The last time I saw Vivian Reed perform was at Rainbow & Stars in 1996, when she was one-third of the cast of a revue called “20th Century R&B…A Musical Celebration.” She was sensational and I wrote glowingly about her. In her recent engagement at 54 Below, she was still sensational; however, it saddens me to […]
The 2014 Bistro Awards Red Carpet, hosted by Kevin Scott Hall and Tanya Holt and recorded at Gotham Comedy Club on March 4, 2014. Enjoy these interviews with the winners, creative team, and others attending the show!
Memorable Moments Captured by Photographer Jim Baldassare. Click on photos to enlarge.
There is more than one way that cabaret can succeed. Some shows—Shana Farr’s recent program of Noël Coward and Cole Porter songs, for example—are carefully manicured gardens. Everything has been planted with care and set to blossom on schedule, down to the last petal. This sort of show can make for a memorable, emotionally rich […]
A set of French (or Frenchified) love songs is a nice, if fairly obvious, idea for a one-off on Bastille Day. The Franco-American singer Floanne (full name Flo Ankah) was happy to comply with the concept—if not exactly fully engage with fashioning a tight, full-fledged set. At one point in her loosey-goosey presentation at Joe’s […]
Gabrielle Stravelli returned to the New York cabaret stage this month, her first multi-night solo New York cabaret engagement since winning a Bistro award in 2008. In the intervening years, she has toured extensively, headlined a jazz brunch in Soho for three years, and recorded the well-received CD “Waiting in Vain.” If her opening night […]
Actor-singer Darron Cardosa has performed professionally for twenty-five years, and he’s waited tables for nearly as long. Since 2008 he’s been writing “The Bitchy Waiter,” a very popular blog about his experiences in, and his opinions about, the food service industry. Now he’s put it all together in an evening of songs and anecdotes called […]
Ben Vereen at the 2014 Bistro Awards
Watch Lifetime Achievement Award winner Ben Vereen perform “Here’s to Life” at the 2014 Bistro Awards!
Ben Vereen interviewed by Tonya Pinkins
Multi-award-winning actress singer Tonya Pinkins interviewed Ben Vereen for the Bistro Awards. TP: You are legendary. Who do you emulate and say, “I’ll steal a little of this and a little of that?” BV: Oscar Brown Jr—I love Oscar, Little Jimmy Scott, Carmen McRae. These are my cats. Charles Aznavour! TP: I don’t think […]
Memorable Moments Captured by Photographer Jim Baldassare. Click on photos to enlarge.
2014 Bistro Awards Red Carpet Highlights
The 2014 Bistro Awards Red Carpet, hosted by Kevin Scott Hall and Tanya Holt and recorded at Gotham Comedy Club on March 4, 2014. Enjoy these interviews with the winners, creative team, and others attending the show!
In this column I discuss one show that is currently running, a handful of others that played within the past couple of months, and two that will be returning. In the process, I make a few observations that have broader relevance. Vickie Phillips A short while ago, Vickie Phillips celebrated her birthday at the […]
This is my first Bistro Bits column since June 11, 1999. I trust you’ll forgive the slight interruption. In this return column, I discuss a few shows I’ve seen in the intervening years—more precisely, during the past few months. And I comment on a lamentable practice that has become almost as commonplace as it is […]
