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.

Gay Marshall

Gerry Geddes
Leonard Cohen wore many coats in addition to his famous "Famous Blue Raincoat": he was a novelist, a poet, a musician, a songwriter, a singer, an actor, and for a time, a stand-up comedian. A native Canadian, he was best known in this country as a singer-songwriter, first introduced to me (and many others) by...

Martin Landry

Gerry Geddes
The title of actor-singer-writer Martin Landry's new show at the Duplex, Screlton McNodes and His Search for Transcendence Through the Act of Putting on Musicals in the Barn with Stray Cats Amidst a Life Full of Pain, Abuse, Murder, and Insanity, may at first glance appear to be the most descriptive title in the history...

Mary Foster Conklin

Gerry Geddes
Fran Landesman is one of the quintessential 20th century lyricists. She combined the hip cool of jazz with the anti-establishment style of the beat generation and the conversational naturalism of the best pop music into a heady body of work written with some of the most influential composers of the time. In Life Is a...

Cheryl Bentyne

Gerry Geddes
Singer Cheryl Bentyne, of Manhattan Transfer fame, publicized reARRANGEMENTS OF SHADOWS, her recent show at Birdland, as a celebration of her new release of Sondheim songs, but it turned out to be more a preview of the CD because fully half of the program consisted of non-Sondheim material. Although this might have been disappointing to...

Lorna Dallas

Gerry Geddes
To the best of my knowledge, February 26th is not a holiday, but perhaps it should be. That date marked the return to the New York cabaret stage, after a 20-year absence, of singer Lorna Dallas in a beautifully fashioned, exquisitely performed show called Home Again. With the invaluable assistance of director Barry Kleinbort and...

Ruth Carlin

Gerry Geddes
Early in a recent encore performance of her show Kaleidoscope Eyes at Don't Tell Mama, singer Ruth Carlin professed her love for words, for poetry, and for lyrics. It was not a necessary profession because it was evident in her very first song, a version of Lionel Bart's "Who Will Buy?" that was filled with...

RELATIONSH!T

Gerry Geddes
The theme of a revue can be a two-edged sword. When the song and humor work, it can be delightful, but without some thought of variation of story and/or a through line that brings us to some moral or message or climax, there can be too much repetition. While there were funny, and occasionally touching,...

Zachary Clause

Gerry Geddes
Ambition should always be applauded, even when the show that results from that ambition is a mixed success. Such is the case with the task performer Zachary Clause sets himself with Zachary Clause Does Bette Midler at the Continental Baths, 1971, currently in a return engagement at Pangea. He attempts to recreate every word, every...

Vicki Kristina Barcelona

Gerry Geddes
Rachelle Garniez, Amanda Homi, and Terry Radigan are accomplished singers, songwriters, and musicians with thriving solo careers. It was a shared love of the songs of reprobate troubadour Tom Waits that brought the women together to form the trio Vicki Kristina Barcelona. Recently on the intimate stage at Pangea, their show, Yesterday Is Here, proved...

Shequida: Jessye Normous

Gerry Geddes
Shequida is the drag alter ego of Jamaican-born, Julliard-trained opera singer Gary Hall, and Jessye Normous is the drag alter ego of Shequida. This is all quite meta for the small world of cabaret, but what really matters is that his/her/their new show was a mostly hilarious and highly entertaining event. The evening began with...