CABARET THEATER REVIEWS

Based on the 1994 Albert Finney film, the musical A Man of No Importance played at New York's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Lincoln Center in 2002, then earned 2003's Outer Circle Critics Award for authors Lynn Ahrens (Lyrics), Stephen Flaherty (music), and Terrance McNally (Book.) This past Sunday (fo...

Cabaret has never suffered a dearth of French female singers. In the 1970s and 1980s and well into the 90s, Jeanne Beauvais, Baronne, and Greta were among the very masters/mistresses of the art form. Yvonne Constant has completely and utterly established herself among them....

Any opportunity to catch two-time Grammy-nominated international jazz superstar and frequent favorite BroadwayWorld Cabaret Award-winner Jane Monheit bring her talents to a local venue outside of New York (and even nearby Los Angeles) is its own cause for celebration. That was certainly evidenced by...

When Cole Porter wrote, 'Anything Goes,' he could have easily been referring to New York cabaret circa the 2000-sies. One of the joys of attending and reviewing cabaret shows in the Big Apple these days is that every performing style, show theme, cultural perspective, political point of view, race, ...

Emerging as a pop diva in the 1970s, Maureen McGovern has been somewhere on the scene for decades. She still has a powerful, well-honed instrument, sufficient to perform confident acapella. However, It's difficult to tell from her new 54 Below show, Sing, My Sisters, Sing! Celebrating Women Singer/S...

When Kathryn Allyn, an opera singer now turned Great American Songbook chanteuse, took the stage at The Cutting Room last Tuesday night, she was all va-va-voom in a curve-hugging Valentine red dress. She joined her crackerjack band-musical director Frank Ponzio, bassist Tom Hubbard, and drummer Vito...

Geraldine Turner returns to the Sydney Cabaret Stage after a 10+ year hiatus with an insight into the musicals that made up her 40 years on stage in her latest show TURNER'S TURN. ....

In a two-reviews-in-one column critiquing shows from last March, my esteemed editor, Stephen Hanks quoted the poet Robert Browning: “A man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?” Hanks pointed out that Browning's famous line is about setting goals, striving, and ambition, all o...

“March is Cabaret Month” in New York gives us the opportunity to examine where we are, and, most importantly, where we have come from with this most magical of all art forms--Cabaret. So how very fortunate we are to see and hear veteran Broadway actress and cabaret performer, Karen Mason return ...

Making their 54 Below debuts together, Emily Padgett and Erin Davie crafted a cabaret show that was filled with humor and heart. Singing duets and solo numbers, the lovely ladies who played Violet and Daisy Hilton in this season's Broadway revival of Side Show at the St. James Theatre skillfully ent...

Ben Rimalower just might be heading a revival of downtown theater. Following the wild success of his popular cabaret-theater piece, Patti Issues, which ran forever (and is still going strong), he's back with his latest entry into obsessive-compulsive issues, Bad With Money, running at The Duplex Cab...

ALTAR BOYZ opened Off-Broadway at Stage 4 of Dodger Stages on March 1, 2005. The award-winning, hit musical comedy closed after 2,032 regular performances on January 10, 2010. For two very special performances at 54 Below on March 1, 2015, actors who played the now iconic fictional Christian boy ban...

Intimate evening of well chosen songs by two great singers...

“Are You Havin' Any Fun?” the formidable Barbara Cook breezily asks in song with the intimacy of an old friend. Having had her first paid (50 cents) singing job at the age of eight, Cook looks back on a lengthy career feeling lucky. It's been weeks since she's sung due to health issues laying he...

Playing her debut NYC solo show I Came From Jersey For This to a sold out house at 54 Below, Jessica Vosk took the intimate venue by storm. Dazzling audiences with her talent, energy, sincerity, and humor, she put up a perfectly crafted cabaret tribute to her journey from singing with her dad in the...

The funk soul of Motown is being modernized and reshaped by big name acts like Bruno Mars and Fitz and The Tantrums; however, no one is doing it quite like Amy Lynn & The Gunshow. Strip away the frills of a large record label, throw in a ton of sass, mix with wit and charisma, and garnish with an ex...

Vocalist Joey Arias is not what he appears to the uninitiated. This is not a drag performer executing pastiche, but rather an artist serious about music with the talent to offer a full-blooded show. Lifelong affinity for Billie Holiday first professionally surfaced in 1987's Recording Arias on Holid...

Celebrating the centennial of Frank Sinatra, Paulo Szot returns to 54 BELOW with a brand new show inspired by Antonio Carlos Jobim, the founding father of bossa nova. Unfortunately, the end product is not the enchanted evening we'd expect from the Tony Award winner....

Veteran cabaret performer Raissa Katona Bennett and Musical Director Kenneth Gartman are very good friends who for the past few years have been performing together in what might be called the cabaret equivalent of movie shorts. But with 3Decades in the Dark: Raissa and Kenneth Go to the Movies (a fi...

54 BELOW has a successful series of one-offs where a talented cast sings the music of a certain show or group. Last Saturday the popular venue hosted 54 BELOW Sings Heart. Channeling the cherished goddesses of rock with might and candor, the cast left the audience pumped and euphoric....

At 60-something-years-old, one can accurately describe Tovah Feldshuh as what plucky is when it grows up. Feldshuh's mother Lily died at 103 having lived, one gathers, like the character her daughter played in Pippin: 'Oh, it's time to start livin'/Time to take a little from this world we're given/T...

When Mark Nadler, singing the iconic Irving Berlin song and Al Jolson standard 'Let Me Sing and I'm Happy,' strolls from the back of 54 Below to his rightful place center stage (accompanied by Nick Russo on banjo), he seems, in all respects, a jaunty, debonair thespian. The song is light, unembellis...

Camille O'Sullivan is one of the world's greatest and most loved cabaret performers....

She can do it it all....

Saturday night, Alexis Cole continued a Valentine tradition at Jazz at Kitano with a different twist on By Request. Patrons were given an extensive list of songs from which to select favorites and blue file cards on which to write one or more choices. These were deposited in a small shopping bag. Af...