Peter Calo News

Allison Guinn (Broadway's ON THE TOWN, HAIR) will bring THE LEGACY OF DAISY SEAN, a night of old time country and storytelling, to Brooklyn's Jalopy Theatre on May 1st, 2016 at 8 p.m.

The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs presents the 30th Annual MAC Awards tonight, March 29, 2016, at 7:30pm, at BB King Blues Club & Grill on 42nd Street in New York City.

The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs has just announced the 2016 MAC Award nominees and complete list of honorees for the 30th Annual MAC Awards.

ASTEP/Artists Striving to End Poverty announces its starry Seventh Annual New York City Christmas: A Concert to Benefit ASTEP, taking place on Monday, December 14 at 7:00 PM at Joe's Pub at The Public in New York City with a special silent auction, including items from HAMILTON, FINDING NEVERLAND, and LION KING to list a few.

Eric Yves Garcia has stepped away from the piano. I repeat, stepped away from the piano. The performer strides into the center stage light, his dark eyes twinkling, his jaw defined by just the right amount of stubble. This guy could be a movie star. I was excited. For the Metropolitan Room audience, Garcia's November 5 opening night of his new show Pour Spirits was about to be a down and dirty tell-all of some of New York's bacchanalian carousers as related by the handsome, attentive piano man of Chez Josephine, Bemelmans Bar, and other NYC nightspots. Garcia remained center stage for the better part of the show, allowing his inner storyteller and actor to take the reins, punctuating his alcohol-soaked dispatches from the wrong side of midnight with songs far afield of the traditional American Songbook.

After critically lauded shows in New York, London and Paris, award-winning performer Eric Yves Garcia (Margaret Whiting Award; Bistro Award for Singing Instrumentalist) debuts his new show, 'Pour Spirits', tonight, November 5th at The Metropolitan Room.

Fourteen years since his debut at Don't Tell Mama, Marcus Simeone has evolved into a fearless singer who is able to climb inside any song and deliver it home with ease. Aside from eclectic solo work, he has also partnered with others over the years with mixed results. Currently, he has joined forces with two cabaret artists in two totally unrelated songwriter showcases running simultaneously in two different clubs. One salutes a controversial folk pioneer and the other pays homage to three Broadway icons.

After critically lauded shows in New York, London and Paris, award-winning performer Eric Yves Garcia (Margaret Whiting Award; Bistro Award for Singing Instrumentalist) debuts his new show, 'Pour Spirits', on Thursday, November 5th at The Metropolitan Room.

In October 1989, four years after he founded The Mable Mercer Foundation, cabaret publicist and promoter Donald Smith launched the first Cabaret Convention at New York's Town Hall. The now four-day event eventually moved to Lincoln Center's Rose Hall, but due to renovations this year at the more uptown revue, this year's 26th Annual Convention was back at its old West 43rd Street stomping grounds. Since Donald Smith died in March 2012, the Mercer Foundation's Artistic Director and de-facto Convention Producer has been cabaret star KT Sullivan, and for Monday night's opening show she greeted the audience, in measured tempo, with the infectious enthusiasm of Cole Porter (“Another Opening, Another Show”) and Irving Berlin (“There's No Business Like Show Business”). Sullivan provided an effective, entertaining onramp to an evening that featured experienced American and European artists from cabaret and theater and relative cabaret newbies who've recently made a mark on the scene.

The Mabel Mercer  Foundation returned to The Town Hall last night for the first of 4 different concerts and BroadwayWorld will be there for all. Here are some photos from the opening night. 2015 is the twenty-sixth annual New York Cabaret Convention.

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 Metropolitan Room, I Know You By Heart, is built around the songs of Eva Cassidy, who inspired Lowin's devotion when she was in the sixth grade and held steadfast for five years of repeated listening. Virtually unknown outside Washington, DC during her lifetime, Cassidy's posthumous compilation Songbird topped the charts in 1998. (Ms. Cassidy died of cancer in 1996.) Lowin looks rather like her subject and appears to have similar range, if a less mature voice.

With her new show at the Metropolitan Room that opened last night—Groupies: The Muses Behind the Legends of Rock & Roll--the usually smart and meticulous Lauren Fox (as evidenced by her shows that celebrated the music of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen and later the Pop/Rock that emerged from Laurel Canyon in the 1960s) has here chosen questionable territory--the celebration of women who serially slept their way through the music business or, as Fox more poetically says, “Made it their life's mission to meet the beautiful boys who made the music that moved them.” Hook-ups are exemplified by often unappealing numbers (too much monotone) and bridged with quotes by groupies whose role as “muses” or sources of creative inspiration seems a stretch.

To paraphrase a Peter Allen song, she could have been a sailor. Instead, she chose to sail the open seas. And now she's singing about it. It all made for a promising theme for the Manhattan cabaret debut of Robyn McCorquodale and her series of four April shows, Diary Of A Piano Girl, at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Pert, lively and totally likable, she shared her stories fused with original songs about wanderlust in which all roads eventually lead back home. From the opening number to closing with "Somewhere Over The Rainbow," her only familiar entry, she took a circuitous route with visits to numerous ports of call. New to our local cabaret shores, but no stranger to entertaining, she's made her mark in the Big Apple with this outing.

This summer, The Metropolitan Room presents vocalist Rebekah Lowin in 'I Know You By Heart,' a powerful and intimate new show that highlights the life and legacy of the late singer Eva Cassidy, as well as her original arrangements. 

At a ceremony held last night in New York, the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs announced the winners of the 2015 MAC Awards. The show was hosted by Karen Mason, with musical direction by Barry Levitt, and was produced by Julie Miller and directed by Lennie Watts.

Join Eva Richards as she sings songs from award winning Broadway musicals, Latin standards such as 'Besame Mucho' and 'Guantanamera' as well as Bossa Nova hits including 'The Girl from Ipanema' and 'Dindi' at the Metropolitan Room on May 11 at 9:30pm.

The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs has announced the presenters that are scheduled to appear at the 29th Annual MAC Awards on Thursday, March 26th at B.B King Blues Club & Grill in New York City.

The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs will present the 29th Annual MAC Awards on Thursday, March 26st, at 7:30pm, at B.B King Blues Club & Grill in New York City.

As the days dwindled down to a precious few in 2014, a few cabaret goers and performers in what is affectionately but also self-mockingly called the “cabaret community” would sidle up and ask if I was planning my annual end-of-the year “Best Of” column, similar to the “Top 20 Bests and Favorites” piece over the first half of the year I posted back in early July. I would respond in the negative with very reasonable and believable excuses, but the truth is I didn't want to reveal my “Bests” of the year until the voting for the 2014 BroadwayWorld New York Cabaret Awards had ended. There's enough baggage and backstage whispering that comes with administering the BWW Awards, so I wasn't about to publish any opinions that might influence the vote while it was in process. I may be crazy but I'm not masochistic. But now all bets are off. You want lists? I'll give you lists.

Ring in the holidays with a song for a good cause!