Gerry Geddes

Gerry Geddes, critic for BistroAwards.com, is an award-winning director, writer, teacher, performer, lyricist, and a contributor to the podcast Troubadours and Raconteurs. He conceived and directed the acclaimed musical revues Monday in the Dark with George (Bistro and MAC Award winner), Put on Your Saturday Suit—Words & Music by Jimmy Webb, and Gerry Geddes & Company (in its five-year residency at Pangea). He has directed singers André De Shields, Darius de Haas, Helen Baldassare, and Lisa Viggiano. He has been active in the cabaret world for over five decades and has produced numerous CDs; his lyrics have been performed and recorded here and in Europe. Gerry’s workshop, The Art of Vocal Performance, is regularly offered to singers of all levels. His memoir of life in NYC, Didn’t I Ever Tell You This?, was recently published and is available at barnesandnoble.com. He is currently at work on his first novel.

Charles Busch

Gerry Geddes
Charles Busch long ago conquered the stages of Off and Off-Off Broadway, often resplendent in gowns recalling the heyday of Hollywood leading ladies and delivering sparkling, campy, stinging, funny, dramatic words of his own devising. On occasion, over the years, he has explored the naked intimacy of the cabaret stage, frequently forgoing his womanly attire—although...

Just Laugh

Gerry Geddes
For some time now, Thomas Honeck and Lisa Moss of the Duplex have been regularly providing a showcase for new and little-known composers and lyricists in a series called In The Works. One pair of songwriters who have taken advantage of this terrific opportunity, Lauren Gundrum and Brandon Lambert, has decided to move on from...

Jack Bartholet

Gerry Geddes
Too often in cabaret, a performer will play it safe when it comes to repertoire, clothes, spoken content, or performance. In his new show, Lady with a Song, singer Jack Bartholet does anything but play it safe as he claims both the stage and his right to be a lady on it for an hour....

Lindsay Mendez

Gerry Geddes
Spoiler alert: This review of Lindsay Mendez's show at Feinsteins/54 Below is going to be an unabashed, totally smitten love letter. Her open, unaffected, thrilling performance transports the audience back to a time when "brassy broad" stars like Dorothy Loudon and Karen Morrow delighted audiences. While there are a couple of concessions to 2019 in...

Matt Rogers

Gerry Geddes
The holidays are, for most, a time of celebration, and I cannot think of a better cabaret celebration than Matt Rogers's brilliantly funny, wonderfully profane, infectiously musical show at The Duplex, Have You Heard of Christmas? The show features "all the songs off his highly anticipated (non-existent) holiday album." Rogers wrote the smart and hilarious...

Telly Leung

Gerry Geddes
When it comes to popular music in general and singing in particular, it might not be the worst of times, but it is far from the best of times. It started back with Star Search, where contestants were encouraged to favor volume and melismatic riffs above phrasing and musicality—and they were rewarded for doing so....

Aisha de Haas

Gerry Geddes
Singer-actress Aisha de Haas entitled her new show at Birdland The Music That Makes Me Dance, but it might have been more accurately titled The Music That Makes Me SING. Claiming to have been liberated from restrictive impressions of what cabaret should be by attending a recent Natalie Douglas show, she had filled this "hodgepodge" with...

Barb Jungr and John McDaniel

Gerry Geddes
In their show 1968 – Let the Sun Shine In, recently at Birdland, Barb Jungr and John McDaniel dove into the amazingly rich pool of music that 1968 produced. It seemed a natural follow-up to their Beatles celebration, Come Together. Jungr, who has long been recognized as an incisive interpreter of popular music, was in rare...

Tammy Faye Starlite

Gerry Geddes
When I entered Pangea on the Lower East Side to see Tammy Faye Starlite's show She Comes in Colors, little did I realize that I would be witnessing a 2018 reincarnation of a Warhol superstar. Her slightly exaggerated look with platinum hair, shockingly red lips, blazing eyes, and high-drama voice would fit in perfectly on a...

Max Vernon

Gerry Geddes
Max Vernon, award-winning composer/lyricist of the off-Broadway hits The View Upstairs and KPOP, has taken up residency at Joe's Pub with Existential Life Crisis Lullaby, which each month will present songs from works in progress. The opening salvo gave us a preview of The Tattooed Lady (written with Obie Award-winning playwright Erin Courtney). In addition...