The only thing song stylist Geri Featherby enjoys more than performing her cabaret act is rehearsing it. “It is a gift from God,” she says, “Period. I love getting older because it enables me to appreciate the gift more and more every day of my life. Aging is a beautiful thing.” Only someone who is permanently young at heart can call aging beautiful and mean it, and Geri fits the bill. She will share her eternal youth with Scranton area audiences on October 7 at 8 p.m., in her benefit cabaret performance for The Northeast Theatre, 88 Keys 12 Stories Long. She intends to make you laugh.

She takes delight in this, that her audiences will laugh — laugh while she sings, between songs, on the way home — and will look at music differently, perhaps, than they have done before. Geri’s performance style is gracious, lighthearted, and fun — no self-serious musician here. She is a lifelong lover of tongue twisters, too, so for this show she has sought out a few fast-talky comedic tunes from musicals. She finds humor in her music, in the lyrics, and in life; not punch line humor, just a lilting kind of joy that makes her, and us, laugh straight from the heart.

The songs that make up Geri’s cabaret act run the gamut from jazz, to blues, to country, to fast-talking Broadway tunes, but what weaves the show together is comedy; in the lyrics, the music, and the banter in between. “No profound message will come from this show, except that the audience will leave laughing,” she says. Oh, and she wants to make sure that it is clearly understood, only her high school students who show up will get a grade. The ones who don’t show will fail the first quarter. Now that’s funny. We hope.

88 Keys 12 Stories Long is presented by The Northeast Theatre’s Spruce Street Cabaret on October 7th at 8 p.m., Performance Space at the Jermyn, 326 Spruce Street, Second Floor, in the heart of Downtown Scranton.

Benefit tickets are $25 general and $5 for students 25 and under. Tickets may be purchased at the box office Wednesday through Saturday 3:00 p.m. until curtain, by phone at 570-558-1515, or online at www.thenortheasttheatre.us