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.

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...

Peggi Blu

Gerry Geddes
Lee Summers's Just A Piano concert series, now in its tenth year at the Triad Theater, recently presented Peggi Blu in Sinatra in Blu – If Sinatra Were Born a Black Woman, which she wrote. A grand champion on TV's Star Search, Blue later became a vocal coach on American Idol, while continuing a career in...

Veronica Swift

Gerry Geddes
At Birdland, singer Veronica Swift and the Benny Green Trio deliver a most satisfying evening of jazz, centered almost solely in the world of bop. At the late show on opening night, Green and his cohorts opened the set with three fiery examples of jazz artistry. On their first selection, Green's blistering original "Wiggin" (in...

Robin Westle

Gerry Geddes
A "concept" in cabaret is a tricky thing. It can be an elaborate and complex narrative or character that permeates every moment of the show. It can be a tribute to another performer or to a songwriter. It can be a loosely structured through-line that might reach the audience only subliminally. Or a show can...

Lea DeLaria

Gerry Geddes
As far as I know, the stage at Birdland might still be steaming and too hot to touch after Lea DeLaria's incendiary David Bowie show there last week, which centered on her latest CD, House of David: delaria + bowie = jazz, The Orange Is the New Black star opened with "Boys Keep Swinging," a bold, dynamic...

Linda Glick

Gerry Geddes
In her early years as a singer in New York, Linda Glick split her time between teaching high school Spanish and French during the day and appearing at some of the city's landmark cabarets, such Les Mouches and Reno Sweeney, at night. As her nighttime career bloomed, it overcame her daytime pursuits as she moved...