Jason DiMatteo

The packed to capacity audience was itself a glittering sea of sequins when the COUNTESS CABARET STARRING LUANN DE LESSEPS at 54 Below took the stage on February 2, 2024. The whole evening seemed to be one big party as much as a performance!

Boundless Tuesdays, featuring Eleanor Rigby Is Waiting by award-winning author David James Parr and live music performance from singer-songwriter Hadiza Dockeray and her band, plays its final sold-out performance, presented as The Closure Experience, today, Tuesday, May 10th at 6:30pm at The Duplex Cabaret Theatre Space (61 Christopher Street).

An inside look at the inaugural Boundless Tuesdays installation series. Boundless Theater (A Stage Without Borders) is presenting the play Eleanor Rigby Is Waiting by award-winning author David James Parr and live music performance from singer-songwriter Hadiza Dockeray and her band.

Get a first look at photos from the inaugural Boundless Tuesdays installation series from Boundless Theater (A Stage Without Borders), featuring David James Parr’s play Eleanor Rigby Is Waiting and live music performance from singer-songwriter Hadiza Dockeray and her band.

The Tony Award-nominated actress has been keeping a secret, but after last night, the secret is out: Carmen Cusack is a spectacular songwriter, and this week she is singing her songs at 54 Below.

The Apollo Theater announced today that it will screen the iconic MGM film Shaft (1971), as part of the Apollo Film series, on Saturday February 29th at 8:00 p.m. The screening will be accompanied by a live performance of Isaac Hayes' Academy Award® nominated score by Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, a sprawling band of musicians led by founder and cultural critic Greg Tate.

Harlem Stage will present the world premiere of Stranger on Earth, from OBIE-winning playwright and interdisciplinary performing artist Carl Hancock Rux. The production, which anchors Harlem Stage's The Year of James Baldwincentenary celebration and exemplifies the institution's commitment to honoring artists of color-past, present and future-imagines a chance meeting between James Baldwin and Dinah Washington, two of the era's most iconic African Americans, at a Harlem jazz lounge in 1963. Commissioned and produced by Harlem Stage, Rux draws from Baldwin's landmark essays to create a work that addresses race, identity and the future of a world that both Baldwin and Washington struggled to understand and inhabit. Rux performs Stranger on Earth with vocalist Marcelle Davies Lashley, who interprets Washington's songs, against the backdrop of an arresting video montage by Onome Ekeh.

The Public Theater begins performances for the return engagement of Bridget Everett's ROCK BOTTOM on Tuesday, January 6.

The Public Theater presents Bridget Everett's critically acclaimed ROCK BOTTOM at Joe's Pub. The show closes tonight, October 16, 2014. Created by Bridget Everett, Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Adam 'Ad-Rock' Horovitz, and Matt Ray, and directed by Scott Wittman, this shockingly funny and moving new show began performances on September 9 and was originally slated to close on October 11. ROCK BOTTOM was originally commissioned as part of the Joe's Pub 2013 New York Voices series.

Due to popular demand, The Public Theater has extended Bridget Everett's critically acclaimed ROCK BOTTOM at Joe's Pub to Thursday, October 16. Created by Bridget Everett, Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Adam 'Ad-Rock' Horovitz, and Matt Ray, and directed by Scott Wittman, this shockingly funny and moving new show began performances on September 9 and was originally slated to close on October 11. ROCK BOTTOM was originally commissioned as part of the Joe's Pub 2013 New York Voices series.

Stunning new voices. The type that make you stop, that force you to listen, then listen again. They can come from anywhere and everywhere. Young or old, that natural quality is a rare and wonderful thing. And sometimes they've just been hiding in plain sight, like Hannah Gill, whose debut EP launches a remarkable, mature talent. (released on Greene Street Music, March 4th, 2014)

By the last August, I had fallen so far behind on writing reviews of cabaret shows from the spring and early summer (I guess it's a positive when there are more performers and shows in New York than days in the week) that I decided to play catch up by combining a bunch of critiques into one big column. I hadn't planned on doing that again, but this fall there were so many shows that once again I couldn't keep up. but at least I've beaten my self-imposed deadline New Year's Eve deadline of posting these reviews of 12 shows, all staged between September-December by lovely, attractive women (okay, so one is a gender-bender) of varying talents and levels on the cabaret depth chart, from established stars to MAC and Bistro Award-winners to comeback 'kids' to interesting beginners and occasional performers who are in the game to follow their bliss. Whether their performances were rave-worthy, earning of qualified praise, or not quite up to snuff, they all deserve kudos for taking the plunge.

The Bistro Award-winning singer Grace Cosgrove premieres "Spend an Evening with Grace" in a five-show prime-time engagement at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, beginning Sunday, April 29. Directed by the legendary Marilyn Maye, "Spend an Evening with Grace" opens up a wide panorama of American classics -- from Johnny Mercer to Laura Nyro, and from Burt Bacharach back to Cole Porter. As she ranges through a number of distinct stylistic territories, Cosgrove, who is also an Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Award-winning television editor, weaves together these widely dispersed songs into a storybook of Americana.

'We found all the people who didn't see Donny and Marie tonight,' Suzanne Carrico chirps with a big smile as she surveys her Metropolitan Room audience.  In her new show, featuring material from her CD, What Christmas Time Means To Me, the MAC Award winner might be called a little bit American songbook, a little bit holiday traditional as she celebrates 'the only time of the year with a built-in soundtrack' with cleverness, sincerity and a heck of a lot of joy.

Ars Nova presented Wendy Ho in 'The Gospel According to Ho' on Friday, December 14 at 11PM at Ars Nova

The acclaimed 'Leslie Kritzer is Patti LuPone at Les Mouches' played its final performance at Joe's Pub on Saturday, January 6th