By Andrew Poretz. . . .

Making it to 100 years old is quite a milestone. On April 1st, chanteuse Lynne Charnay joined this exclusive club, celebrating with two sold-out nights at Don’t Tell Mama. (She also performed a “just in case” show earlier this year, perhaps having the late Betty White in mind; White died just weeks before reaching 100.)

Charnay is mostly retired from performing. With the help of her son, the Oscar-winning film producer Tony Mark, she has put on this annual birthday show for some years. This writer was at the first show, on her actual birthday.

Accompanied only by longtime musical director Rolf Barnes, and holding court on a stool by the piano, Charnay reeled off stories and songs, many with sly references to her age or the passage of time. When she occasionally flubbed a lyric or fell out of time, she playfully made fun of herself, and never let it bother her. Barnes brilliantly followed her “mishmosh” wherever she went, whether she did so intentionally or not, for which she expressed much gratitude.

Charnay opened by calling up the legendary Sidney Myer, Don’t Tell Mama’s longtime manager and booker, for a warm duet on “As Time Goes By.” Her poignant take on Jerry Herman’s “Another Candle On the Cake” displayed great humor and timing.

The star’s comedic timing was equally impeccable on Robert Bernstein’s hysterically funny, macabre “I’m Sick, But I Love It,” which has lines like “Not in a jocular but in a jugular vein.” She closed it with the line, “Demons are a girl’s best friend,” to much laughter.

Charnay was especially proud of putting together a lovely pairing of “Now She Knows” and “A Woman Knows. ”Longtime friend, singer Debbie Damp, came up for a sweet duet on “Together (Wherever We Go)” from Gypsy. “Well, we muddled through that,” Charnay quipped.

Charnay consistently scored with comedic material. “The Beast in You” from Goldilocks got quite the laugh for “Cannibals have rights, just like other people.”

There would be several more duets. The obscure “On the Streets of Perry,” a charming duet with the “Prince of Cabaret,” Steve Ross, was soon followed by a duet with by Charnay’s granddaughter, Rafaelle Fiore-Mark and her boyfriend Walker Sikkens on “You Belong to Me.” Rafaelle, a young beauty with a long mane of curly hair, is making a name for herself as an actress and cabaret singer. Sikkens is a tenor with an operatic voice. Sikkens and Charnay later performed a counterpoint duet on “(I Wonder Why) You’re Just In Love” (Irving Berlin). Later in the show, Tony Mark and Charnay did a very sweet mother-son duet on “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” (Who knew he could sing, too?)

Of all the duets, the best was with opera singer Frank Basile. Basile, a large man with a deep baritone, brings to mind a handsomer Bluto who might have wound up with Olive Oyl. Basile professed to Charnay that “every lyric is like wisdom from you.” They performed an obscure romantic song, “I Fell In Love With You in Paris.” Basile’s rich voice and attentive glance seemed to spur Charnay to up her game.

Charnay closed the show with a marvelous “One More Walk About the Garden” (Burton Lane/Alan Jay Lerner). Sung by a woman who knows how precious time is after a hundred years, it was Charnay’s most poignant song of the evening, and garnered a sustained standing ovation. A younger performer might have left the stage to return for an encore, but Charnay quipped, “I’m too old for all this.” A fine encore of a song from her final musical, Grand Tour, was the icing on the cake.With so many fans and friends turned away from the show, Charnay performed a second show on April 2nd, which was also sold out.

Happy 100th birthday, Lynne Charnay!

For more shows at Don’t Tell Mama, visit www.donttellmamanyc.com.