Lina Koutrakos Singers: Merry & Blue at Don't Tell Mama

Gregory Toroian is a musical director, arranger, jazz pianist, vocalist, songwriter, and educator. He has been featured in Cabaret Scenes magazine and was the 2020 Bistro Award winner for Outstanding Collaboration with Sue Matsuki, with whom he had also won a MAC award for Best Duo Production. In addition to working with such artists as Tony Bennett, Jon Hendricks, Cab Calloway, Donna Summer, Melissa Errico, Marilyn Maye, Karen Mason, and Jane Olivor, he has appeared in almost every jazz club and cabaret (major and minor) in New York. He has toured with principal dancers from the New York City Ballet and has made numerous radio and television appearances including the Today Show and Maury Povich. His recording work includes the recent debut CD of Suzanna Ross, the debut CD of award-winning cabaret artist Sue Matsuki, for which he was arranger, producer, and pianist, and seven CDs with cabaret singer Nancy Stearns. Gregory’s vocal arrangements have been featured on a series of albums in the US and Japan, by the vocal group String of Pearls. He currently offers an array of performance workshops.

Terri Dannenberg is a New York–based vocalist and actress who brings heart, humor, and storytelling to every performance. A proud native of the city, she has appeared in regional theater productions and graced the stage at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall—twice. In NYC’s vibrant cabaret scene, Terri has performed at Don’t Tell Mama, The Laurie Beechman Theatre, Pangea, The Green Room 42, and The Triad, where audiences have come to know her for her authenticity and ease in connecting with a room. Terri recently completed a sold-out run of her acclaimed solo cabaret debut "Everything" at Don't Tell Mama. She will perform an encore of "Everything," directed by Lina Koutrakos with musical direction by Gregory Toroian, on February 20, 2026.

From her earliest memories, Brenda Liz Henry has loved music and storytelling. Over the last decade, she has performed in cabaret shows at Don’t Tell Mama, the Duplex, and Pangea, and she is currently working on her first solo show – A Boogie Down Bronx Tale. Set to debut in 2026, A Boogie Down Bronx Tale will tell the story of Brenda's musical journey, with Lina Koutrakos as director, and Gregory Toroian as musical director and arranger.

Wendy Luck, internationally recognized vocalist, flutist, composer, and multimedia artist has concertized in the United States, Italy, France, Poland, Germany, Budapest, Morocco, Portugal, Greece, Egypt, Israel, Croatia, Montenegro, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Brazil. Her array of artistic venues ranges from orchestral/chamber performances at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and Merkin Hall, to lead vocalist/flutist with the Rainbow Room Big Band in New York City, to performing her own jazz and avant-garde compositions at the Knitting Factory, Roulette, and The Kitchen, to the comedy club circuit, as comedienne with “The Outcasts,” to creating her multimedia one woman show entitled Aquatic Information. Her 7 CDs include a Brazilian jazz album recorded in Rio, and an alchemy album of smooth jazz and classical, and a meditative solo flute album recorded inside the Great Pyramid (memoir of that adventure slated for publication in 2027.) Award-winning vocalist and flutist Wendy Luck, is “adorned with talent,” says Karl Stober, of Ejazznews. “A consummate musician, her artistic skill and grace shine through whether she is singing a ballad or a bossa nova… or playing flute on a jazz tune, a choro, or a samba…” (Randy Morse, “The Best of Brazil,” KZUM.) “Sultry, sun-splashed magic!” Jonathan Widran, Rovi, I-Tunes. www.wendyluck.com

Winner of the 2025 MAC Award for Best Female Vocalist and the 2024 BroadwayWorld Cabaret Award for Best Vocalist, Susan Mack’s singing has been described as “sultry and expressive, filled with luscious low notes and layers of texture,” with a “voice as full-bodied as honey, impeccable pitch, and delicious taste in music.” Known for blending the soul of jazz with the sophistication of cabaret, she brings warmth, wit, and a storyteller’s touch to every performance. A native New Yorker with a lifelong love of music, she has won both audience and critical acclaim.

Kati Neiheisel is a two-time MAC Award-nominee: in 2025 for her show London by Night, celebrating singer/actress Julie London, directed by Lina Koutrakos with musical direction by Gregory Toroian, and in 2018 for her debut show Among the Stars, directed by Deb Berman with musical direction by Toroian. She was introduced to cabaret by Helen Baldassare and has studied with Marilyn Maye and the late musical director Barry Levitt. In NYC, Kati has performed at the Cutting Room, Don’t Tell Mama, the Duplex, 54 Below, the Green Room 42, Metropolitan Room, Pangea, Triad Theater, and Urban Stages, and in Mount Kisco, NY, at Jazz on Main. Since 2022, Kati has written a NiteLife Exchange column entitled Who Was Where, featuring articles about the history and legacy of NYC's cabaret clubs and piano bars.

