CABARET THEATER REVIEWS

With her tribute show to the music of Harold Arlen and Duke Allington, 'When Harry Met The Duke' is Rosemary Loar's creative foray back into the caressing arms of the Great American Songbook. If you consider that the contemporary cabaret scene in New York is 30 years on (since the opening of Don't T...

I don't know about other cabaret journalists, but I have to believe that a reviewer feels the biggest buzz (aside from when composing a really well-crafted show analysis) when he or she has been fortunate enough to observe a young performer's ascent into stardom. That's the way I felt last Wednesday...

When it comes to the number of award shows staged in a given season, the film, TV and recording industry no longer leave New York Cabaret in the stardust. Kicking off a 10-week period during which the Big Apple cabaret scene will now feature four award ceremonies (including the first-ever BroadwayWo...

It may be more than 50 years since the 72-year-old Donna McKechnie made her Broadway debut in 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,' but she seemed as nervous as an ingenue--in a good way--on the opening night of her new cabaret show Same Place-Another Time. Entering in a sparkly black ...

Led by Lauren Fox, a lively group of New York cabaret all-stars, staged a rousing and highly entertaining late night benefit show called 'Cabaret Rocks the Rockaways' to raise funds for the people out in the far reaches of Queens who are still suffering from the ravages of last November's Hurricane ...

This past Saturday night, I was finally able to catch Jeff Macauley's show 'It Was Me: The Lyrics of Norman Gimbel,' and found it to be one of the most charming cabaret shows-male or female-that I saw this year. Macauley doesn't possess a particularly powerful voice or a wide vocal range, but he has...

FACE THE MUSIC 2 is a great night out for a group of friends looking for a good time this festive season....

Cape Town audiences do not have many chances to see MINNIE AND JOHNSON, which is a pity. Whether you have seen them before, either alone or together, this is a show that will lift your spirits and banish your bad day or year-end blues....

On Friday November 16, renowned film, stage and TV actress/singer Janis Paige brought her acclaimed autobiographical one-woman show to Upstairs at Vitello's. Having turned 90 in September, Miss Paige is unbelievably beautiful and puts some women half her age to shame. She came onstage with assistanc...

'This feels like opening night,' Liz Callaway admitted early on the second night of her new 54 Below Show, 'Coming Around Again,' in response to the lusty audience cheering that continued throughout an eclectic 15-song set. For Callaway, a self-admitted New York Mets baseball fanatic, this show was ...

On the evening of October 27, 2012, an almost full-capacity house at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa definitely had two reasons to celebrate: first, that five-time Grammy-nominated singer/composer Michael Feinstein is back in concert in Orange County; and, second, that he's brought with him an awesome...

In her new cabaret effort, It's a Good Day: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee (running four more times through next February at the Metropolitan Room), Stacy Sullivan so adroitly articulates and emotionally inhabits the songs-and Lee's life story-through the astute arrangements and the well-crafted script...

There may have been 40 cabaret performers strutting their stuff this past week at the 23rd New York Cabaret Convention at the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center, but the true star of the three-night extravaganza (October 17-19) was the late Donald Smith, the cabaret impresario and guru to the genre's lu...

Back in the 1970s and '80s, when the National Hockey League was at its pugilistic pinnacle, the joke was, 'I went to the fights last night and a hockey game broke out.' I thought of a variation on that theme last Saturday night (October 13) during a show at Town Hall that was part of the venue's eig...

In a reprise of her highly-praised March 2012 run of her cabaret show, 'Illusions,' at the Metropolitan Room that served as a launch party for her new CD of the same name, Marissa Mulder proved again that her rise as a New York cabaret princess is no illusion....

You know that saying that 'two is better than one?' Well it couldn't have been a more enjoyably appropriate description than the swingin'-est concert to hit Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in some time: the double-bill of jazz powerhouses Jane Monheit and John Pizzarelli. The two talente...

Ken Haller's latest cabaret foray, "THE TV SHOW!" is a sheer delight, reveling in tunes that a lot of us grew up with emanating from the boob tube. It's an interesting approach, and Haller doesn't stick to just singing TV themes, but mixes in commercials, as well as tunes that were written for other...

Currently playing at the Metropolitan Room on Friday nights through September (at 9:30 pm), Two for the Road starring singer Shaynee Rainbolt and musical director/pianist Donn Trenner is a transcendent cabaret show infused with romantic nostalgia. While the pairing of Rainbolt, a critically-acclaime...

Since bursting onto the New York musical theater scene in 1995 with his short-lived, but highly-praised Off-Broadway revue Songs For a New World, and then winning a 1999 Tony Award for Best Score for another short-lived show, Parade, pundits have been consistently predicting Jason Robert Brown's mem...

In her current cabaret show at 54 Below, Marin Mazzie, who has starred in Passion, Ragtime, Kiss Me Kate, Man of La Mancha, Spamalot and Next to Normal, pays homage to her childhood and teenage years in Rockford, Illinois, to the songs her parents loved, and to some of the 1960s and 1970s hits that ...

On Sunday August 26, singer/actress Ilene Graff brought her heavenly show First You Dream to Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal to a packed house of ardent fans and celebrated LA friends....

When Lauren Robert powerfully performed her early August show at Iridium Jazz Club, her 12-song set of blues, R&B and gospel tunes included four original songs off her recently-released CD, Listen-I Mean It. But if her live show was just offering a titillating CD tease, the disc itself is a soulful...

It was a soulful force of nature that shook the music memorabilia on the walls of the Iridium on the night of August 7. From her opening number-a song from her recently released debut CD 'Listen, I Mean It'-veteran R&B singer Lauren Robert gave her musical testimony through her intense interpretatio...

During her recent two-night run at the Metropolitan Room (July 11, 12), Los Angeles-based nightclub singer and actress Robyn Spangler gingerly walked the tribute show tightrope and made it to the other side intact. Her show 'Why I Love Linda Ronstadt' - which earned her a 2011 BroadwayWorld.com hono...

During her recent show at 54 Below, Rebecca Luker's renditions of 16 Jerome Kern songs-some of which were more obscure pre-1920 ditties-were lovely and engaging. But as a complete nightclub performance, Luker's show was neither a compelling one-woman concert nor captivating cabaret....