CABARET THEATER REVIEWS

At the top of her show, SEE JANE SING!, Jane Lynch jokes that she always wanted to be the kind of TV celebrity that held an audience hostage for an hour as she dabbled in the art of cabaret. Luckily for us, deft comedienne Lynch surprises the audience by being a fantastic singer, leaving the audienc...

Observing the last show of the second cycle of her year-long presentation of Songs I Feel Like Singing--four runs of four different shows with four different musical director/accompanists (Mark Janas, Sean Harkness, Ritt Henn, and Steven Ray Watkins)--one might note that 2014 Bistro Award winner Tan...

Catherine Russell levels the playing field. With a connoisseur's passion for primarily 1930s-40s music, preternatural comprehension, and protean musical talent, this artist personifies the enduring relevance of vintage numbers with a freshness that makes the material feel immediate. Russell is never...

Mark Nadler showed just what can be done with a fine piano....

It seemed appropriate that a cabaret show titled Confessions of a Native New Yorker would begin with the quintessential “call to all dreamers” song “Let The River Run” by native New Yorker Carly Simon. Wearing an elegant black and gold brocade dress--the very personification of class--Helen ...

With new Sunday evening Jazz Party host Carole J. Bufford performing elsewhere last night, the Birdland Jazz Club recruited drummer Ray Marchica and his vocalist wife Nina Hennessy (right), who rounded up some of their talented friends for an evening of vocal and instrumental jazz, new compositions,...

Last Monday, Rockwell played host to the incredibly entertaining performers The Skivvies, the duo of Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley aptly named because they perform stripped down versions of recognizable songs in their... well, skivvies....

Liz Callaway's For the Record show last night at The Metropolitan Room was literally the live recording of songs in preparation for her upcoming autumn CD release, The Essential Liz Callaway, 'and another recording I have up my sleeve later.' Except for a pause between numbers, choices with seemingl...

In his new show at the Metropolitan Room, Give My Regards to Broadway (which opened on July 18), Jacob Storms wholeheartedly disproves the perception that a singer making their debut in the cabaret arena need a director or more than just a pianist to prove their greatness. Over at Don't Tell Mama, ...

Marcus Goldhaber wears his mantle lightly. Emulating such as Chet Baker, Hoagy Carmichael, and Fred Astaire—those artists who most often sounded nonchalant, yet polished-- the vocalist offers pared down (not simplistic) interpretations of American Songbook/jazz numbers with emotional translucence,...

Singer Scott Coulter joked that those sitting in the Terrace sections had the "view to kill" at Thursday's San Francisco Symphony concert, but truly all who attended enjoyed a "killer" evening of action-packed, sensual scores and vocals....

Watching Stacey Kent perform Portuguese music with her producer, writer, arranger, and saxophonist Jim Tomlinson (who also happens to be her husband), and her band has got to be the next best thing to actually being in Brazil. As she exhibited last night at Birdland for two shows, Kent gets this gen...

The touring company of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA performed a magnificent self-produced cabaret titled OSCAR UNMASKED, consisting of performances from Oscar winning songs and scores. In addition, audience members had the chance to bid on three items in a live auction. The cabaret raised about $10,000 ...

Near the end of his exceptional new show, Very Good Years: The Intimate Sinatra at the Metropolitan Room, Richard Malavet recalls famed radio personality William B. Williams who once said: "Frank Sinatra is the most imitated, most listened to, most recognized voice of the 20th century." Williams did...

Stuart Moulton's Austin (Texas) Cabaret Theatre (may it thrive and prosper) turned 15 in tandem with his own 50th birthday. In celebration on Wednesday night, the Theatre's Artistic Director (also a performer himself) invited alumni and hopefuls to strut their stuff on the stage of 54 Below. The res...

Having appeared on many of New York City's cabaret stages, Gregory Nalbone returns to the Metropolitan Room with The Sounds of My Heart. Directed by Lennie Watts and music direction by Kenneth Gartman, this show showcases Nalbone's baritone register and Pop-Broadway instrument and allows him to bare...

I could tell you that KT Sullivan and Jeff Harnar have done it again, but the truth is that they've done it even better. Their first foray into the Stephen Sondheim songbook last summer, Our Time, consisted of she sings, he sings--each watching the other perform then offering duets. This iteration t...

Last December, Texas treasure Holland Vavra made her 54 Below debut in Cuz We're F#cking Talented, a concert where a handful of artists showed off their skills. Last night, she made a special trip from Houston to premiere her tribute to Frank Sinatra, Holland at the Sands: My Blue Eyed Sinatra. With...

Two decades ago, cabaret was mesmerized by the sudden presence of a phenomenal male vocalist by the name of Tom Andersen, who quickly found himself not merely an overnight sensation in the clubs of New York and other major cities across the nation but throughout the globe. Part of his attraction was...

Rebekah Lowin is a pretty, personable young woman with a voice that, at its best, can be ethereal. A recent Columbia University grad, Lowin first made an impression on cabaret audiences in October 2013 with an appearance at the Cabaret Convention and a show at 54 Below. Her new offering at the Metro...

Since her cabaret debut at Eighty Eight's in 1992, Yanna Avis has played every major room in New York and has become one of the most popular international artists, with a fan base that continues to grow. With her new show at 54 Below (on June 18), Make Some Magic, Avis demonstrated why she is so un...

Recently, Migguel Anggelo returned to Joe's Pub in New York City with an encore performance of his latest concert, I, Inmigrante. Like his pervious concert, Between Dreams / Entre Sueños, the set featured music from both of Anggelo's solo albums, his electrifying energy, his brilliant vocal range, ...

On July 5, Carole J. Bufford erupted onto the stage at Birdland for her first Sunday evening as hostess of the club's weekly Jazz Party (which had been helmed most recently by Natalie Douglas and Jane Monheit). The formidable vocalist, glamorous in clingy red, was aided and abetted by a top-notch (a...

In Mr. Lucky, Jeff Macauley's urbane cabaret show featuring the songs of Henry Mancini, (which recently finished a three-show run at the Metropolitan Room) you learn that the famed composer came by his luck and success the old-fashioned way: single-minded purpose fueled by hard work and determinatio...

Monday night at the upstairs library at The Player's Club, young actor/vocalist Evan Stern collaborated with one of cabaret's treasures, the veteran pianist/arranger/vocalist Steve Ross on a show illuminating the influence of a southern upbringing on the work of iconic songwriter and Savannah, Georg...