Amy Rafa began her performing career in her native city, Chicago, appearing with Noble Fool Theater, American Theater Company, Chicago Dramatists, and WNEP Theater. She has spent the last 20 years in New York City engaged in talent management, producing, and shepherding people and processes at leading NYC non-profit institutions. Musical theatre degree from Ball State University. Acting MFA from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Check out more about her cabaret show with Brent Marty, The Carpenters Project, at amyrafa.com.

Jamie Salzano is an actor, dancer, singer based in New York. Salzano has appeared at The Metropolitan Room, Don’t Tell Mama, and the Duplex in New York City as well as Davenport’s in Chicago. She has also been spotted on television in Law & Order, in the film Carlito’s Way, and in a French Energizer commercial that required her to run across the Brooklyn Bridge.

A native New Yorker, Deborah Stone has been a dancer, actor and singer on the East and West Coasts, was in a Broadway musical, and was a showgirl in New York City and Dallas. She entered the world of Cabaret in 2016, and has performed in New York City at The Beach Café, Pangea, The Metropolitan Room, The Triad, Don’t Tell Mama, The Laurie Beechman Theater, and The Green Room 42, and in Kansas City at The American Jazz Museum’s Blue Room. Drawing upon her years as a folk singer/guitarist at bars, clubs, and restaurants in New York City, Deborah has added these talents to her calendar of performances. In her most recent show, String Theory, pianist Darryl Kojack, guitarist Sean Harkness and bassist Tom Hubbard joined Stone, a fine guitarist herself.

Ann Talman is an actor, singer, writer, and four-time Broadway veteran. Her cabaret, Elizabeth Taylor and The Shadow of Her Smile, won 2023 MAC and BISTRO Awards. Her short documentary Woody’s Order! based on her solo play about her lifelong dedication to her older brother Woody who lived a full life with cerebral palsy, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. AnnTalman.com

Elvira Tortora made her solo cabaret debut with her critically acclaimed, 2024 Bistro Award-winning show The Bookmaker's Daughter. A proud native of the great borough of Brooklyn, she returned to her first love, musical theatre, after a 30-year career in the fashion industry, 23 of those years at Jones New York. A new-found devotion to the study of acting and improv led to various roles in independent films, commercials, and print ads, and eventually to voice teacher Celeste Simone. After Simone encouraged Tortora to enroll in the cabaret workshops of Lina Koutrakos, she found her calling: Telling her own stories. And this lady has a story to tell!

Vocalist Leslee Warren found a new home on the cabaret stage with her debut solo show, Me Myself & Eye: Songs of a Nearsighted Girl. This piece combines her love of music and storytelling with her blurry life experiences of the world through thick glasses. This transplanted midwesterner arrived in the Big Apple in pursuit of a stage career. She landed national tours of Titanic and The King and I, many stock productions including Ragtime, Noises Off, It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues, Little shop of Horrors, Hamlet and The Sound of Music, and a leading role in a Musicals Tonight production of Cabin in the sky. As a member of Lathan's Way, a vocal quartet, she stretched her range and honed her harmonic skills, but something was still missing, her own voice, her own story. She collected her monologues and song wish list, found fabulous arranger Gregory Toroian, and created her debut solo show, Me Myself & Eye: Songs of a Nearsighted Girl. Warren is currently in the studio recording songs from this show for her debut album. LesleeWarren.com

Lina Koutrakos is an award-winning and accomplished singer/songwriter/teacher/director based in New York City. As a singer, she has been repeatedly rave reviewed from The New York Times to Billboard Magazine in both rock and roll and cabaret and has been awarded Cabaret’s most prestigious awards for “Best Female Vocalist” and “Entertainer of the Year,” repeatedly. For 3 decades, Koutrakos has been a New York City musical fixture - as both soloist and as a director and performance coach. Her directorial nods include being a 4-time winner for “Best Director” from the MAC Association and she is a lifetime Backstage Bistro Award-Winner for “Best Director,” as well. Koutrakos was on staff as a Master Teacher for years at both the Eugene O'Neill Cabaret Symposium and The Yale Cabaret Conference. She was the first Master Teacher with The St Louis Cabaret Conference and co-founded NYC’s Summer in the City yearly workshop on weekends. She has since gone on to start her own performance workshop “Performance Connection,” which umbrellas many ongoing and specialty workshops and seminars now both online and in person. The Advance Performance Workshop in NYC has produced many award-winning performers and shows over the last 2 decades. Her singing and being the founder of the Midwest Cabaret Conference in Chicago for 10 years won her the “Gold Coast” Award with the Chicago Cabaret Professionals in 2019. She spearheads a now annual advanced performance workshop on the island of Mykonos. From performance workshops with full bands to one-on-one clients across the U.S., to her own award-winning original material and one woman shows, it’s no wonder Koutrakos is referred to as a “Walking Master Class” by Billboard Magazine as both singer and director.