It started on the North Side of Chicago, at Lakeview High School. Frank was one year ahead of Marilyn; they married when she was 17. She went back to high school and kept their secret until she graduated. Marilyn wasn’t pregnant; instead, there was a bigger scandal: Frank Amari was Catholic. Marilyn Grossman was Jewish.
Within nine years, they had six girls: Debbie, Laurie, Andrea, Terri, Francesca and Lynn. Dad was a computer programmer for the government, and Mom worked as a cataloguer there; that was after they moved from Chicago to Battle Creek, Mich. (population less than 40,000). Francesca was 4.
Mom taught the girls Lennon Sisters-style harmony, and the Amari Sisters performed around town. When it was playtime, they invented a game called “Library.” Yes, I asked.
“One of us was the librarian and set up the books, and made check-out cards. The rest of us went to the ‘library’ to check out books,” said Francesca Amari, laughing. The tight family unit also played games like Jeopardy and Password. During summers, they could choose Wrigleyville with their grandparents, or to stay. Francesca went every year. She loved the pulse of the big city.
At school, being 5 of 6 wasn’t easy. The siblings were all well-liked; Laurie had been exceptionally popular.
“There were so many years of, ‘Aren’t you an Amari? Aren’t you so and so’s sister?’” Francesca remembered. “I got on the homecoming court, and I felt like, ‘I’m only here because I’m an Amari and not because of me.’ I just had a real awareness of being an Amari girl.”
By the time she was a junior in high school, she was desperate to be just Francesca, and applied for a co-op—a half-day at school, and a half-day in the Sears credit department. By senior year, she was rarely at school.
College was chosen due to its distance: too far enough to stay home, but not too far. She called home a lot, frequently in tears—not because she was unhappy, but because she missed them. Playing in her very own sandbox suited her well.
Music is her second love; writing was her first, maybe because it was something of her own. She wrote short stories and won contests. But she also did theater, and sang in chorus—and by college, music was it.
Hard fact: Music theory is a requirement to be a music major, so journalism and broadcasting won the college-major audition, but music was her co-star. Non-school hours involved DJing at a student radio station, talent shows and co-hosting a campus TV talk show featuring herself, a male co-host and a puppet.
A radio station from Petoskey (population <7K) called with a job. You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought. Less than 7,000 people? So off she went to the Battle Creek Enquirer as a copy editor until United Way in Grand Rapids (pop. >350K!) hired her as their communications assistant. She was the only Amari in town.
Her 1984 was much better than Orwell’s.
“It really altered the course (of my life), because I went from the United Way to Planned Parenthood, to Grand Rapids Public Libraries doing PR, marketing and communications. Who knew nonprofits would become my passion?”
An apprentice directing program at Actors’ Theatre led to Burn This and the male lead, Ray. Also a handyman, Ray worked on Francesca’s newly purchased house. They both dated other people until one of those other people broke Francesca’s heart. Ray picked up the pieces.
Meanwhile, sister Laurie and her husband hired a nanny for their kids—who then had a brain aneurysm. Francesca subbed in and was now living in the city where it happened, the city of countless songs and theater, a city ranked the largest in America, 11th in the world. New York lit up all her synapses.
Crisis over, she auditioned and did an East Coast touring show, but there was also Ray, back in Grand Rapids saying please come home. In 1995, she did, and in 1996, during a reading of The Love Letters of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, Ray got down on one knee mid-performance and proposed. The following year, they said “I do” in front of 200-plus guests.
New York taught her that she never wanted a corporate job again. She freelanced in all the fields she loved. She did event planning for the YWCA; performed with the Boogie Woogie Babies, a three-piece girl harmony group; prepped and directed audiobooks; and did theater.
She unexpectedly fell in love with cabaret in New York at a performance by Barbara Brussell. The art of cabaret turned up the spotlight inside of Francesca to full-blast. “I loved it. It was so much fun. And I realized that’s how I was as a performer,” she said. “I started investigating and taking master classes.”
In 2006, Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical took her to Florida for 12 weeks, where she realized she was happy every single day. That wasn’t happening in her marriage. They divorced on their 10th anniversary.
Dan Sajtar dated one of Francesca’s best friends in high school, and they reconnected on Facebook, no big deal. But then he rode his motorcycle from San Diego to a gig she was playing in Arizona. Big deal. Francesca’s told this magical, romantic story at a storytellers’ event; there’s a video. (Look it up. I’m short on space.) By 2010, she was living with him in San Diego, and soon she married “the last great love of my life.”
Five years ago, Francesca’s sister Debbie was moved to a 24/7 facility with debilitating multiple sclerosis. Their beloved parents had long passed, and the sisters have scheduled group Zooms to make sure all Debbie’s needs are met, as well as Debbie’s husband’s. Each Amari has their own strengths; together, they are an unstoppable force.
The premiere of her cabaret show You Make Me Laugh: A Love Song to Gilda Radner was in 2011 at the former Blame It on Midnight cabaret/restaurant on Tahquitz Canyon Way, so by the time they moved to Palm Springs, Francesca was established. In 2022, Gilda won Broadway World’s Palm Springs award for Best Streaming Concert/Cabaret, and this year, Francesca took home the Desert Theatre League’s Best Cabaret Performance—Professional award for Different Drum, The Music of Linda Ronstadt.
Her Gilda show donates a portion of the proceeds to Gilda’s Club to fight ovarian cancer, and during the pandemic, she quietly purchased and delivered lunches to the medical staff at Desert Regional Medical Center. I know only because I called while she was doing it. It took 10 questions to get her to tell me. (Someone called me Oprah once. It wasn’t meant as a compliment.)
She’s always been a girly girl, but she’s a badass girly-girl, which means you should not mistake her for someone who’d hate to break a nail or have a thought. If you follow her on Facebook, you know she’s a terrific writer who leads with kindness. If you’ve heard her sing, you know she’s a very fun and talented vocalist.
But if you’ve seen her do one of her cabaret shows? You just stood up with your fist in the air yelling to absolutely no one (but you’re really feeling it): “Francesca Amari is the queen of cabaret!” I’m right there with you.
Learn more at francescaamari.com.
