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.

Amy Friedl Stoner

Gerry Geddes
Amy Friedl Stoner's Dreamchaser at the Metropolitan Room was one of the most stylish, assured, intelligent, entertaining New York cabaret debuts I have had the pleasure to witness. Using an inspired and well-thought-out program of songs spanning Broadway, the Great American Songbook, country, folk, and contemporary, she filtered all selections through a singular vision and...

Liz Rubino

Gerry Geddes
In Make Yourself Comfortable, singer Liz Rubino's Don't Tell Mama debut, there are two elements and styles at war with each other. One is that of a thoughtful, emotional storyteller making even very well-known lyrics live and breathe in ways that surprise and satisfy. The other is that of a nervous, inexperienced novice (which she...

Louis-and-Ella!

Gerry Geddes
Trent Armand Kendall and Natasha Yvette Williams are terrific singers with lengthy theatre credits, and the idea of them singing songs made famous by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald is very promising. Unfortunately, in Louis-and-Ella! (written by Kendall) at the Cutting Room, they were awash in a conceptual sea. Classifying the show as a "jazzical"...

The Outer Space

Gerry Geddes
The Outer Space, currently running at Joe's Pub, is a song cycle set in the future about the desire to escape the stress, fear, danger ,and drudgery of urban life and the inevitability that those same problems, albeit in different forms, are waiting in whatever destination that escape winds up. Ethan Lipton, who wrote the...

Shelly Watson

Gerry Geddes
Singer/comedienne Shelly Watson takes the stage at the Laurie Beechman Theatre as equal parts Sophie Tucker, Bette Midler, Dolly Parton, Beverly Sills, and a drag queen (in this case a female drag queen). She's been hosting burlesque evenings at the same venue for a while, so her loud, bawdy style is easily traced back to...

Liz Callaway Sings Maltby & Shire

Gerry Geddes
Liz Callaway is a wonder! The Story Goes On: Liz Callaway Sings Maltby & Shire, her loving and beautifully sung tribute at the Appel Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook Series, showed the star of theatre and concert stage at the height of her powers. The clarity, the feeling, and the remarkable technique of...

Billy Lykken

Gerry Geddes
The provocative title of Billy Lykken's recent show at the Metropolitan Room, "Sacred Monster," refers to the posters of various music divas, like Bette Midler and Whitney Houston, that used to hang on his walls when he was growing up as, in his words, "a Filipino Viking." It's an intriguing premise for a show: exploring...

Rachelle Garniez

Gerry Geddes
Much has been written, reported, and broadcast about the celebrity death toll in 2016. While it is probably not substantially different from previous years, it did seem that a disproportionate number of major figures left us. I doubt that there has been a more personal, smart, funny, touching celebration of the artistry and legacy of...

Jesse Luttrell

Gerry Geddes
Before I go into the show that Jesse Luttrell performed at Feinstein's/54 Below with the Fred Barton Broadway Band, let me digress into a bit of metaphorical art criticism. Imagine, if you will, that you have been invited to view the work of an exciting new painter at a gallery show of fourteen of his latest...

Bob Diamond

Gerry Geddes
It's funny how over time, words can lose or change their meanings in popular culture. Before it became a kiss-of-death description, the word "nice" was a perfectly acceptable positive description of something that was neither remarkably good, nor terribly bad. In matters of performing and cabaret, it would indicate a pleasant diversion for an hour...