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.

Lauren Stanford

Mark Dundas Wood
When Lauren Stanford was developing her portrayal of Helen Morgan for her cabaret show "More Than You Know," she must have paid special attention to lyrics from Louis Alter and Arthur Swanstrom's song "(I've Got) Sand in My Shoes." The song's verse begins with the line "You see me smiling, but it's not with my...

Stacie Koby

Mark Dundas Wood
In "Committed," her new show at The Duplex, Stacie Koby ignores the old show-business warning about the dangers of being upstaged when working with animals or children. There are no critters in the act, but Koby is visibly pregnant with her second child, scheduled to arrive several weeks from now. Maybe she figured that because...

William TN Hall

Mark Dundas Wood
A photo advertising "Other People's Parties"—the recent solo cabaret debut of William TN Hall, at The Duplex—shows a hangdog Hall slumped at a bar, nursing a drink with one hand and propping up a cigarette with the other. His expression is that of a man resigned to the shabbiness of the world. But after you see...

Tim Realbuto

Mark Dundas Wood
Earlier this winter the Metropolitan Room generated much publicity for setting the Guinness record for longest variety show ever. With Tim Realbuto's "Bookseller in the Rain: A Tribute to the Music of Maury Yeston," the club may well have quietly attained another superlative achievement: the most singers and musicians to simultaneously perform on (and around)...

Raissa Katona Bennett & Kenneth Gartman

Mark Dundas Wood
One of the most appealing things about "3 Decades in the Dark—Raissa and Kenneth Go to the Movies" (at the Laurie Beechman Theatre) is the easy camaraderie that performers Raissa Katona Bennett and Kenneth Gartman have with each other. The longtime friends explain at one point that they'd wanted for years to work together on a...

Janis Siegel

Mark Dundas Wood
For listeners like me with fond memories of Janis Siegel's soaring, raucous gospel-jive vocals on Manhattan Transfer's big 1975 hit "Operator," the prospect of hearing her in an intimate setting like Jazz at Kitano was enticing. She did not disappoint. I caught the second set of the evening. Siegel arrived on the stage dressed in...

N.W.A. Show (Negroes With Asthma)

Mark Dundas Wood
These days the worlds of stand-up comedy and cabaret in New York City may occasionally intersect, but mostly, it seems, they just sort of brush up against one another. The Duplex, however, is one cabaret venue where stand-up shows crop up fairly often. In recent months, the "N.W.A. Show (Negroes With Asthma)" has appeared on...

Beware of Young Girls: Kate Dimbleby Sings the Dory Previn Story

Mark Dundas Wood
Singer-songwriter Dory Previn (1925-2012) occupied a particular niche in American popular music. Born Dorothy Langan, her first forays into the entertainment world were as a singer/dancer in summer stock. She soon took up songwriting and in the late 1950s was hired as a lyricist for films at MGM, where she was paired with composer André...
Kate Dimbleby

Cafe Society Swing

Mark Dundas Wood
Part documentary theatre and part musical revue, Cafe Society Swing (written by Alex Webb, directed by Simon Green, and presented at 59E59 Theaters) tells of the legendary Manhattan supper club that broke the city's color barrier beginning in 1938. The show is based on Terry Trilling-Josephson's 2009 book Cafe Society: The Wrong Place for the...

Celia Berk

Mark Dundas Wood
In her first New York solo engagement, Celia Berk opened her Metropolitan Room show, "You Can't Rush Spring" (directed by Jeff Harnar), with "I’ve Been Waiting All My Life" (Billy Goldenberg, Alan & Marilyn Bergman). This song’s title was clearly chosen to help describe Berk’s professed long-held ambition to become a cabaret singer. She came off...