This August and September 54 BELOW presents an exciting lineup of the brightest talent from Broadway and beyond. Located just below the legendary Studio 54 at 254 West 54th Street.
Broadway's 40 theatres aren't the only places to catch performances from your favorite stars! Well after Broadway orchestra's begin their overtures, ensemble members take their dance breaks, and performers belt out their eleven- o'clock numbers, the party continues at various cabaret venues throughout New York City. Below, BroadwayWorld brings you some cabaret highlights for this week, including: Under the Covers, The Lady with the Torch, Dare to Dream, A Taylor Swift Love Story, and Freestyle Love Supreme.
Coming up this week, 54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit www.54Below.com or call (646) 476-3551.
Since I attended more than 50 shows over the past eight months (a few more than once)--the large majority of which were reviewed on these web pages—I felt I had more than enough cabaret show inventory to present my second-annual “Mid-Year Cabaret Review” citing the “20 Best Cabaret Shows and Performances” for the first half of 2014. Since the eligibility period for 2014 BroadwayWorld New York Cabaret Award consideration begins with shows staged since last November (late October if it was the first of a run), I've included a few of those late 2013 shows in this group. And with the announcement of the BWW Award nominees just four months away, I've offered some projections on the Award categories for which these shows very well might receive consideration.
New York's Metropolitan Room is extending its deadline for applications for this year's 2014 "MetroStar Talent Challenge" to July 4.
54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presented Will & Anthony Nunziata in 'THE BOYS ARE BACK!' last night. After three consecutive sold out concerts this winter, Will & Anthony were asked back to the famed concert venue with an updated show just in time for summer!
When Margaret Whiting died on January 10, 2011, the news was like a dagger into the heart of the New York cabaret community. Whiting was a beloved singer for almost seven decades, who seemingly delivered every American popular song ever written, conquered almost every musical art form--from Big Band to Country to Musicals to Cabaret, from radio to the recording studio. On top of all that, Whiting worked with and mentored many New York cabaret musical directors and performers, including the late Mary Cleere Haran and K.T. Sullivan, who along with Whiting's daughter Deborah, hosted a 90th birthday Whiting tribute show on Monday night at Carnegie Hall's elegant Weill Recital Hall. Presented by The Mabel Mercer Foundation, for which Sullivan is Artistic Director, It Might As Well Be Spring! A Celebration in Song of the Life of Margaret Whiting was an almost three-hour concert featuring two All-Star teams worth of cabaret stars spanning a few generations.
Margaret Whiting was one of America's favorite and most venerated singers for more than sixty years. She delivered stellar performances on record, radio, television, and the musical comedy, concert, and cabaret stages. She received twelve Gold Records. She offered a repertoire that ranged from Jerome Kern to Leon Russell, and from Rodgers & Hart to Michel Legrand and Alan & Marilyn Bergman.
Kate Flannery joins Jane Lynch on Wednesday at 54 Below for the 'Glee' star's show at 54 Below.
"Shades of Blue" is another first-class invitation for the versatile Bufford to show her many sides. The material -- an odyssey of blues made famous by the likes of Bessie Smith, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Dinah Washington, John Legend, and The Animals -- reels from deep in its southern roots to its far-flung northern heights. Shadowing Bufford on this kaleidoscopic journey is her music director Ian Herman on piano.
The 7th Season of The Parks Concert Series, (formerly The Concerts for City Greens), a free outdoor concert series, continues on Wednesday, June 25th at 6:30 pm (Rain date: Thursday, June 26th at 6:30pm.) at Tudor City Greens, and will feature professional performers from Broadway and the New York City cabaret, jazz, classical and opera scene. All performers donate their time and talent for these concerts. The concert will be hosted by Tudor City resident, Broadway and cabaret veteran Raissa Katona Bennett.
NiCori Studios and Productions in association with the Oakeside Bloomfield Cultural Center announces a new installment of the monthly concert series, 'Music at the Mansion', on Sunday, June 22, at 3pm. Performers include Eric Yves Garcia, 4th Wall Theatre and Carole J. Bufford. The featured performer in the 'Young Musician Moment' will be Samy Cordero.
I never thought that writing a rave review would be more difficult than constructing a less than positive critique, but Carole J. Bufford, damn her, is causing me creative problems. That's because for the third time in three years I'm compelled to praise this attractive powerhouse cabaret singer to the skies (you can find my two previous essays on her unassailable talent here and here) and my author's arsenal contains only so many superlatives. With yet another outstanding performance last Thursday night at the Metropolitan Room, the young woman who was named BroadwayWorld.com's 2013 Cabaret Vocalist of the Year has snatched my mental thesaurus (not to mention my online one) and trampled all over it. She's given me the writer's block blues.
