Three-time Emmy-winning actor Dave Konig’s comedy show, playing at Don’t Tell Mama on various dates through August 29, is a laugh-a-minute, Borscht Belt-style joke-fest aimed at middle-aged audiences. For a solid hour, Konig hurls forth his Seinfeld-like observational humor (“Don’t you hate it when…?) in the loud, high-voltage fashion of the angry comedian. There are […]
Many of us who are crawling out of our pandemic isolation might be ready to dive into hedonism—in the hope that it could serve as a tonic for the underlying rumble of fear we’ve lived with for the past year. Enter Artemisia LeFay’s timely Weimar-themed show at Don’t Tell Mama, Ghosts of Weimar Past, where […]
People everywhere are or will be recounting tales of what they did doing the Covid lockdown, but few will have a souvenir of that time as brilliant and creative as singer-songwriter Eleri Ward‘s. In a closet of her New York apartment, she fashioned A Perfect Little Death—Suf/Sond, a recording that imagines what 13 iconic Stephen Sondheim […]
Between 1992 and 2017, singer and composer/lyricist Craig Carnelia (Working, Sweet Smell of Success) taught acting classes for singers in a studio on West 71st Street in Manhattan. His students included members of the New York City theatre community. They may have been prepping for auditions or working on a particular role or song. Sutton […]
Sometimes, listening to a brand new CD can be like discovering the pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow, and that is just how I felt listening to the latest release from British jazz vocalist Sarah Moule. Stormy Emotions consists of 12 songs by lyricist Fran Landesman and composer/pianist Simon Wallace, including 10 […]
After more than a year’s drought, cabarets are finally reopening. And that’s very good news. I wasn’t able to get to Birdland to see Dawn Derow in her show Gypsy in My Soul—the Music of Eydie Gormé, but I was able to stream it the very next night. Obviously, streaming can’t compare to sitting in […]
In 1952, the iconic star Fred Astaire recorded a multi-album set of the classic songs he had introduced or featured over the previous decades. Norman Granz, the producer, surrounded the song & dance man with legendary musicians from Jazz at the Philharmonic, with Oscar Peterson on piano. The songs were, of course, immaculately sung, but the […]
Singer Amber Weekes’s newest release, ‘Round Midnight — Re-Imagined, has a classic, lived-in feel that allows the listener to luxuriate in its style, its romance, its intelligence, and its sheer musical richness while enjoying the rich storytelling and the trove of surprises to be found in its tracks. There is quite a lot of backstory and factual […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Article #15 in this ongoing series. The simple-yet-engaging standard “Blue Skies” has the distinction of being the most successful Irving Berlin number ever to debut in a Rodgers & Hart musical. It’s not clear exactly when Berlin had begun composing the song, but, according to biographer Lawrence Bergreen, the […]
What Are the Differences? Do They Prefer One Over the Other? Does Each Serve the Artist in Different Ways? Some cabaret-cum-musical theatre performers equivocate, but most, at least among those I interviewed, suggest that any performer who does cabaret can do musical theatre whereas the reverse may not true. In fact, cabaret hones your acting […]