Much-lauded cabaret singer Karen Oberlin opens this month at The Birdland Theater and next month at The Beach Café. Stephen Mosher talks with her about her life in the arts, feminism, and raising a child who wants to sing.
Even the celebrities had a tough time getting a ticket for their shows at Feinstein's/54 Below. Jana Robbins and Haley Swindal's closing night's performance actually seemed more like an opening night with all the notability in the room. Audiences have been wildly enthusiastic about their cabaret act titled The Songs of Kander & Ebb…We Just Move On!
Michael Riedel, theater columnist for the New York Post and author of the best selling book RAZZLE DAZZLE The Battle For Broadway, led a panel discussion at the Friars Club last night. The book is advertised with the slogan, "everything you wanted to know about Broadway, but were afraid to ask"!
When vocalist Todd Murray discovered several of the musicians for his excellent show Croon were unavailable for their scheduled Valentine's Day appearance last Sunday afternoon at the Metropolitan Room, he asked Sean Harkness (the guitarist in the show) to join him for a two-hander. The fortuitous accident yielded a terrific presentation of romantic material from sentimental to ardent, a pared down sharing of unadulterated heart and high musical craft that deserves wider audience. “It's our goal to put you in the mood,” Murray tells us. They do.
“Lover, when I'm near you . . .” sings the debonair Todd Murray this past Monday night at Birdland, mere feet away from rapt eyes into which he pours himself. He's performing the waltzy song acoustically, voice full out in opposition to lyric mood. The back of the house undoubtedly finds sound muted. “This is how you would've heard a band singer in 1925, before a new technique called 'crooning',” he tells us. “From the time I started working, they always called me a crooner.”
Broadway songstress Sally Wilfert returned to 54 Below with a brand spanking new evening of music- featuring classic melodies and newer works, all seamlessly blended into the perfect, tuneful Wilfert casserole. One of New York's most dynamic voices, audiences have embraced Sally in everything from Broadway's Assassins to her acclaimed off-Broadway appearances in Make Me a Song and See Rock City, among others. In January, Sally knocked the socks off of 54 Below audiences with her breathtaking appearance in The Sound of Their Music: Rodgers & Hammerstein at 54 Below.
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