CABARET THEATER REVIEWS

Devin Bing's show last Thursday night (the fourth of five dates at the Metropolitan Room over this spring and summer, with the next one on August 15) may have been performed in a cabaret club, but it was more a contemporary jazz/pop concert than it was a 'cabaret show.' The story theme on this occas...

About halfway through Jim Brochu's Saturday, June 29 performance at the Metropolitan Room of his new show Character Man, I realized I was witnessing what was probably the best cabaret show I'd seen this year, and perhaps was one of the best in my almost three years of reviewing cabaret. By the time ...

On Sunday July 7, Kritzerland presented its 35th show The British Invasion, music from UK musicals of the 60s and 70s, at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal. I can only say to Bruce Kimmel, 'good show, ole' boy'!...

Back on April 1, when he posted his third compilation of delayed cabaret reviews from shows staged during the winter, BroadwayWorld.com's lead New York cabaret reviewer promised Number 4 would come with arrival of summer. Okay, so he missed his self-imposed deadline by a couple of weeks. but here's ...

On Tuesday, July 2, Bryan Batt appeared at Rockwell on Vermont in Hollywood in Batt on a Hot Tin Roof. The show may have had nothing to do with Tennessee Williams, as Batt pointed out at the top, but boy oh boy did he SIZZLE....

On Sunday June 30 I went to Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal to see Polly Seale do her one woman show, Cougar Mama!, The Sensual Evolution Revolution. Before I get to Ms. Seale, I would like to say that I 'discovered' a new appetizer (or side) to their tasty hamburgers, and that treat is the grill...

Only two nights removed from the last of my three solo debut shows at the Metropolitan Room celebrating the Don McLean Songbook, I was already experiencing the post-performance depression I'd heard tell about from cabaret veterans. I needed someone to lift me up where I belonged, so my instincts too...

Jazz pianist, Dave Brubeck, put together a quartet that played during the 1950s and 60s and that put out the first platinum selling jazz album, with the title Time Out. It contained the track, Take Five, which became the top selling instrumental piece of all time. Take Five - The Dave Brubeck Story ...

Gettysburg Community Theatre's contribution to the Fringe Festival is classic cabaret...

On June 19, the attraction in Cabaret Jazz was Jim Caruso's Cast Party, with Billy Stritch on the piano. It is not only a fun way to pass a few hours, but it is the perfect showcase for all the first-rate talent in Las Vegas....

Megan Hilty took the stage at the ZACH's Topfer Theatre in Austin on Tuesday, June 18th in the first of many one night only concerts featuring Broadway stars, and the blonde bombshell kicked off the series with a smash....

Rachel Rai, Claire McEvoy, Brady Lloyd, and David Salter are the four singers for this performance, and they all know how to deliver comedy, many of the songs finding the laughs in highly inappropriate lifestyles and relationships....

It was certainly a wonderful time at Port Washington's Landmark On Main Street as Broadway vet and television star Megan Hilty took the stage. The hour long set consisted of songs from the Seattle native's career, some she just felt like singing, and, most importantly, from her wonderful album It Ha...

Annie Siegmann is performing her latest cabaret performance at the very intimate venue, La Boheme, which ideally suits the even greater intimacy of her production. Siegmann has not touched alcohol for just over six months now, and so this is a very personal, revealing, and often dark tale of her str...

Becky Blake, who had the great Clemens Leske as one of her piano teachers, began her career, she told us, as a pianist at Adelaide's Hilton Hotel. She is now the pianist and singer with the very popular show band, Chunky Custard, as well as working in solo shows and small groups....

Adelaide cabaret stalwart, Libby O'Donovan, takes a very different tack for her latest production, Songs Only a Mother Could Love, a collection of songs that she, and others, learned from their mothers as children. O'Donovan is one of the most highly skilled and much loved of Adelaide's cabaret comm...

The modern African-American cabaret quartet presents a set of classic jazz standards...

Harriet Allcroft came to the attention of Adelaide audiences when she appeared in a show case performance following one of the Adelaide Cabaret Summer Schools. She extended this short performance into a full length cabaret show which she titled Barely Legal. she is back with a new show based on her...

Barb Jungr made a very welcome return to the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, her last visit having been in 2006, when she presented her unique interpretations of the songs of Bob Dillon. Together with her musical director, accompanist, and co-writer, Simon Wallace, her performance consisted of a combinat...

About a third of the way into Tony Award-winner Faith Prince's new show at 54 Below last Wednesday night (the second of a five-show run over six days), it hit me that I could be watching a potential future cabaret legend in action. You know, in the Barbara Cook, Marilyn Maye, Andrea Marcovicci, Ann ...

As Patsy would say, God bless Heather J. Beck. 'That girl can sing!' The songstress renders an uncanny vocal portrait of the country music legend up on the Broadway Palm stage in the early summer revue 'A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline.' She's 'Crazy' good....

Rachel Rai and Claire McEvoy, aided and abetted by accompanist Aaron Nash at the piano, presented Tears on My Pillow: Cry Another Day, a sequel to their earlier hit show, Tears on My Pillow: Cry Harder, that was presented at the 2013 Adelaide Fringe and completely sold out....

As a big fan of cabaret shows that incorporate horn sections (as does Terese Genecco's monthly 'Little Big Band' efforts at Iridium or Carole J. Bufford's 2012 show, speakeasy., which featured Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks), I was more than a little jazzed to hear that compelling Streisand sound...

What happens when you cram together the star quality of Barbra, the riffs of Beyonce, Whitney, and Mariah, the sass of Stevie, and the deep, emotional soul of Aretha? You get Broadway star and old-school soul revivalist Shoshana Bean. A gifted powerhouse vocalist, Ms. Bean is one of those entertaine...

Four songs into Lauren Robert's show at Iridium this past Tuesday night (her third appearance at the jazz club since last August), she was already producing her usual pulsating, percussive, and passionate presentation of hard-driving blues and soulful pop when the show took a transformative turn and...