MET Room Celebrates 3rd Anniversary Tonight 5/11, Billy Stritch Performs

Tonight the Nightlife and Bistro Award-winning Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, celebrates its third anniversary, most suitably, with a special one-night engagement starring Billy Stritch, who opened the room on May 11 in 2006. Stritch, Liza Minnelli's music director for "Liza's at the Palace" on Broadway this season, says he has concocted a new show called "Three," in which he pulls together all manner of interesting triplets, but which he will play just once. The show is at 9:45, and is followed by a party, hosted by the club, which is included in the price of admission. For reservations call 212/206-0440 or visit www.metropolitanroom.com

Also beginning today, Monday May 11, the Metropolitan Room starts accepting applications for its second annual "MetroStar Talent Challenge." This year's jury and audience-voted, elimination-round competition for singers runs for 8 weeks, from Monday July 13 through Monday August 31. Applications will be accepted through the deadline, June 15.

A rotating roster of judges will include the cabaret and jazz entertainers Allan Harris, Baby Jane Dexter, Julie Reyburn, Eric Michael Gillett, Marni Nixon, Jay Rogers, Klea Blackhurst, Steven Lutvak and Mary Foster Conklin, as well as the media personalities Roy Sander, David Ke nney, Bill Boggs and Valerie Smaldone. Also donning a judge's robe will be last year's grand prize winner Anne Steele, who won a fully produced, prime-time engagement at the club - her show "Strings Attached" premiered in February and was reprised in March - as well as a multi-track "Live at The Metropolitan Room" recording of her show. The live recording of "Strings Attached" will be available for sale in time for the competition.

In other Metropolitan Room news, two of the club's most popular, and admittedly different, headliners - Marilyn Maye and Euan Morton - will perform in overlapping engagements over a two-week period in June. The unstoppable Maye -- in the midst of what Rex Reed calls one of "the most triumphant comebacks of the decade" - and the irrepressible Morton -- a Tony nominee for "Taboo" -- will share the same dressing room for two weeks beginning June 11, but not quite the same stage: Maye will perform in the early slots and Morton will do the late shows.

 

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