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.

Bistro Bits: Summertime Cabaret: Looking Back, Looking Bacharach, Looking Forward

Mark Dundas Wood
Like a good many things, cabaret action slows somewhat during the summer months, though it certainly doesn’t shut down entirely. There have been plenty of club shows playing in the early summer weeks to keep an avid cabaret goer occumpied Unfortunately, the imminent closing of the Laurie Beechman Theatre has been the biggest news story...

Bistro Bits: Kazan Shazam! With Re-Released Albums, the World Gets a Burst of Vintage Lainie

Mark Dundas Wood
On February 3, 1965, singer-actor Lainie Kazan stepped onto the stage of Manhattan’s Winter Garden Theatre for the first time as Fanny Brice in the Broadway production of Funny Girl, the bio-musical that had opened nearly a year earlier. At that Wednesday matinee, she filled in for ailing star Barbra Streisand in one of musical...

Bistro Bits: Rolling Back the Years—with Mary Hopkin, Dory Previn, and Eydie Gormé

Mark Dundas Wood
The songs, sonatas, and symphonies we gravitate to early in our lives set in motion our own particular musical educations. If we hear and love Mozart or The Grateful Dead or Dolly Parton early on, we’re likely to seek out other music makers in the same general bucket. Of course, we may outgrow or otherwise...

Bistro Bits: Where’s That Rainbow? Kelsey Seaman, James Beaman, and Pride 2024

Mark Dundas Wood
Happy Pride Month 2024, everyone. Let your rainbow flags unfurl and fly! Just remember that, while we celebrate, there are always new concerns percolating. The first Pride event I ever attended was in San Francisco, I believe it was 1978, less than a decade after the Stonewall uprising that instigated the modern gay-rights movement. At...

Bistro Bits: When Theatre Is Cabaret (and Vice Versa)–Three Shows that Blur the Lines

Mark Dundas Wood
One afternoon a few years ago, I sat in a restaurant next to a once-Tony-nominated performer who—not knowing my connection with club performances—brusquely pooh-poohed the whole notion of cabaret. She considered it a pastime for amateurs with grandiose ambitions. Having been deeply moved and/or thoroughly delighted countless times by accomplished artists in cabaret clubs (and...

Bistro Bits: Let’s Hear It for the Guys—King, Skipper, and Harnar Do the Things They Do

Mark Dundas Wood
First things first. I join Sherry Eaker in thanking everyone who made the Bistro Awards evening such a memorable event! Though a Bit Overdue.... This winter and early spring, much time was spent by the Bistros Committee in preparation for awards night. Consequently, content for Bistro Bits columns piled up. So I’m happy to return...

One-Man-Show–manship: Lifetime Achievement Bistro Award Honoree Robert Klein on His Singular Comedic Career

Mark Dundas Wood
Last November, shortly after comedian and actor Robert Klein was confirmed as the recipient of 2024’s Bob Harrington Lifetime Achievement Bistro Award, producer Sherry Eaker and I attended a Saturday night comedy concert of his at the Argyle Theatre in Babylon, New York. Klein was the whole show that night—aside from some assistance from Bob Stein,...

Bistro Bits: January Discoveries Get the New Cabaret Year Going

Mark Dundas Wood
At the start of a new calendar year, are we—subliminally, maybe—more open to new ideas and fresh ways of doing things? I saw several cabaret shows this January. What links the three shows I'm writing about today is that each one involves a discovery of something fresh, innovative, and full of promise. Maybe I wouldn’t...

Bistro Bits: Happy New Year…Possibly

Mark Dundas Wood
I'f you're like me, you may have had mixed feelings in the past few weeks about the imminent arrival of 2024. With controversial wars raging and a shocking appetite for autocracy growing around the globe, plus a divisive, ultra-important election season ahead here at home, I find it a bit hard to concentrate on other...

Bistro Bits: Artist Tributes Highlight the 15th Annual Winter Rhythms Season

Mark Dundas Wood
Next to the NY Cabaret Convention each October, December’s annual Winter Rhythms festival at Urban Stages, is arguably the most important yearly collection of cabaret performances in the city. I got myself to more WR shows this go-round than I usually do. But I didn’t come close to seeing the whole lineup (which ran December...