Eight years after launching her show 'Love Rolls On' (originally directed by Lina Koutrakos) at the Metropolitan Room, Susan Winter will reprise her critically acclaimed show, featuring classics of the Great American Songbook and future standards by contemporary writers, at the same venue in the 13th installment of the celebrated monthly series produced by Stephen Hanks' NEW YORK CABARET'S GREATEST HITS (Associate Producer Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD). With Rick Jensen as Musical Director on piano and Tom Hubbard on bass, Winter will perform LOVE ROLLS ON on October 7 at 7 pm.
Fresh off her 2016 MAC Award for best original song after a successful revival of Portraits (1993) for Stephen Hanks' New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits series, Meg Flather paid tribute in Carly & Me to the 'artist who gave [her] her voice.' With her longtime musical director Paul Greenwood on piano and the versatile John Mettam on guitar and drums both singing backup, Flather performed hits and lesser-known songs alike from Carly Simon's oeuvre, along with a handful of original songs influenced by her musical heroine.
Cabaret producer, promoter, and performer Stephen Hanks is bringing his highly praised show, Don McLean: Storyteller to the popular restaurant/club Pangea (178 2nd Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets) for a special performance on August 26 at 7 pm. The show features the Award-Winning Guitarist Sean Harkness as Musical Director, with Skip Ward on bass, and Special Guest Vocalist Rob Davis.
Cabaret audiences who fell head over heels for opera singer Janice Hall's 2010-2011 solo debut show—Grand Illusions: The Music of Marlene Dietrich—will get to fall in love all over again (and a new audience can become smitten for the first time) when Hall reprises her Award-winning show at the Metropolitan Room on September 13 at 7 pm, in the 12th installment of Stephen Hanks' monthly New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits Series (Associate Producer, Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD). Hall's Marlene Dietrich show is directed by Peter Napolitano, with Matthew Martin Ward as Musical Director/Pianist and Ritt Henn on bass and ukulele.
Sarah Rice first burst onto the Broadway musical theater world in 1979 as the original Johanna in Stephen Sondheim's TONY Award-winning musical Sweeney Todd. The dazzling soprano later became a cabaret star, winning a 2010 Bistro Award and 2011 MAC Award for Best Female Vocalist. After performing cabaret in almost every major venue in New York, Rice is bringing an exciting new show-MUSIC OF THE NIGHT--to the popular restaurant/club PANGEA (178 2nd Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets) for three performances on August 17, 18, and September 20, all at 7 pm.
In her A-line black and white polka dot dress with petticoats, a lively (and lithe!) Maureen Taylor delivered an entertaining tribute to lyricist Bob Merrill at the Metropolitan Room (on July 13). Originally directed by Peter Napolitano when the show debuted in 2008-09, Taylor Made is the latest installment of Producer/Promoter Stephen Hanks' outstanding New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits, which almost always lives up to its name.
Back in 2010, Broadway Musical actor and cabaret artist Rosemary Loar performed her highly praised cabaret show Sting, Stang, Stung!, which featured jazzy and emotional interpretations of the pop icon Sting's (Gordon Sumner) vast collection of hits. Five years later, Loar created a new show—STING*chronicity—based on the Sting songbook and her Metropolitan Room performances received universal acclaim from the cabaret press. Loar is now bringing her tour-de-force performance to the popular downtown venue Joe's Pub at The Public Theater (425 Lafayette Street, 212-967-7555) on August 22 at 7 pm. Tickets are $20 with a $12 food minimum or two drink minimum per person. STING*chronicity is directed by Barry Kleinbort and boasts a band featuring Musical Director Frank Ponzio with Tom Hubbard on bass.
