Scores of partners have left Goldman Sachs in recent years. Only one is singing and dancing about it. In public.

Stacy Polley was a star of fixed-income sales at Goldman for almost 25 years. Now she’s the star of a Manhattan cabaret show about life after the investment bank. In lyrics and patter, she airs what it’s like to lose her work identity, and be forced to find new definitions of success.

Spoiler alert: She’s coping well, judging from the moment she arrived on stage Wednesday night at the Cutting Room in a short, sparkly dress, accompanied by backup singers, declaring, “Divorced, retired, survived.”

The 55-year-old sings about golf in a way that makes clear she’s found a new outlet for her competitive streak. 

Audience members confirmed, it’s fierce. 

“Polley didn’t sing in the office, she screamed,” said Ashok Varadhan, co-head of global banking and markets. 

For now, Polley has time for golf—she’ll be playing the new Panther National course in Palm Beach Gardens next week—and a toe in Wall Street work. She’s an adviser to Blackstone and HighPost Capital and on the board of Blue Owl. 

As for adjusting to not getting her daily fix of Goldman adrenaline, she has good company to process it. Pablo Salame, now at Citadel, said he and Polley have had many meaningful talks over coffee, tea and whiskey. And Harvey Schwartz, now CEO of Carlyle Group, assured her that going back to work full-time is not weird or hard, it comes right back to you. 

“Her options are limitless,” Schwartz said. “It’s all about what she wants to do.”  

The show—with a full band, and cameos by ChatGPT—is a confessional, comedic romp with Polley belting out pop and Broadway tunes, but it slows down to meditate on one of aging’s perils: Watching her father’s Alzheimer’s advance.

It was her dad, the son of a cantor, who got her into performing, accompanying her on piano in their Queens household, driving her to singing lessons and taking pride in her starring roles in amateur productions of Grease and Gypsy. 

These days, such memories are the daughter’s alone to recount. But when her father tickles the keys of an electric keyboard, Polley sees a glimmer of recognition. So the show is for him—and to raise money for a research fund she helped establish at the Alzheimer’s Association. Polley would like to see diagnostics for brain health similar to those for the heart. 

‘Pay Royalties’
Having put aside performing when she began her career in finance, Polley returned to the stage to put on a show for her 40th birthday. She’s continued, every few years spending months to develop and write a cabaret, always reflecting on different stages of her life. 

“Taylor Swift should pay royalties to Stacy,” said Lloyd Blankfein by phone. “It’s Stacy that invented the Eras tour.”

Blankfein—who first met Polley when he was at J. Aron, and left the Goldman CEO post the year Polley exited—has attended every cabaret except the latest. 

That was because his former Goldman boss, Steve Friedman, had asked him to moderate a panel with Goldman alumni Dina Powell and Chuck Davis at a dinner for a banking group.

It just goes to show, Goldman alumni often flock together—as they’ll do Monday night at the annual retired partners’ dinner. 

They’ll also have a chance to see Polley’s act: She’ll be performing the show again on Jan. 23, with ticket sales benefiting the fund.

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.