Mark Dundas Wood is an arts/entertainment journalist and dramaturg. In addition to reviewing for BistroAwards.com, he contributes regularly to theaterscene.net and clydefitchreport.com. Other reviews and articles have appeared in American Theatre and Back Stage. As a dramaturg, he has worked with New Professional Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Song #9 in this running series Although Dar Williams’s song “When I Was a Boy” would go on to become a signature number for her, she once apparently harbored doubts about its potential. This eloquent and extremely likable story-song might well have been laid to eternal rest […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Song #8 in this running series. This installment of Cabaret Setlist is published on the day before what’s being called the most significant presidential election of our lifetimes. Wanting something pertinent to the occasion, we decided on a Broadway song first heard in 1976, the year of […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Song #7 in this running series Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn’s “Makin’ Whoopee,” first sung by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 musical Whoopee!—is a hardy comedic evergreen. While researching it, I was startled to discover that the person I would most have wanted to interview was…Sir Winston […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Song #6 in this running series Part of my intention when starting this series was to take a fresh look at songs from the American Songbook that have endured over several decades. Additionally, though, I wanted to examine newer songs, ones that would seem to have an […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Song #5 in this running series Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s “It Never Was You” might be better known today were it not for Walter Huston. The 54-year-old actor was slated to appear in Knickerbocker Holiday, a 1938 Broadway musical based on Washington Irving’s A History […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Song #4 in this running series The cable came directly from Audrey Hepburn, who was in France shooting her latest film, with director/producer Stanley Donen. “Dearest Hank, please won’t you do the music? … Can’t imagine anyone else but you scoring.” How could Henry Mancini refuse the […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Song #3 in this running series. Unlike the first two songs we’ve examined in Cabaret Setlist (Rodgers & Hart’s “Little Girl Blue” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Sand”), today’s selection hails from the world of AM-radio pop. First heard in January 1967, “California Nights” anticipates the coming Summer of […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Song #2 in this new running series. Few among us dispute the idea that Stephen Sondheim is the most important living American composer/lyricist in musical theatre. He has raised the artistic bar for songwriting so high that giants in the sky could effortlessly dance the limbo beneath […]
Song #1 in this new running series: “Little Girl Blue” – Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart When it comes to cabaret repertoire, I can think of few other songwriters who have created the sort of treasure trove that Rodgers and Hart have given us. The appeal of their catalog was (and […]
Showbroads—a battling-diva entertainment with Marta Sanders and Leanne Borghesi—appeared late last year at Birdland. Recently, the lively show, under the direction of Nicolas Minas, was repeated at the same venue. The evening proved to be good old-fashioned campy fun. The comic feuding of the two actor-singers never rose to a pitch that seemed especially caustic. […]