Mark Dundas Wood

Mark Dundas Wood is an arts/entertainment journalist and dramaturg. He began writing for BistroAwards.com in 2011. Currently, he writes the "Bistro Bits" column for the site. Other reviews and articles have appeared at theaterscene.net and talkinbroadway.com, as well as in American Theatre and Back Stage. As a dramaturg, he has worked with New Professional Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is currently literary manager for Broad Horizons Theatre Company.

Loni Love

Mark Dundas Wood
A comedian, actor, and author, Loni Love is probably best known as a panelist on television's talk fest The Real. Her brand of stand-up may not necessarily stick out in a crowd—she trades in traditional comic staples: race and ethnicity, politics, religion, sex, the misbehavior of celebrities. And she embraces, with seemingly no hesitation, the...

Austin Pendleton and Barbara Bleier

Mark Dundas Wood
Austin Pendleton and Barbara Bleier have a sweet rapport with one another in their show "Late Nights in Smoky Bars" (at Pangea; directed by Barbara Maier Gustern). The two portray longtime friends who meet regularly over potent potables to sort out their lives and offer each other support. (At least that's how it seems at...

Andrea Axelrod

Mark Dundas Wood
Love—you impossible thing! Elusive? Obviously. But sometimes you can also be slippery even to define. Your borders are often blurry and difficult to trace. Andrea Axelrod explores this particular conundrum in her new show at the Metropolitan Room: "Almost Like Being in Love (songs on the cusp of love)." She covers a variety of scenarios...

Claudine Cassan-Jellison

Mark Dundas Wood
Learning about your family history can be fascinating. But how often will strangers share your enthusiasm for stories about the lives of your parents and grandparents? Not especially often, I would guess. Claudine Cassan-Jellison beat the odds with "Just Visiting," her new show at Don't Tell Mama. The evening was built around the saga of...

Marissa Mulder

Mark Dundas Wood
"Marilyn in Fragments"—Marissa Mulder's new show, directed by Sondra Lee and performed at the Laurie Beechman Theatre—doesn't follow the format of an ordinary cabaret "tribute" show. In her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe, Mulder doesn't break character until the very end of the show, and there is seldom a pause taken to allow for audience applause...

Minda Larsen

Mark Dundas Wood
Part of Minda Larsen's prize package for winning last summer's MetroStar Talent Challenge at the Metropolitan Room was a four-performance engagement at the club. Called "My Southern Song" and directed by Marilyn Maye, the resulting show has arrived. In it, Larsen—originally from Jacksonville, Florida—takes a look at her heritage, singing songs about the American South,...

Sally Kellerman

Mark Dundas Wood
Throughout her long acting and singing career, Sally Kellerman has been known for her offbeat qualities. She started working in movies and television in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but her devil-may-care breeziness served her especially well in the "New Hollywood" of the 1970s, a time when endearing eccentrics could flourish, especially when they...

Matt DiPasquale

Mark Dundas Wood
"Neither Here nor There," Matt DiPasquale's engaging show at the Duplex, is a solo act, but for some reason he uses three separate microphones, spread evenly across the front of the stage. Is he working some metaphor—perhaps suggesting that he's not sure of where he stands? Or maybe that he has three times as much...

Chita Rivera

Mark Dundas Wood
At one point during the opening night of her Café Carlyle debut show, "An Evening of My Favorite Songs," Chita Rivera noted that she has been running around for years just being her 35-year-old self, without noticing exactly how much time has elapsed. If this show is any indication, the Rivera approach to aging is...

Gay Marshall

Mark Dundas Wood
Over the years, singer-actress Gay Marshall has made the musical repertoire of Édith Piaf something of a specialty. With the 2015 centenary of the legendary French singer's birth, she has been especially busy of late singing Piaf's material. Yet in many ways her persona doesn't seem much at all like that of the singer she celebrates. Piaf's image,...