Birth Place: Bronx, New York
About halfway through Jim Brochu's Saturday, June 29 performance at the Metropolitan Room of his new show Character Man, I realized I was witnessing what was probably the best cabaret show I'd seen this year, and perhaps was one of the best in my almost three years of reviewing cabaret.
Back on April 1, when he posted his third compilation of delayed cabaret reviews from shows staged during the winter, BroadwayWorld.
On the evening of June 22, I would be doing the third performance of my Don McLean Tribute show at the Metropolitan Room, but I had heard enough buzz about Los Angeles-based, former New Yorker Joanne Tatham that I wanted to catch the last staging of her show Soundtrack, New York: Music from Movies M
Only two nights removed from the last of my three solo debut shows at the Metropolitan Room celebrating the Don McLean Songbook, I was already experiencing the post-performance depression I'd heard tell about from cabaret veterans.
A few weeks before BroadwayWorld.
About a third of the way into Tony Award-winner Faith Prince's new show at 54 Below last Wednesday night (the second of a five-show run over six days), it hit me that I could be watching a potential future cabaret legend in action.
As a big fan of cabaret shows that incorporate horn sections (as does Terese Genecco's monthly 'Little Big Band' efforts at Iridium or Carole J.
A long, long time ago, Stephen Hanks heard Don McLean's second studio album "American Pie" (which was released in late 1971 and hit number one on the Billboard album chart), and became a life-long fan.
Unless the host is particularly warm, funny, and charismatic (think Dana Lorge and her new monthly vehicle at the Metropolitan Room) or the show is a way to champion a good cause (like Joseph Macchia's Cabaret Cares events), for the most part cabaret variety shows are clunky affairs which can be too
Four songs into Lauren Robert's show at Iridium this past Tuesday night (her third appearance at the jazz club since last August), she was already producing her usual pulsating, percussive, and passionate presentation of hard-driving blues and soulful pop when the show took a transformative turn and
Halfway through her opening night at 54 Below on Monday, Laura Benanti unveiled the evening's showstopper, a multi pop-song mix titled 'Inappropriate Medley.
It's taken me two weeks to write this review of Ann Hampton Callaway's recent 8-shows-in-four-days run at Dizzy's Jazz Club at Lincoln Center, where she paid musical tribute to the late, great Sarah Vaughan, and I hope you buy the reason for such procrastination.
You probably don't have to feel sorry for a mature, experienced female singer who decides to tackle the gritty music of Tom Waits and calls her show 1978 NYC Underground, but it was still tough not to feel for Billie Roe as she performed this week at the Metropolitan Room.
Stephen Hanks, BroadwayWorld.
Nominated by BroadwayWorld.
Two years ago, in my generally favorable review of Pamela Lewis' quirky, if flawed, cabaret show Dog Walking Diva, I went a little bit out on the limb with .
I thought about many happy childhood musical theater memories last night while I attended the Dutch Treat Club's Annual Gold Medal Tribute Dinner and Show at the Harvard Club in honor of the legendary 'Fiddler of the Roof' lyricist Sheldon Harnick, who received the Club's Lifetime Achievement Award
Stephen Hanks, BroadwayWorld.
Nominated by BroadwayWorld.
When you're a cabaret reviewer on the evening show prowl between Monday night and Saturday evening (although not every night, thank goodness), you'd like to think that the God of Cabaret would make Sunday a day of rest.
