Stephen Hanks - Page 6

After her passionate, pulsating and highly praised Spring 2013 show The Sound of Blue, at Iridium Jazz Club, a prominent cabaret critic called Billie Williams, "An emotionally resonant vocalist . . . pithy, powerful, and sure of the terrain. She GIVES a performance." Now a year later--on May 25 at 7:30 pm--Billie Williams makes her debut at New York City's Joe's Pub in a show celebrating the release of her new original single Lonely Night in Harlem, a song inspired by life in her long-time Harlem neighborhood. Billie's concert will also feature other new original songs and she'll be supported by an amazing group of seasoned Blues and R&B professionals, including Stew Cutler: guitar; Double-Z: bass; Tony Allen: drums; Ron Thompson: keyboards; Birch Johnson: trombone; Charlie Lagond: sax; and Marty Bound: trumpet.

I'll drink what he's drinking. Because given the youthful aura and energy 75-year-old Broadway legend and nine-time Tony Award winner Tommy Tune displayed on Tuesday during the opening night of his debut run at the Cafe Carlyle (Really? After 55 successful years in the biz?), he must be knocking back martinis from the fountain of youth. In his aptly-named new show, More Taps, Tunes and Tall Tales, the 6-foot-6 entertainer (whom Fred Astaire acknowledged at their first meeting in the early 1980s by saying 'You're one tall son of a bitch') danced, sang, and, like a seasoned raconteur, regaled his audience with anecdotes about his colorful career, doing it all with the boyish charm he must have possessed when as a kid growing up in Texas he dreamed about being on Broadway.

It took Lucie Arnaz her entire professional life to get booked for a solo nightclub/cabaret show at the Cafe Carlyle. It turned out to be worth the wait-for herself and her audiences-and her weeklong run at the stylish club (that began on April 13 and ends with shows tonight at 8:45 and 10:45) would no doubt have made her famous parents--Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz--beam with pride. Lucy might have erupted into a joyful crying jag, while Desi would have kvelled in his signature rapid-fired Spanish because when it comes to her performance on a cabaret stage, Lucie Arnaz doesn't 'got some 'splaining to do.'

As a young veteran of the New York cabaret scene and someone who rests comfortably in that performer's purgatory between celebrity and what the folks at the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC) calls “Major Artist,” Marieann Meringolo certainly doesn't need validation from a Stevie-come-lately reviewer like me. But nobody bats 1.000—in baseball, life, or cabaret—and, frankly, I didn't cheer in print for her slightly pretentious 2013 show Orchestrated, which seemed to feature a band big enough to bust through the far wall of the Metropolitan Room and arrangements that were more than a tad overblown. But in 2011, I loved her annual holiday show, In The Spirit, and had heard nothing but great things about her 2012 tribute to the music of Michael Legrand, so I was willing to consider Orchestrated a mere hiccup—depending on what she came up with next. Well, next arrived on the afternoon of Saturday, April 5 afternoon with Meringolo's new show, Crazy Love, at the Metropolitan Room.

What happens when a composer and a lyricist have to write a song from a new musical (invented on the spot), in a style determined by the spin of the dreaded Genre Wheel . . . in 20 minutes? Brainfrying fun! Brave musical theater composers and lyricists David Ingber, Erin Hill, Jack Lechner, James Harvey, Kristin Bair and Rosemary Loar will step up to the songwriting plate on April 14 at 7pm at Stage 72 (The Triad).

What happens when a composer and a lyricist have to write a song from a new musical (invented on the spot), in a style determined by the spin of the dreaded Genre Wheel . . . in 20 minutes? Brain-frying fun! Brave musical theater composers and lyricists Kevin Ray, Arianna Rose, Dan Wolpow, Adam Spiegel, Andy Roninson, and Drew Fornarola will step up to the creative plate in the April 7 premiere of the exciting new songwriting competition TUNE IN TIME at Stage 72 (formerly The Triad) at 7pm. The finals will be on April 14 at 7pm.