In what he is calling the third part of a “Cabaret Trilogy of Classic Hollywood Songwriters,” 2016 MAC Award nominee and 2015 BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Award Nominee Jeff Macauley will launch his new show, Le Grand Tour: The Music of Michel Legrand, at the Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd St., New York, NY) on August 12 at 7 pm. Over the past four years, Macauley has celebrated the songbooks of Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award-winning songwriters of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, Norman Gimbel (It Was Me: The Lyrics of Norman Gimbel) and Henry Mancini (Mr. Lucky: The Songs of Henry Mancini). Now, Macauley will turn his evocative vocals and on-stage charm to exploring the work of the legendary French film composer who wrote the scores and themes to the movie musicals, “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “Young Girls of Rochefort” and “Yentl,” as well as countless other films.
1959 was a very good year for Jeff Harnar. It was the year the future cabaret star was born, but he couldn't know then that 1959 would also provide him with the material for what would eventually become one of his greatest cabaret performances. In 1991, for his second major engagement as a cabaret artist, Harnar made his debut at the famed Oak Room at the Algonquin with a show called THE 1959 BROADWAY SONGBOOK, featuring tunes from 21 musicals (including West Side Story, Gypsy, Fiorello, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Li'l Abner, and Flower Drum Song), that either opened or were still running that year. Directed by Sara Louise Lazarus with musical direction from pianist Alex Rybeck, Harnar's show strung together iconic Broadway songs into an imaginary musical with commentaries on love, marriage and politics, complete with an overture, entr'acte, intermission, and curtain call. The show and Harnar's performance (which would be filmed for a PBS special in 1993) drew raves from the New York entertainment press.
On the heels of her recent critically acclaimed show PORTRAITS (which premiered last December in the Stephen Hanks produced Metropolitan Room series NEW YORK CABARET'S GREATEST HITS and then enjoyed a three-show run at Don't Tell Mama), two-time MAC Award- winner Meg Flather will launch a three-show run of her new show CARLY & ME at Don't Tell Mama on July 31 at 4 pm (with additional shows on August 28 at 4 pm and September 27 at 7 pm). Flather's band features Paul Greenwood on piano and John Mettam on guitar and drums. Multiple award-winning Lennie Watts is the director. Don't Tell Mama is located at 343 West 46th Street. The cover for this show is $20 ($15 for MAC Members) with a 2-drink minimum.
In 2009 and 2010, opera singer turned cabaret performer Maureen Taylor staged a cabaret show tribute to Bob Merrill's music at the Metropolitan Room in New York and critics raved. Six years later, on July 13 at 7 pm, Maureen Taylor will reprise her highly praised show, Taylor Made: Bob Merrill, at the Metropolitan Room in cabaret's hottest monthly series, New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits, produced by Stephen Hanks (with Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD, Associate Producer). Taylor's Musical Director is Matt Castle on piano, with Joe Brent on guitar, mandolin, and violin. Her special guest performer is two-time MAC Award winner Rev. Yolanda (Roger Anthony Yolanda Mapes).
On May 13, 2006 in the highly praised monthly series at the Metropolitan Room, New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits (Produced by Stephen Hanks; Associate Producer Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD), multiple Award-winning jazz vocalist Laurie Krauz and her long-time Musical Director Daryl Kojak staged a show that was 25 years in the making. To celebrate their quarter-century collaboration, Krauz & Kojak performed a set of their favorite and most-loved numbers, not only bringing a packed room to its feet but also generating across-the-board raves from reviewers (below). By popular demand, this dynamic duo's collaboration celebration (with Sean Conly on bass and Gene Lewin on drums) will return to the Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd Street) on Tuesday, July 12 at 7 pm.
We are lucky in New York City. The talent here is unbelievable. Sometimes you settle in for an intimate evening at a little local club and you get your socks blown off. On Friday the 13th (of May, to be exact), I had such an experience at the latest monthly installment of Stephen Hanks' Metropolitan Room series (Associate Producer, Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD), New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits. The featured performers were Vocalist Laurie Krauz and her Musical Director Daryl Kojak celebrating their 25-year musical collaboration “It's a 'Greatest Hits' show within a Greatest Hits series!” Hanks extolled before introducing his stars for the evening.
