At Don’t Tell Mama, Dr. Bradley Jones tells a familiar cabaret story in his show Dr. Bradley’s Fabulous Functional Narcissism: Young man with troubled childhood dreams of being a performer, follows those dreams to New York City, works his way up to Broadway but fails—in spite of a decade long run in the original Broadway […]
Max von Essen has built a laudable New York theatre career over a number of years in such shows as Death Takes a Holiday, Dance of the Vampires, An American in Paris, and, currently, Anastasia. He recently brought his talents to the stage at Birdland, a club that he confessed he had dreamed of playing […]
I have never before seen a tribute show quite like Wanna Bette?, drag artist Cacophony Daniels’s homage to Bette Midler, currently at Don’t Tell Mama. The evening celebrates Midler and her long professional career—52 years and counting—in fine style, and provides a thoroughly entertaining and stylish cabaret act. There is no real connection between the […]
Singer Karen Oberlin recently brought her new show, Confound Me: Songs in Search of Something, to The Triad. The Triad’s stage can be tricky. It is quite high compared with other clubs in the city, which means that a singer’s focus has to be set a couple of inches lower than what might otherwise be […]
It’s serendipitous, I believe, that the first lyrics to be sung during the first official engagement at Manhattan’s new Birdland Theater are from Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” The choice of this song supports the idea that the 100-seat room will be more aligned with a Broadway sound and sensibility than with […]
No hard-and-fast rule dictates how much spoken word cabaret singers should include in their shows. Generally, spoken remarks don’t occur in a show until after the second number. Then, depending on the thematic nature of the program, they’re sprinkled throughout the remainder of the show (though not usually before every single number). Lately, some performers […]
If Leona Helmsley were in purgatory and she had a free pass to spend an hour topside, would she do a cabaret? It’s a great premise. You’ve got to hand it to Alex Lippard for thinking that this would be a timely moment to wonder how a nasty, larger-than-life New York real estate mogul could […]
“You know, we eschew themes,” Steven Zumbo announced early in his recent show at Don’t Tell Mama, a two-night engagement directed by Helen Baldassare. (He could have added that show titles would also be shunned—he dispensed with that convention as well.) The theme-free policy was fine by Zumbo’s enthusiastic audience, and fine by me, too. […]
Presenting an entire program of Noël Coward numbers would, I imagine, give many an American cabaret singer pause. Whose songs are more steadfastly British—not only in lyrical content but also in sound and style? (OK, Gilbert and Sullivan’s, but who else’s?) Also, Coward is one of the rare musical talents of his generation and genre […]
Kendra Cunningham is a good human being. Or, at any rate, she’s trying hard to be one. Growing up in a Catholic, Irish-Lithuanian-American household, she began saying affirmations at age 13. Her favorite is “I love and adore myself,” a motto that has apparently morphed into a full-blown mantra to counter her frequent self-doubts. At […]
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