In the late '70s, Vivian Reed captured a Tony Award nomination and won a Drama Desk Award for her work in the Broadway musical Bubbling Brown Sugar, and although Reed has delivered some critically-acclaimed work in the many years since (a Tony nomination for the 1992 musical The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club and a star turn in the revue Three Mo' Divas), during the last decade she had gone and stayed away too long, mainly to take care of her ailing mother. Last November, she dipped a toe in the New York nightclub waters, producing a one-night show at 54 Below that was highly praised and offered hints of great things to come. But this past Monday night—the first of what will ultimately be a four-show run of “An Evening With Vivian Reed” (the next three dates are April 14, May 20 and June 19)—this performing powerhouse established her return in earnest. With Reed's still expressive voice tackling musical genres ranging from R & B to Jazz to Great American Songbook standards to Gospel (even a dash of Opera), her electric and passionate show was cabaret/nightclub performing as revival meeting in more ways than one. Reed is not only reviving her singing career, she is inspiring impassioned converts at the same time.

'A man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?' once wrote the poet Robert Browning. The line is about setting goals, striving, and ambition, all of which can be commendable desires. But sometimes in the world of cabaret, the desire to achieve the next level or to raise one's personal bar can be an overreach and overly ambitious. Such was the case with two shows staged this past week by two accomplished singers-Shana Farr and Jillian Laurain--who over the past couple of years have garnered mucho kudos for their vocal prowess and solid shows. Nobody could fault these lovely ladies for pushing their performance envelopes, but in both cases they fell short of their goals.

Sometimes you can stumble into stirring, soul-enriching cabaret in the unlikeliest places. Like at an Episcopal Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, for example. On March 1 at Christ Church (Ridge Boulevard between 73rd and 74th Streets), one of New York cabaret's best and most-respected female singers Julie Reyburn, and her Musical Director Mark Janas (producer of the award-winning SALON, the open-mic held on Sunday nights at Manhattan's Etcetera, Etcetera Restaurant), resurrected Fate Is Kind, Reyburn's 2000 debut cabaret show, which earned her MAC and Bistro awards for “Best Female Debut,' and which is a magical work of cabaret art.

If you do believe in spooks, to paraphrase the character actor Burt Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, then you'd probably gather that the spirits of our dear departed greats of Broadway are likely denizens of the theaters where they achieved their greatest successes, perhaps at the Neil Simon Theatre (formerly The Alvin), for example. But if the late, great character actors of 20th century musical theater are haunting any house these days it is most definitely the intimate and quaint theater space at Urban Stages on West 30th Street. This is where veteran actor/singer Jim Brochu has just started his run (until March 30) as a magical musical medium in a nightly one-man-show-as-seance that conjures these performing poltergeists, who are assuredly more Beetlejuice than Jacob Marley.

Barb Jungr has been called the UK's finest interpreter of song, especially the songs of singer/songwriting icons Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. Jungr has also taken the New York cabaret scene by storm the last few years, having performed her celebrated Dylan tribute show, Man In the Long Black Coat (also available as a CD and called "the most significant vocal album of the 21st century thus far," by the Wall Street Journal) at the Metropolitan Room in 2011 and 2012. Now, Barb Jungr returns to the songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen with the release on March 24 of her new CD, Hard Rain (from Kristalyn Records and distributed by Absolute via Universal), which will also be available for download.

This past Tuesday evening Maude Maggart, a celebrated young veteran of the cabaret scene, started her debut run at the Cafe Carlyle (which ends tonight with shows at 8:45 pm and 10:45 pm) and her new show certainly didn't disappoint, at least not in the singing department. Throughout a 16-song set, this attractive and willowy brunette from a performing family that now spans three generations was a delightfully dreamy enchantress conveying retro-romantic songs she delivered with the ethereal mezzo soprano style of an early Disney movie heroine of pre-Little Mermaid vintage, only one more worldly wise and seductive.