“I . . . am a survivor,” Lisa Jason announces solemnly near the beginning of her poignant new cabaret show, Bullied to Beautiful, which premiered in its present incarnation last Wednesday night (it originally debuted last October at the Metropolitan Room) at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Uprooted at seven from Long Island to a small, homogenous, anything-but-friendly town on Cape Cod, Jason encountered relentless physical and verbal abuse at the hands of “blue-eyed, blonde-haired” kids “with alligators on their shirts.”
When the entertainment website BroadwayWorld.com announced its 2015 New York Cabaret Award nominees for "Best Alt Cabaret Show," Raquel Cion-hailed by The New York Times as "half witch and half cabaret performer"-was named a finalist for her stunning performances in Me & Mr. Jones: My Intimate Relationship with David Bowie, a show that generated standing ovations from SRO crowds at The Slipper Room, 167 Orchard Street. After Bowie's death in January, Cion decided to bring back a revised version of Me & Mr. Jones . . . for a three-show run that concludes at the popular Lower East Side burlesque/variety club on May 15 at 8 pm.
Back in early 2013, veteran cabaret performer and actress Barbara Porteus presented a show at Don't Tell Mama called Up On The Roof, a celebratory recollection of her youth through adulthood, while spanning 40 years of pop music including Carol King and Joni Mitchell to John Mayer and Adelle. Three years later, Porteus is bringing back Up On The Roof to the Metropolitan Room as the June 2016 installment of Producer Stephen Hanks' monthly series, New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits (Associate Producer, Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD). Porteus' all-strings band features Award-winning Jack Cavari as Musical Director, arranger, and lead guitarist, with Larry Saltzman on guitar and Zev Katz on bass.
The angel of death did not pass over Dana Lorge's house last night and the world of New York cabaret is grieving as a result. During the evening of the second Passover seder, the New York cabaret community was shocked to learn that MAC Award-winning performer and variety show host Dana Lorge died from complications of lung cancer, which was diagnosed just a few months ago.
In 1991, after having performed as a jazz vocalist in the New York nightclub scene for about five years, Laurie Krauz was searching for a new musical director-and a new musical direction. She had cast a wide net until a friend recommended Daryl Kojak and Laurie scheduled a getting-to-know-you session. 'I don't exactly recall the first song we worked on together but I felt as if I was being levitated off the floor when he played for me,' Laurie remembers. 'It was magic and it has remained magic for a 25 years.' Now Krauz and Kojak will display what Laurie calls 'A collaboration for the ages' at the Metropolitan Room on May 13 at 7 pm in the ninth show of the critically acclaimed monthly series, New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits.
Norman Gimbel may not be a name most pop music fans are familiar with but they might certainly know the songs and film and television themes this great lyricist has written over the decades. 'Killing Me Softly With His Song,' 'Boy From Ipanema!' 'Girl,' 'Meditation,' and 'It Goes Like It Goes' are just a few well-known songs of a man who has won an Academy Award and two Grammys for Song of the Year. Bistro Award winning and MAC Nominated cabaret performer Jeff Macauley is definitely a Norman Gimbel aficionado. In fact, his 2012 show, It Was Me: The Lyrics of Norman Gimbel earned Macauley a BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Award Nomination for 'Best Male Vocalist.' Joined by his same musical collaborators Arnold and Burr, Jeff Macauley is bringing back It Was Me, this time to the Metropolitan Room on Thursday, May 12 at 7 pm.
I didn't catch Rosemary Loar's original 2006 presentation of 'Quando Swing,' but I can't imagine it performed with more muscular honesty than it was Wednesday night at the Metropolitan Room in the latest monthly installment of Producer Stephen Hanks' 'New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits' series. We've come to expect lucid, intriguing shows from the vocalist, but engagement level on this occasion felt almost cathartic. Energy was full tilt, lyric communication authentic.
