CABARET THEATER REVIEWS

At the 32nd Bistro Awards on March 13, produced by Sherry Eaker, attendees hunkered down at Gotham Comedy Club in the hours before a blizzard hit Manhattan to honor the best in the year's cabaret, comedy and jazz performances. Of course, the prospect of a little snow wouldn't deter honorees from com...

At the 32nd Bistro Awards on March 13, produced by Sherry Eaker, attendees hunkered down at Gotham Comedy Club in the hours before a blizzard hit Manhattan to honor the best in the year's cabaret, comedy and jazz performances. Of course, the prospect of a little snow wouldn't deter honorees from com...

The award-winning playwright/drag legend/cabaret artiste Charles Busch displayed the reasons why he's such a creative force to be reckoned with as he had the Rockwell audience easily eating out of his outstretched hands in his THAT GIRL/THAT BOY cabaret show. Busch and his adoring fans most deservin...

Gloriously Sappy Evening with Alan Cumming...

Stumbling onstage, Salty Brine was divinely off-kilter as the reincarnation of Dean Martin in DEAN. MAYBE FRANK. MAYBE SAMMY. at Pangea. Newly returned from Vegas and looking worse for wear in the role, the performer was sporting bandages and a neck brace from a recent car crash, he later explai...

If Nikka Graff Lanzarone was going to make sure of one thing through her Feinstein's/54 Below debut show HERO WORSHIP on February 23, it was that her audience would leave knowing how to properly say her name. Lanzarone, a true-blue triple threat who most recently starred in the Off-Broadway produ...

They say, in life, it's all about who you know. Luckily for Don Scardino and his audiences at his two shows at Feinstein's/54 Below on February 18, he has friends in very high places. The show, DON SCARDINO WITH JOHN MILLER: NOTHING TO HIDE, was Scardino's first at the cabaret venue, and the seas...

There was a segment in Brandon Uranowitz' debut show at Feinstein's/54 Below on February 8 which culminated in his explanation as to how he remained in the closet to his family for four additional years, following an instance where he had a clear opportunity to come out. The bit was a confluence of ...

Isaac Mizrahi has a simple question to ask: Does this song make me look fat? Any variation of that prompt is normally a strong cue to walk on eggshells, but making his Cafe Carlyle debut on January 31 with a show named for and based on that query, Mizrahi took a no-holds-barred approach to the hu...

"Millennial" as a descriptor is used with far too much frequency and carries with it connotations that are both unnecessary and inaccurate. However, at the first of a sold-out four-show run at Joe's Pub on January 31, John Early and Kate Berlant were undeniably of their generation....

A little country twang and some sweet pies are all this short musical comedy needs to charm to a little ol' Pittsburgh crowd. Pump Boys & Dinettes, as the title implies, follows the service guys of L.M. and Jim's Gas Stations and the waitress sisters at the Double Cupp Diner....

Nellie McKay's return to Feinstein's/54 Below went up in smoke. No, literally....

Seen most recently in his unforgettable turn as Billy Bigelow in Arena Stage's CAROUSEL, Nicholas Rodriguez graces Signature Theatre with his own cabaret. Those in the DC area who have delighted in Rodriguez's take on traditional musical roles now get the chance to hear him croon, emote, and belt a ...

Jill Kargman is a pleasant singer. Her voice is lovely, in fact, but that is not why audiences joined her inside the legendary Cafe Carlyle for a string of sold-out performances which began on January 17. No, patrons made their way to the Upper East Side venue on this damp winter evening to hear ...

On January 24, Will Friedwald, producer, feature writer for The Wall Street Journal, author of nine books on popular music, countless articles, and liner notes, moved his nostalgic CLIP JOINT series to Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street Y. For the uninitiated, CLIP JOINT offers curated video clips---ma...

Outside of an arena, few performers can earn a minutes-long ovation without even opening their mouths. But the inimitable Marilyn Maye is certainly one of those performers....

Alex Leonard is a classy performer. His relaxed, minimalist style and adherence to vocals as written take one back to an agreeable past. Jazz riffs weave around rather than obscure melody. Lyric meaning is gracefully maintained. Aided and abetted by expert veterans Jay Leonhart on bass and Al Gafa o...

For her two-show debut engagement at Feinstein's/54 Below, the first of which took place on January 11, Tracie Thoms's set list was surprisingly short. In fact, on paper, it looked as though the concert might not even fill an entire hour. It speaks, then, to her performative nature as an equal parts...

A woman of many talents, one of Sandra Bernhard's greatest gifts has been her finely-honed ability to satirize Hollywood from the inside. Luckily, her latest residency at Joe's Pub, the year-ending SANDRA MONICA BLVD: COAST TO COAST, gave her plenty of opportunities to keep sharpening that blade....

Starting in the back of the packed Feinstein's/54 Below house with 'It's a New World' (Harold Arlen/Ira Gershwin), Molly Pope has your attention. The band has played the overture; now it is her turn, crooning in silence. As suddenly as the first number ends, you're launched into the energetic 'Go...

'Not every drag queen can belt that high.' Throwing out that quip early on in CHRISTMAS MOURNING at the Laurie Beechman Theatre during the December 15 show, Jinkx Monsoon isn't wrong. It's part of what makes the RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE star, otherwise known as Jerick Hoffer, a rare bird: a genuine tal...

Early on the morning of November 19, Donald Trump took to Twitter (as he has a tendency to do) to make the assertion that "The Theater must always be a safe and special place." On December 19, one month to the day after Trump's Broadway-fueled Twitter deluge, Liz Meriwether and Shira Milikowsky p...

Perhaps you have attended a wedding and, despite repeated refusal, you are forced by your date or young family member to get up on the dance floor. You moan and groan and detest at the cloying silliness that is boogying to some horn-heavy interpretations of Top 100 hits or a once-inescapable Whitney...

'For 47 years, the world of entertainment was blessed with a force of nature called Judy Garland,' Michael Feinstein begins, 'and for Judy, it all began at MGM.' As the artist takes his time with Arthur Schwartz/Howard Dietz's 'That's Entertainment,' screens on either side of the stage show clips fr...

In THE WORLD ACCORDING TO KURT WEILL, one of the more than 20 shows put together to form the Winter Rhythms festival benefiting arts education, old met new and timeliness met timelessness. At Urban Stages on December 6, six skilled performers were assembled to interpret several of the most well-k...