Tony Award-Winners Adriane Lenox (After Midnight, Doubt),Karen Ziemba (Bullets Over Broadway, Curtains, Contact), Randy Graff (LES MISERABLES, City of Angels) and Andy Blankenbuehler (In The Heights, Bring it On), Tony Award-nominees Liz Callaway (Miss Saigon, Baby, Cats), Sally Mayes (She Loves Me), Christiane Noll (Ragtime, Chaplin, Jekyll & Hyde), Stephen Bogardus (Irving Berlin's White Christmas), Bob Stillman (Dirty Blonde) and Annie Golden(Hair), and Elizabeth Stanley (Million Dollar Quartet, Company), Ann Harada (Cinderella, Avenue Q), Eddie Korbich(A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder), Kerry O'Malley (Irving Berlin's White Christmas), Sally Wilfert (Assassins) and Nightlife Award Winners Scott Coulter, Julie Reyburn andSteve Ross appeared in Town Hall's Broadway by the Year Series on Monday night, May 12, THE BROADWAY MUSICALS OF 1965-1989.
If you are even a semi-regular reader of this column of reviews, you know that about every three or four months, I post a compilation of observations of shows from the previous quarter of the year. This cabaret critiquing mash up happens for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I admittedly see too many cabaret shows for the amount of time I have to promptly review them (and then, of course, the usual writer's procrastination sets in). So I have to prioritize the timeliness of the reviews based on the prestige of the performer, the length of a show run, the strength (or lack thereof) of the performance, etc. The quality of the shows in these compilations—which can range from a half dozen to a dozen reviews in one shot—are usually a mixed bag of outright raves, qualified positives, and constructive pans (I'm not a fan of the word “negative” in the reviewer lexicon). With that in mind here are a collection of cabaret show reviews going back to the start of a very harsh winter.
Scott Siegel is two-for-two. The diminutive and indefatigable nightlife/cabaret impresario of such productions as Broadway By the Year and the Nightlife Awards at Town Hall, as well as regular variety shows like Broadway Unplugged and Broadway Ballyhoo, last fall decided to give the already skyrocketing cabaret career of Georgia-born southern belle Carole J. Bufford a booster shot when he became the producer, director, and co-creator of Bufford's latest effort, Body and Soul (which this Thursday night at 9:30 begins a weekly run at the Metropolitan Room). Siegel didn't waste much time finding another promising female singer to champion, producing and directing six new shows (on Wednesdays and Sundays between April 27 and May 14 at 7pm) featuring a lovely soprano who is also from the south—the south of Ireland, that is. Thirteen years ago, recently minted American citizen Maxine Linehan was just another starry-eyed singer/actress who traveled to New York City with dreams of a musical theater career. Today, if her May 4 performance at the Terminus Recording Studios is any indication, Siegel has another budding star on his performer roster.
Symphony Space's annual Spring Festival has become one of the season's most keenly awaited events. This year's installment, Sleeping Around: The Cultural Lives of New York's Hotels, may be the most provocative yet. Running from April 26 to May 21, the monthlong festival celebrates New York's landmark hotels, their occupants, and the lengendary boites that nurtured and sustained the evergreen songs and performers of cabaret. Sleeping Around also credits New York's hotels as incubators for film, classical music, and literature, with programs devoted to Andy Warhol, Virgil Thomson, and Dorothy Parker.
Last night more than a dozen musical theater and cabaret stars celebrated the remarkable musical career of Ervin Drake in a special concert to benefit The Gold Coast Arts Center and Landmark on Main Street, two non-profit cultural gems located on the North Shore of Long Island.
This April, legendary songwriter Ervin Drake will turn 95. A Long Island Music Hall of Fame Inductee, Mr. Drake has written some of the American Songbook's most beloved classics, including: 'It Was a Very Good Year,' 'I Believe,' 'Tico Tico,' 'Quando Quando Quando,' 'Perdito' and 'Good Morning, Heartache.' 2014 also marks the 50th anniversary of the Broadway production of Drake's 'What Makes Sammy Run' (starring Steve Lawrence), which featured songs 'A Room Without Windows' and 'The Friendliest Thing.' On Today, April 25 at 8 pm, Producer Sandi Durell, Musical Director Jon Weber, and Host Charles Grodin will lead a tribute to Ervin's illustrious career that will feature a star-studded cast of musical theater and cabaret stars
Margaret Whiting was one of America's favorite and most venerated singers for more than sixty years. She delivered stellar performances on record, radio, television, and the musical comedy, concert, and cabaret stages. She received twelve Gold Records. She offered a repertoire that ranged from Jerome Kern to Leon Russell, and from Rodgers & Hart to Michel Legrand and Alan & Marilyn Bergman.
Videos
