CABARET THEATER REVIEWS

They say you only have one shot at a first impression, but in her Feinstein's/54 Below debut, Cady Huffman started her show twice. The double-take beginning was not attributed to a mistake or a technical difficulty; to the contrary, Tony Award-winning Huffman (THE PRODUCERS) was very intentional in ...

A good drag queen is ready for anything, and with a dash of Southern charm and a whole lot of hairspray, RuPaul's Drag Race alum Ginger Minj gave a performance at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on September 25 that was as gleefully unpolished as it was raucously funny. Above all else, despite it bei...

Lynn Henderson delighted a small but enthusiastic audience at Don't Tell Mama in the final performance of her new show, T'AIN'T NOBODY'S BIZNESS IF I DO! With musical director Douglas J. Cohen, a multi-award winning songwriter (including a Drama Desk Award nomination and the Noel Coward Prize), and ...

At one point during WASTE OF SPACE, Chris Dwan began singing the lyric 'We're connected in our own sort of universe' again and again. That line came from an original track, 'All I Know,' co-written with Ross Baum. Making his New York City solo concert debut at Feinstein's/54 Below on September 6, Dw...

In preparation for her return engagement at Feinstein's/54 Below, Melissa Errico was looking for answers, but she ended up with far more questions. In fact, much of the Tony-nominated mother of three's life and career as of late seems to be cloaked in indefinable uncertainty. She recently penned an ...

Sutton Foster has an exciting week ahead. On Tuesday, she starts rehearsals for the off-Broadway production of Sweet Charity and will appear on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. On Wednesday, season 3 of Younger premieres on TVLand. But even with her busy schedule, the two-time Tony Award winner...

If this is what the end of the GOLDEN AGE OF JUSTIN VIVIAN BOND looks like, here's hoping for an extension. Before capping off a yearlong celebration of Bond's 25th anniversary of being a performer with a VIVification benefit, v's---Bond's preferred pronoun---GOLDEN AGE was a fever dream, full of...

The first annual HARVARD-YALE CANTATA at Feinstein's/54 Below, a musical competition modeled on the legendary boat race, was nothing short of electrifying. The sold-out show directed and produced by Tom Toce (Yale '78) was one of those evenings that make you grateful and happy to live in New York am...

For her soulful, imaginative rendering of jazz, pop, and R&B music, Los Angeles native and septuple MAC Award winner Natalie Douglas has earned raves for two decades from American and British critics alike. Superlatives like 'transcendent,' 'heart-stopping,' and '[the] greatest' pepper reviews both ...

In her tour de force, one-woman show REASONS TO BE UNSUCCESSFUL at the Metropolitan Room on September 2, comedian Theresa Kloos used her endearingly quirky sense of humor to bring the audience closer than we ever could have hoped for, in a night of comic showtunes, sassy pop songs, and spunky rock b...

Multi award winning Trevor Ashley, one of the busiest men in Australian musical theatre and cabaret returns to Sydney with his fabulously irreverent homage to Liza Minnelli with LIZA'S BACK (IS BROKEN)....

Arriving on stage in a tear-away USA tracksuit to wow the crowd with 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' Kevin Smith Kirkwood looked every bit the part of Whitney Houston in the return of CLASSIC WHITNEY: ALIVE! at Joe's Pub on August 31. But as everyone knows, a diva is more than just clothes (although ...

It is an actor's intent as old as time not to become boxed into a certain type of role or performative style, be it the ingenue, the sassy sidekick, or the bad boy too smolderingly handsome for his own good (not the worst problem to have, frankly). One essential key to eluding that conundrum is the ...

Summertime brings to mind nighttime fireflies, lemonade that makes your lips pucker, rocking chairs creaking on the front porch, and, like the famous Porgy and Bess tune of the same name, melodies that trickle into the night. Summertime Swing is the latest masterpiece and collaboration at its finest...

In his new solo show at Joe's Pub, John Epperson, the adored drag artist widely known as his character Lypsinka, sits at the piano dressed conservatively in a green blazer, a rarity for him--- no flashy dresses, wigs, or makeup. For this show, he's performing not as Lypsinka but as himself. But t...

On Monday August 29 actor/singer Kurtis Simmons made his solo cabaret debut at Rockwell Table and Stage to a SRO crowd of adoring fans and well-wishers. Simmons is no stranger to Los Angeles audiences, as he has appeared onstage in such popular shows as Forever Plaid and premiered his musical H...

Keala Settle has made a name for herself in the Broadway landscape due diligently portraying supporting roles, be it the bigoted Shirley in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Norma in 2013's Hands on a Hardbody (a show-stopping performance for which she earned a Tony nomination), or the affectionate bu...

When one describes a meal or a performance as 'interesting,' it's usually a euphemism for awful, or at least deeply flawed. But Rosemary Loar's STING*chronicity, the musical theater and cabaret performer's second show devoted to Sting's songbook, is genuinely interesting---and ballsy. Featuring 13 c...

When a show at the Metropolitan Room starts over thirty minutes late because the staff is frantically trying to find chairs and room for the better part of New York's cabaret community, you know you're in store for something truly special. And unless there's a chair thief on the loose in Flatiron wh...

Occasionally in cabaret, one encounters a performer with 'star power.' Other times, one sees a legitimate star in a cabaret setting---say, Patti LuPone or Ben Vereen---and knows instantly why the person is a star. But in his Feinstein's/54 Below solo debut show, Tony Danza: Standards & Stories, Tony...

'At last, at last, at long last.' These are the lyrics which ushered in the emotional climax of Broadway's Bright Star, the North Carolina-set musical which burned fast and, well, bright this past season on Broadway. So, too, did these lyrics close out the solo concert debut of the musical's inca...

The Illuminati Ball is indeed spectacular, though without divulging details I am sworn to keep secret, I cannot do justice to an experience which began on a rainy Saturday evening at 6PM on the Upper East Side---where a luxury limousine bus picked up 30 formally-attired 'candidates' for the Illumina...

'I hope you're not here to be entertained.' Norbert Leo Butz was all about managing expectations as he kicked off his week-long stint at Feinstein's/54 Below on August 5, though he had no reason to be worried. The two-time Tony Award winner (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Catch Me If You Can) has alrea...

Andy Mientus won a fictional Tony Award on television before ever actually having appeared on Broadway. However, following his concert debut with Teen Commandments at Feinstein's/54 Below on August 2, the first of a two-show engagement, it became clear that his fake Tony win may very well have been ...

In traversing her career through the songs and stories that have brought her to this point, it is clear that Jennifer Damiano's journey belies her age. Yet, through her one-woman show Jennuinely at Feinstein's/54 Below on July 29, the second of what was originally a three-performance engagement (two...