris songs, gave him a chance to ham it up. The audience ate it up. One performer, Jerry Laird, 72, of Rowayton, Conn., the ad agency owner, said that after his first rehearsal, he wanted to kill himself. But, after his song, he grinned in relief. "Thanks," he said. "I deserve that." The workshop, which includes four nights of vocal coaching, rehearsals and pianist Richard Danley as accompanist, cost $350, but Halpern, for one, is ready to sign up again. "A few more of these, " she said, "and it’s, ‘move over Madonna!’" One performer was Burns’ brother Joe Amiel, a former lawyer who now writes novels. He took the course to boost his confidence on book promotion tours. He flubbed a couple of lines of "September Song," but finished it to a warm round of applause and a few whoops of approval. He pulled at his bow tie and stepped to the edge of the stage. "I would like to thank you all," he said, "for coming to my farewell performance."
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