From the Oscars to the Tonys, the Grammys to Emmys, awards ceremonies are always a hit-or-miss situation. Either the event is absolutely excellent or ends with spectators saying, 'Well, they'll do a better job with it next year.' The 2015 MAC Awards, presented by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs, and held once again this year at BB King's on West 42nd Street, absolutely fell into the former category. It was a splendid affair (albeit it's usual 3-plus hours) that was expertly directed by MAC President Lennie Watts.
Just when one thinks Carole J. Bufford has thoroughly plumbed the genre for which she has so much affinity, the artist comes up with an audacious new show whose distinct focus, original format, and unblushing presentation delivers a fresh take. Heart of Gold: A Portrait of the Oldest Profession (this past Saturday night at 54 Below) offers a cavalcade of women who get paid to provide 'pleasure'--madams, streetwalkers, dancehall girls, and kept women from salty to sensuous, weary and bitter to a view from the catbird seat, enmeshed or looking back.
When Kathryn Allyn, an opera singer now turned Great American Songbook chanteuse, took the stage at The Cutting Room last Tuesday night, she was all va-va-voom in a curve-hugging Valentine red dress. She joined her crackerjack band-musical director Frank Ponzio, bassist Tom Hubbard, and drummer Vito Leszack-to perform homage to her favorite jazz and big band singer Anita O'Day, whose heyday came between the World War II era through the early 1960s.
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.
When Mark Nadler, singing the iconic Irving Berlin song and Al Jolson standard 'Let Me Sing and I'm Happy,' strolls from the back of 54 Below to his rightful place center stage (accompanied by Nick Russo on banjo), he seems, in all respects, a jaunty, debonair thespian. The song is light, unembellished, infectious. What you're watching in truth is a state of the art ballistic missile unerringly headed for its target. 'My name is Mark and I'm a spotlightaholic.' Tonight Nadler celebrates two 'out of control' spotlightaholics--Danny Kaye and Al Jolson--both of whom put themselves (and kept themselves) in front of audiences every available moment. (The artist designates himself as a 'functional' sufferer of the compulsion.) Memorable anecdotes enlighten and entertain. 'In the spirit of Kaye and Jolson, however, this show is all about ME.' Four decades in, Nadler calls show business his religion. Judging by ensuing narrative, his zealous devotion is, in context, worthy of sainthood.
'I was at the Police Reunion Concert at Madison Square Garden in 2008 and the energy was through the roof,' says vocalist/actress/writer Rosemary Loar at the start of her new show, STING-chronicity, at the Metropolitan Room. 'We were 18,000 strong, each of us challenging ownership of this man's music.' Loar feels special rapport with the oeuvre of Sting (Gordon Sumner, who was Police's lead singer and principal songwriter from 1977-1986, before he launched an incredibly successful solo career) as represented by her earlier show and CD, the celebratory Sting, Stang, Stung (see video of the 2010 show, below). 'We're onto the same zeitgeist,' Loar recently revealed in an interview. 'We're both Catholics and some of his writing is about obsession, guilt and penance.'
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.
STING*chronicity offers an unexpected combination of monologues with a stunning variety of musical arrangements of the music of brilliant contemporary songwriter, Sting. The show is "set" in Madison Square Garden on the occasion of the final reunion concert of the iconic band, The Police, which was headed by Sting. STING*chronicity surveys the diverse audience, and their very varied interpretations of his music as the words of his songs are filtered by their unique lives and experiences. "A concert always brings people together who couldn't be further apart."
New York's Metropolitan Room will shock the entertainment world with an unprecedented, pull-out-the-stops programming initiative to kick off 2015. For three days -- tonight, January 1 at 7pm to Sunday January 4 at 7am -- the intimate concert venue will stage its first 'Marathon Variety Show,' with continuous entertainment for 60 hours straight. The marathon, which is eligible to become a Guinness World Records record-holder for longest variety show ever, will feature up to 100 Metropolitan Room artists -- from its most prominent stars to its most promising emerging talents.
If you've been a regular reader of this particular reviewer's musings, you know that every year there are long stretches of time where I just haven't been able to critique all the shows I've seen that deserve commentary. So I end up playing what they call in sports, 'Catch-up ball,' and post a mash up of belated reviews from past shows. It's kind of like a critic's version of the song 'Six Months Out of Every Year,' from Damn Yankees. Give or take a month or two, that's usually the time period during which I store unpublished reviews in my fevered brain and then unload them all in one seemingly endless column-like this one is going to be. If my cabaret-show reviewing days will be over (as chronicled here), I might as well go out with a bang-and relieve my procrastination guilt during holiday season. Now I can scratch one New Year's resolution off the list.
t's a New Year's tradition that doesn't get old. For the fourth year in-a-row Marilyn Maye rings out 2014 with back-to-back shows on New Year's Eve. Then after New Year's Eve, the merry-making continues for seven nights between January 2 and 10, as Maye launches into a run of her hard-partying "By Request" shows. Joining the preternaturally young Maye on her 15th Metropolitan Room engagement are her nimble trio consisting of pianist/conductor Billy Stritch, bassist Tom Hubbard, and drummer Ray Marchica.
