Robert Windeler is the author of 18 books, including biographies of Mary Pickford, Julie Andrews, Shirley Temple, and Burt Lancaster. As a West Coast correspondent for The New York Times and Time magazine, he covered movies, television and music, and he was an arts and entertainment critic for National Public Radio. He has contributed to a variety of other publications, including TV Guide, Architectural Digest, The Sondheim Review, and People, for which he wrote 35 cover stories. He is a graduate of Duke University in English literature and holds a masters in journalism from Columbia, where he studied critical writing with Judith Crist. He has been a theatre critic for Back Stage since 1999, writes reviews for BistroAwards.com, and is a member of The Players and the American Theatre Critics Association.
Editor’s note: This review has been updated to correct factual errors in the original version published on December 10. We apologize for the errors and sincerely regret any misunderstanding they caused. At the beginning of A Celebration of Jewish Broadway (directed by Lina Koutrakos), which he recently brought back to Birdland Theater, Ari Axelrod cheerfully […]
In her latest show, From Lady Day to The Boss (at Don’t Tell Mama, smoothly directed by Tanya Moberly), Lisa Viggiano justly and joyously celebrated the nearly five-decade career at Columbia Records of John Henry Hammond—from his supervision of the last recordings of Bessie Smith to his signing and launching of Bruce Springsteen. In between […]
An admitted and proud octogenarian, Bob Diamond clearly revels in his longevity. In his latest show, The Game of Life (at Don’t Tell Mama, directed by Gretchen Reinhagen), he proved it yet again. In a fetching cranberry-colored shirt by Betty of Burbank (“she makes all my shirts”), and strong and confident in both his singing […]
If there’s such a thing as a carefully crafted stream-of-consciousness approach to cabaret, Elizabeth Parrish is surely the queen of it. In her recent show at Pangea, Every Soul’s a Cabaret (directed by Paola Styron), “Betsy,” as she was introduced, made a most convincing case for her own life as a cabaret and a largely […]
On September 16, 1986, Susan Trosell, as she was called then, performed her first cabaret show at Don’t Tell Mama, having passed a nerve-wracking audition for Sidney Myer. Exactly 33 years later, with the same Sidney Myer in attendance, Sue Matsuki, as she had long since become, celebrated her pearl-plus-three-year anniversary with a thoughtful and […]
At this time of her life (“now post-menopausal and proud of it”), Meg Flather is clearly reassessing her past mistakes and triumphs along with her current and future options. In her dazzling recent (and future) show at Don’t Tell Mama, Outbound Plane (directed by Lennie Watts), she not only repurposed 14 songs of wide variety […]
She’s done it again. Only more so this time. Over several seasons, we’ve come to expect the best from Sally Darling, including straight-ahead, uncluttered vocals, a profound understanding of lyrics, and an infectious sense of humor when her material requires it. But in her current cut-above show at Don’t Tell Mama, with the somewhat brazen […]
Although, by her own reckoning, she’s been a professional singer since 1987, Luba Mason postponed performing her first fully autobiographical cabaret show until Luba Mason – 5’10”, her recent outing at The Green Room 42. From an audience point of view, it was well worth the wait. Apart from the expected (and delivered) powerful and wide-ranging […]
Nostalgia can cover a multitude of sins or situations. Even better if the nostalgia is shared. In the case of Andrea McArdle’s recent new show at Feinstein’s/54 Below, the happy remembrance of things past was needed to leaven only one ongoing hiccup. And this particular glitch her audience’s group nostalgia overcame very nicely indeed. “I’m […]
Somewhat as a sequel to Stories, her New York cabaret debut nearly a decade ago, Corinna Sowers Adler recently offered Second Stories at the Triad Theater. But this stunning, hour-long set proved to be so much more than a mere follow-up to a prior clutch of story songs. This time out, in a wide-ranging selection […]