Mary Foster Conklin, Amy Engelhardt and John DiPinto return to the Duplex to MAKE THEIR Mary Foster Conklin, Amy Engelhardt and John DiPinto return to the Duplex to MAKE THEIR OWN FUN - and yours. The “ladies” are sprung from different parts of New Jersey’s underbelly. Together with the "gentleman," this trio of natural storytellers invite you to join them for a drink, a laugh, and celebration of song.  

Conklin, winner of MAC’s Award for Best Jazz Vocalist, has a true talent for uncovering the lesser known treasures of the Great American Songbook. “Scratch her witty tough-girl-from Jersey patter,” wrote The Washington Post, “and you’ll find a sensitive artist (but not frail) with a wide-ranging boldly colored voice and an open ear for off-beat material.” Her CD, Blues For Breakfast is a tribute to composer Matt Dennis, best known for his hits, “Angel Eyes” and “Violets for your Furs.” The award-winning recording was hailed as ”delightfully dramatic” (Jazz Times) and “a work of art and heart” (powerlineblog.com). Conklin’s latest project, Life is a Bitch - a tribute to Beat poet Fran Landesman, ("Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" and "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men") has been praised by the New York Times as "full of salt and vinegar -- with the intensity and tough humor of someone who might have lived on the bohemian fringe in the late ’40s and ’50s, when the word ‘hip’ meant something." Conklin has performed in clubs throughout the United States and Canada, and can also be seen from time to time singing off various fire escapes as The Lady in the Red Dress with the Renegade Cabaret. 

Engelhardt spent 14 years in a lot of rental cars as the sole female writer/arranger and vocalist in Grammy-nominated, genre-busting vocal "band without instruments" The Bobs. She's shared the stage and/or studio with a wide variety of artists from Barbra Streisand to Neil Young, Harry Shearer, "Weird" Al Yankovic and Roseanne Barr, and sang on many soundtracks, including Jurassic World and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. But Amy's first love was the theater, and her cheeky rock score for BASTARD JONES (developed with a NAMT grant, workshopped last fall and headed for production in 2016) was a Top 10 Finalist for the Richard Rodgers Award, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Conference and the Alec Baldwin Fellowship (the strangest trifecta ever). Amy received MAC’s Dottie Burman Award for Songwriting in 2011 and is the creator and Artistic Producer of TUNE IN TIME, NYC's Olympics of Musical Theatre,” running monthly at the York. And her true passions include garlic, Murray's cheese and the NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle.

John DiPinto was musical director for I'm Getting My Act Together And Taking it On The Road as part of the York Theatre’s' MUFTI series. and musical director, arranger and orchestrator for the NYMF musicalTrav’lin, featuring the songs of composer J.C. Johnson. Broadway musician credits include: Footloose, [title of show], and Victor/Victoria.  Off-Broadway: A Christmas Memory, Disaster! The Musical, Langston in Harlem, Nor‘mal, Streakin'!, Summer Of '42, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin. As an actor/singer John has appeared in Oil City Symphony, Pump Boys And Dinettes, Smoke On The Mountain, and A Day In Hollywood/A Night In The Ukraine.  He and Mary Foster Conklin have appeared regularly in the Renegade Cabaret in its numerous spiffy venues: a lantern-lit balcony near the Highline, a fire escape on 14th Street, and a willow tree in the East Village.  John is currently an Adjunct Professor at New Jersey City University, and works as a musical director for NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program. He has composed original music for the University of Pennsylvania’s Mask & Wig shows and the children’s show KId Power And The Planet Protectors.