On Sunday February 23 at Joe's Pub, BroadwayWorld.com celebrated the best New York cabaret performers, performances and shows during 2013 as voted on by more than 7,500 fans at the end of last year. With BroadwayWorld's lead New York cabaret columnist and reviewer Stephen Hanks as the host, many of the Award winners appeared to perform, and as you'll see in these videos they put on an amazingly entertaining show.

At the St. Luke's Theatre (until March 23), Billy Hayes relives his full range of emotions and psychological traumas in this taut, tense, and terrific re-telling of his escape from a Turkish prison, first revealed in his 1977 book Midnight Express, and then in 1978 through the Oliver Stone film version.

With just over a week to go before the star-studded BroadwayWorld Awards Show to celebrate the Best in Cabaret for 2013, reservations for this event at Joe's Pub on February 23 are going fast. Tickets for what should be an exciting night of cabaret will be $35 and $25 with a $12 food minimum or two-drink minimum per person. (Reservations are now made when tickets are purchased; it is no longer necessary to call Joe's Pub for reservations.) We recommend arriving no later than 30 minutes before show time. http://tickets.joespub.com/production/?perf=23792

Before the finale of Tuesday night's Café Carlyle show celebrating the varied compositions of Frank Wildhorn, the Grammy and Tony Award-winning composer quoted his frequent collaborator, lyricist Jack Murphy, as once offering that “Great singers are a songwriter's best friends.” Even though Murphy's thought is hardly original, no words could be more true after listening to the scintillating songstress Jane Monheit and the performing powerhouse Clint Holmes deliver 16 solid songs that but wouldn't exactly be called classic examples of what passes for the late 20th century Great American Songbook.

The star-studded list of Broadway stars and A-list cabaret performers keeps growing for the 2013 BroadwayWorld New York Cabaret Awards Show, to be staged at Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette Street near Astor Place in Manhattan) on February 23 from 6:30-8:40 pm. Added to a stellar group that includes Ann Hampton Callaway, Liz Callaway, Terri White, Jane Monheit and Jason Robert Brown, are Tony Award Winner (now also a cabaret performer) Alice Ripley (photo left), who will perform representing Sondheim Unplugged at 54 Below, which won the BWW Cabaret Award for Best Variety Show or Recurring Series. Broadway favorite Jackie Hoffman (Hairspray, Xanadu, Adams Family) will appear to perform and accept her BWW Award for Best Musical Comedy Performance for her show at 54 Below.

Lauren Fox, one of the more multifaceted and ambitious young stars of the New York cabaret scene, seems intent on redefining what is already a pretty open-ended art form. The recent run of her new duo show at Stage 72 with bass player Ritt Henn, Ghosts of Love: Songs from the Reel World of David Lynch (January 9, 18, 23, and 24) was the most recent example of Ms. Fox's unconventional approach to a 70-80 minute nightclub show and the result was operatic film noir--cabaret style.

Manhattan Musical Theatre Lab's Co-Producing Artistic Directors Frank Evans and Stephen Hanks are proud to announce that the final production of the 2013-14 season from the not-for-profit musical theater development is CURIOUS & RARE, written by Broadway, film, and TV actress and playwright Tracy Sallows (who has also appeared in previous MMTL productions). The presentation will be on Thursday, February 20 at 6:30 PM at The Snapple Theatre Center on Broadway and 50th Street. 3rd Floor, Jerry Orbach Theatre. Reservations at 212-989-6706 or MusicalMondays@aol.com. Regular Admission: $18. Students/Seniors $13.

It may be one of the greatest combinations of classical music with jazz and pop ever created by an American-born composer, and this February 12 it will be 90 years since the immortal George Gershwin first played his 'Rhapsody in Blue' for an audience. Bandleader Vince Giordano and Conductor Maurice Peress, who share a love for American music, have joined forces to honor Paul Whiteman's historic Aeolian Hall concert on the same day and the same block where Gershwin's amazing piece was introduced nine decades ago. This concert will be on Wednesday, February 12th, at The Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street, NYC, at 8:00pm for a one-time-only performance. Tickets are modestly priced ranging from $25 to $40 and will be available at www.ticketmaster.com or at The Town Hall box office.