While Woodstock 1969 will probably forever be known as the ultimate rock n roll festival of all time, NYC cabaret hot spot 54 Below is lining up an impossibly impressive assortment of stars for a one night only Woodstock tribute in August, led by two-time Tony Award-winner Norbert Leo Butz and Broadway/Hollywood notable Raul Esparza.
The Major League Baseball All-Star break (the game is on Tuesday night) has always been considered the midpoint of the season and as a lifelong fan I've always enjoyed reading those analyses from writers that assess the best performances of the first half. Since July is also the middle of the calendar year, I thought it might be fun to present a cabaret equivalent of a baseball midseason report. So . . . (drum roll) . . . presenting the Best (and My Favorite) 20 New York Cabaret Shows and Performances of (the first half) of 2013.
Marissa Mulder's stunning foray into the music and poetry of Tom Waits is coming back. The show that Stephen Holden called “far and away the season's best cabaret show” returns to the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, on Tuesday May 7 at 9:30pm and Wednesday May 8 at 7pm.
It's April 1st. Do you know when your Spring is coming? During another longggggg New York winter, the good news is that there were a ton of warming cabaret shows. The bad news is that there were so many, even during this seemingly endless winter our intrepid reviewer Stephen Hanks didn't have enough time to review them all right after the performances. So in what is becoming a seasonal ritual, here he offers yet another compilation of 13 'catch-up' cabaret show reviews.
Well, it took me almost a year and a half and a long car ride deep into New Jersey to do it, but when last Saturday night (March 23) I finally got a chance to see and hear Lauren Fox's Joni Mitchell/Leonard Cohen Tribute Show ('The painter and the poet who mesmerized the world with their songs,' as Fox put it), it was well worth the wait--and the trip. Actually, the show itself was a trip, as Fox not only embodied the look, spirit, and vocal timbre of Mitchell and her songs (if not completely reaching her soaring soprano), she also managed to channel the persona of the intense and mysterious machoness of Cohen simply by donning a fedora and maximizing her deeper register voice. It's not at all a surprise that Fox not only received rave media reviews and the 2012 MAC Award for 'Best Debut' for this show, but that a 750-seat theater like the recently-renovated, Art Deco style Landis in Vineland, NJ, would want to bring this stunning, 16-song cabaret set and Fox's transcendent performance to their stage
With the grit of a sheriff facing down an outlaw, the silky-toned Marissa Mulder takes on the bard of bad Tom Waits, in the premiere of "Tom… in His Words", which began on March 27 and runs through tonight, March 30, 2013, at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street. BroadwayWorld was there and brings you photos from the concert!
Observing the evolution of young Marissa Mulder's cabaret career is like watching a high jumper going for the gold at the Olympic Games. With every show or performance, she and the creative teams around her set the bar just a little bit higher and she keeps clearing the dang thing. But with her new Tom Waits Tribute Show, which opened last night at the Metropolitan Room (and continues through Saturday night, all at 7pm), the bar was raised multiple notches, and damn if she didn't clear it with inches to spare. With Tom . . . In His Own Words/The Songs of Tom Waits, Mulder has vaulted herself into major cabaret performer territory and even managed to stick the landing.
The 28th Annual Bistro Awards gala took place on March 4, 2013. Unlike most other awards shows, the Bistro Awards is an evening filled with great performances from the winners - stars as well as talented newcomers - who represent a wide variety of styles from the worlds of cabaret, comedy, and jazz. BroadwayWorld has photos from the ceremony below!
The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs will present the 27th Annual MAC Awards on Thursday, March 21st, at B.B King Blues Club & Grill in New York City.
Led by Lauren Fox, a lively group of New York cabaret all-stars, staged a rousing and highly entertaining late night benefit show called 'Cabaret Rocks the Rockaways' to raise funds for the people out in the far reaches of Queens who are still suffering from the ravages of last November's Hurricane Sandy.
2012 was indeed a very good year for the art of Cabaret in New York City. Here, BroadwayWorld.com Cabaret Reviewer and Columnist Stephen Hanks offers up his exclusive 'Best New York Cabaret Performers of the Year' for 2012, plus some surprising honorable mentions. Let the debates begin!
York Theatre Company presents Broadway's Marc Kudisch (9 to 5; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and Jeffry Denman (Irving Berlin's White Christmas; Yank! at the York) in the Off-Broadway premiere of a new holiday variety entertainment, The Holiday Guys in Happy Merry Hanu-Mas, under the music direction of Timothy Splain, for a limited two week engagement through December 31, 2012 at The York Theatre at Saint Peter's (Entrance on East 54th Street, just east of Lexington Avenue). The show opened last night and you can check out complete coverage below!!
Urban Stages (Frances Hill, Founding Artistic Director), in association with producer/director/lyricist Peter Napolitano announces a series of musical evenings entitled WINTER RHYTHMS 2012, beginning on Tuesday, December 4 and running through Friday, December 15, 2012 at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30th Street). Tickets are $25 per show (both shows in one night, $40). Beer and wine will be available for a $3 donation. Tickets may be purchased on www.smarttix.com or 212 868-4444.
Urban Stages, in association with producer/director/lyricist Peter Napolitano, announces a series of musical evenings entitled WINTER RHYTHMS 2012, beginning tonight, December 4 and running through Friday, December 15, 2012 at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30th Street).
Cabaret Cares the award-winning benefit series returns to The Laurie Beechman Theatre tonight, November 25th at 9:30 PM. Created by cabaret Producer Joseph Macchia the series raises funds for Help Is On The Way Today a non for profit organization he funded to help children and youth living with HIV and AIDS.
Urban Stages, in association with producer/director/lyricist Peter Napolitano, announces a series of musical evenings entitled WINTER RHYTHMS 2012, beginning on Tuesday, December 4 and running through Friday, December 15, 2012 at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30th Street).
After receiving more than 3,000 nominations once BroadwayWorld.com announced it's first-ever New York Cabaret Awards in early October, BWW is now pleased to announce it's final nominations ballot in 20 categories. Now it's time for all you cabaret performers and fans to vote for the best singers, musicians and shows of the year. Voting will continue until December 31 and winners will be announced in early January.
Cabaret Cares the award winning benefit series returns to The Laurie Beechman Theatre on November 25th at 9:30 PM. Created by cabaret Producer Joseph Macchia the series raises funds for Help Is On The Way Today a non for profit organization he funded to help children and youth living with HIV and AIDS.
Stephen Hawking and his fellow physicists may not have yet figured out the formula for traveling through the time-space continuum, but apparently the Metropolitan Room discovered the secret. Last Friday night (October 26), I walked through the curtain into the main performance space and entered a time tunnel that took me from the 21st century into the 1960s and '70s. Two lovely, rising young stars of cabaret, Lauren Fox and Jennifer Sheehan (photo left), had obviously hurtled though that same time warp because in two separate shows on the same evening, they performed songs that had been written and recorded 15 to 25 years before they were born. In the process they transported this particular Baby Boomer joyously back to his youth and to the days of cultural upheaval, generation gaps, peace, love, war, and some of the best pop/rock music ever written.
Lauren Fox, whose highly praised Joni Mitchell-Leonard Cohen show was considered one of the most artistically ambitious cabaret debuts in years, continues to explore the music of the '60s and '70s in a new show, "Canyon Folkies," premiering at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, on Thursday October 11 at 7pm. In a major engagement consisting of four shows through November 2, Fox reunites with music director Jon Weber on piano, Peter Calo on guitar and Ritt Henn on bass.