The day is finally here! After one month of voting on preliminary nominees in 17 categories, the results of more than 5,000 ballots were considered along with the selections of BroadwayWorld's cabaret section editors to determine the final nominees for the 2014 BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Awards. Joining cabaret icon Marilyn Maye with four nominations is budding star Carole J. Bufford, who made the final ballot for two different shows during 2014 and as 'Best Female Vocalist' and 'Performer of the Year.' Among Maye's nominations were 'Performer of the Year,' two shows in the 'Best Celebrity Show' category, and a 'Best Director' nomination for her work with jazz singer Gabrielle Stravelli (who received two nominations). In addition to her usual nod for 'Best Jazz Vocalist,' jazz star Jane Monheit received two other nominations as 'Performer of the Year,' and as 'Best Host' for her new variety show at Birdland, Jane Monheit's Jazz Party (Monheit also co-starred with Clint Holmes in another nominated show, Frank Wildhorn and Friends in the 'Best Revue' category.) Eric Michael Gillett also earned three nominations for 'Best Show, Male,' 'Best Male Vocalist,' and 'Best Director.'
Stacy Sullivan tells the audience she became interested in Marian McPartland when she was asked to sing at her memorial in 2013. With her show last Saturday night at Don't Tell Mama, On The Air: Songs for Marian McPartland (which enjoyed a late September run of four shows at the York Theatre), the multi MAC-award winning Sullivan has created a beautifully crafted, biographically-driven show featuring the original music, the history, and the life of a jazz icon, who was best known for hosting Piano Jazz on National Public Radio from 1978-2011. Now Stacy Sullivan has made us all interested in the amazing Marian McPartland.
Anthony Nunziata is an attractive young man with a good vocal instrument. But what once seemed warm and natural has evolved into affectation. When I first started writing about him (and his twin brother, Will) almost five years ago, the Nunziata's featured family stories and several very personal songs. Anthony used some of that same material last night in his solo show at 54 Below.
According to mythology, the 'Phoenix' was a bird of great beauty, said to have lived 1,000 years in the Arabian wilderness. The Phoenix burns itself to ashes on an ancient funeral pyre, only to rise again from those ashes with the renewed exuberance of youth. Its renewed life cycle symbolizes the immortality of the spirit, the rebirth of idealism, the essence of creativity, and the aura of eternal hope. With her new show at the Laurie Beechman, Visible Phoenix (which opened October 17 and returned last Friday night), multi-award winner Carolyn Montgomery-Forant has returned to the cabaret stage (after a 14-year hiatus to raise her son and run a cafe business) as the very personification of that rare beautiful bird.
The Carlyle, a Rosewood Hotel, continues to be home court for Jim Caruso & Billy Stritch. They are back at Bemelmans Bar for an extended Sunday night residency. The performances build upon their recent run of shows in the intimate, storied New York City lounge, favorites not only of music fans and critics, but also of fellow artists. Jim Caruso & Billy Stritch shows are a place where some of the city's foremost entertainers go to commune with their own-and sometimes sit-in for a song or two-on their nights off. The pair will be at Bemelmans with their evening of swinging standards Sunday nights, through Dec. 31st. Dropping in Sunday night were Ron Abel and Chuck Steffan creators of 'Hazel' a new musical bound for Broadway. Jane Monheit joined Billy & Jim for some great vocals as Giselle Wolf and Eda Sorokoff looked on approvingly
One single most-telling elements of multi-award-nominated cabaret chanteuse Kim Grogg, and her latest show Go Where the Love Is (which makes further appearances at Don't Tell Mama, 343 West 46th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues on Tuesday, November 18th and Friday, December 5th at 7:00 PM, as well as Sunday, December 7th at 5:30 PM), is that she along with band and technical crew manage to create a seamlessly-fine line between casual presentation and sophisticated elegance; this show easily could have taken its place among the acts at the now-legendary downtown clubs Reno Sweeney and The Bottom Line in the 1970s. As if that wasn't enough, Grogg manages to spin a glorious yarn on the hazards of love and dating, and does so with absolutely top-notch song selections.
Celebrated cabaret performer Jamie deRoy presented another edition of her Multi MAC award-winning Variety Show, Jamie deRoy & friends last night, at The Metropolitan Room. BroadwayWorld brings you photos from the evening below!
Join celebrated cabaret performer Jamie deRoy when she presents another edition of her Multi MAC award-winning Variety Show, Jamie deRoy & friends, tonight, November 15th (7:30PM) at New York's wonderfully-appointed cabaret hot-spot The Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd Street ~ btw. 5th & 6th Avenues).
Last night, legendary vocalist MARILYN MAYE will brought her own style of jazz & show-biz to Iridium NYC, joined by the legendary BUCKY PIZZARELLI, for TWO NIGHTS ONLY, November 5th & 6th at 8:30 & 10:30pm. The reunion of these two 'Tonight Show' alumni is bound to be a musical party. Ms. Maye appeared on 'The Tonight Show' a record 76 times, more than any singer & Mr. Pizzarelli was an original member of 'The Tonight Show Band,' playing with Skitch Henderson.
