Robert Windeler

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.

Alan Winner: The Boy Who Loved Bassey

Robert Windeler
"The Boy Who Loved Bassey," the crisp, hour-long show Alan Winner performed (and co-wrote with Ben Cameron, who directed) at the Metropolitan Room (and earlier this year at the Laurie Beechman Theatre), was so much more than a tribute to a great singer who used to be. Alive and well at almost 78 (on January 8,...

Richard Weidlich & Susannah Mars

Robert Windeler
Susannah Mars, Richard Weidlich, Bill Wells Susannah Mars and Richard Weidlich, longtime performing partners from Portland, Oregon, breezed into town for what probably was, judging from the enthusiasm of their fans in the Metropolitan Room audience, a long-overdue New York appearance for this pair of out-of-towners. Both performers are clearly seasoned...

Adam B. Shapiro

Robert Windeler
There was much to like in Adam B. Shapiro's newest show, "Nothing Normal," seen at Urban Stages for one night as part of the theatre's annual Winter Rhythms series (and previously at 54 Below and the Metropolitan Room): the jazzy piano playing by musical director Barry Levitt (particularly on the two songs he wrote with...

Judi Mark

Robert Windeler
It must be ever harder for cabaret performers to come up with a fresh theme for a show. Once the tributes to single (and singular) artists and composers have seemingly been exhausted, where does one go? Perhaps too often it's to the autobiographical look back at the performer's own life and the songs that either...

Kim Grogg

Robert Windeler
"Go Where the Love Is," the title song of Kim Grogg's current show at Don't Tell Mama, speaks volumes. First, it establishes her as a solid, self-confident singer of infectious MidWestern warmth. Second, it neatly establishes the theme and content of her show: mostly upbeat songs about the mostly positive aspects of love. Third, although...

Amanda McBroom and George Ball

Robert Windeler
Amanda McBroom and George Ball's recent show at 54 Below was titled "Some Enchanted Evening: An Evening of Love Songs for Grownups." Even more importantly, this was a cabaret show performed by grownups. McBroom and Ball had last sung together in a club in New York City in 1969. ("He was a child, I was in...

Carol Fredette

Robert Windeler
Carol Fredette has decided that she is not going to sing any more downbeat songs, at least when it comes to their lyric content. That sweeping decision has eliminated all of the blues and a large swath of country music, at a minimum, from her possible repertoire. But this show at Jazz at Kitano, taken...

Isabel Rose

Robert Windeler
Expensively produced flash-and-trash is often able to find an enthusiastic audience, even at the high end of the cabaret world. This one-night effort proved that anew, and you didn't have to go to Las Vegas to see it. Rose, whose show at 54 Below was in aid of her latest album release, "Trouble in Paradise,"...

Louis St. Louis

Robert Windeler
The cabaret act as backers' audition is not a brand new concept. But Louis St. Louis took it to extremes in this outing, with generous selections from five of the shows for which he has written music (and mostly co-written lyrics) that have yet to make it to Broadway—apparently not for lack of trying. Collectively, the...

Sharon McNight: Red Hot Mama – The Sophie Tucker Farewell Tour

Robert Windeler
Those relative few of us who remember Sophie Tucker at all can recall only a stout, corseted old lady in the black-and-white days of the Ed Sullivan TV variety show, waving a white scarf and claiming to be "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas." We knew there must be more to the story, of...