Alan Brandt

Lynn Henderson delighted a small but enthusiastic audience at Don't Tell Mama in the final performance of her new show, T'AIN'T NOBODY'S BIZNESS IF I DO! With musical director Douglas J. Cohen, a multi-award winning songwriter (including a Drama Desk Award nomination and the Noel Coward Prize), and bass player Bob Sabin (himself the winner of numerous jazz awards, who sits on the music faculty both at the prestigious Hunter College High School and NYU), the veteran big band, choral, and lounge singer combined material from her 2014 CD, If We Only Have Love, with classics from the Great American Songbook (George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kander and Ebb, among others). Ably directed by 10-time MAC Award winner Barry Kleinbort, the show also included more contemporary material by Billy Joel, Jerry Herman, and Randy Newman.

'Life is the art of the encounter, though there are many failed encounters in life.' Seldom has the Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes's philosophy been more fully realized than in this meeting of Roberto Menescal and Stacey Kent.

Watching Stacey Kent perform Portuguese music with her producer, writer, arranger, and saxophonist Jim Tomlinson (who also happens to be her husband), and her band has got to be the next best thing to actually being in Brazil. As she exhibited last night at Birdland for two shows, Kent gets this genre perhaps better than any other contemporary American performer. She performs with palpable sensitivity and infectious joie de viere. Translated songs or those written by Tomlinson with such collaborators as author Kazu Ishiguro and poet Antonio Ladeira are phrased with deep romanticism and offered with refreshingly unfussy brio.

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.'

70s pop icon Helen Reddy made a much anticipated return to singing with two concerts, one at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano Friday August 10 and then Saturday August 11 at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills. I covered the event on Saturday at the Canyon Club, and depsite hours of traffic congestion on the 101, the house was packed with overly enthusiastic fans and friends.

Tribute artist Peter Mac, nominated for 4 BWW Awards 2011, left his dresses in the closet November 25 and 26 to present an intimate evening of song at the Gardenia in honor of his favorite composers.Potpourri was almost the title of the show, Mac explained, because the composers as diverse as Harold Arlen and Bobby Darin, who composed the opener and title song 'As Long As I'm Singing', created tunes with a mix of styles. Very few impressionists can strip away the makeup and perform as themselves. Jim Bailey did it on occasion, and Peter Mac is following gloriously in his footsteps. Mac has a terrific vocal range, and much, much more... he's sexy and has an aura, a charismatic spirit that never lets down. Anecdote follows anecdote, and he keeps his audience on their toes as they are asked to take commemorative journeys with him. Such TV programs as Dark Shadows and everyone's fav vampire Barnabas Collins played into a couple of his songs. Remember? Those who did not live through the 60s had either collected those delightful Shadows videos like Mac himself or had found themselves entertained by the gothic soap's actors, such as David Selby or Lara Parker, at yearly conventions/festivals. If none of the preceding, you can look forward to the new film starring Johnny Depp as Collins. Mac essayed 'If I Can't Love Her' from Beauty and the Beast and really delved into this in depth love that he compared to that of Barnabas and his beloved Josette Dupres.

Full casting has been set for the upcoming national tour of On Golden Pond, co-starring the previously announced Tom Bosley and Michael Learned

Due to poor ticket sales, the national tour of Dr. Dolittle will shutter on October 2nd in Hershey, PA

Doctor Dolittle, starring Tom Hewitt as the critter-crazy doctor, will play Chicago from October 4th through 16th as part of its national tour

Doctor Dolittle will arrive in Chicago with a full menagerie of animal puppets on October 4th; it will run through October 16th

Tom Hewitt and Nancy Anderson are some of the performers who will star in the Pittsburgh CLO's touring production of Dr. Doolittle, which is now fully cast