O Sole Trio

Roy Sander
I didn't know quite what to expect from O Sole Trio. The three members of this group (musical director/accompanist David Shenton and vocalists Erin Shields and Giuseppe Spoletini) all have classical training, so I thought they might present an evening of Italian arias, which would have been just dandy with me. But, then, the group's...

Max and Maxine: Together…AGAIN!

Kevin Scott Hall
 Don't Tell Mama  –  September 13 & 20 First presented back in 1997, "Max and Maxine" follows the careers of an aging lounge act doing its desperate best to remain relevant and hip. Theatre veterans Bryan Scott Johnson and Jennifer Perry have fun playing the over-the-top duo, along with musical director Gary Adler, during a...

Rita Gardner

Roy Sander
"Try to Remember: A Look Back at Off-Broadway" Metropolitan Room  –  September 9, 10, 16, 17, 18 Early in the opening number of her show at the Metropolitan Room, Rita Gardner sings a passage from the score of The Fantasticks that made my jaw drop: more than 50 years after she created the role of...

Storm Large

Mark Dundas Wood
"An Intimate Evening with a Woman Your Mom Warned You About" Metropolitan Room  –  August 31 The aptly named Storm Large blew through town the week after Hurricane Irene's brush with Manhattan. She touched ground at the Metropolitan Room, where she gusted for an hour or so at winds reaching at least 150 miles per...

Broadway Live!

Mark Dundas Wood
Feinstein's at Loews Regency  –  August 29 "Broadway, it's a magical, mystical place," performer Robert Cuccioli told the audience early on in 'Broadway Live!'—"and it's only a couple blocks away!" That may have been the central problem with this revue. With the epicenter of the American Musical Theatre so close by, few audience members here...

Keri Heidecker

Mark Dundas Wood
"Freak Magnet" The Duplex  –  July 29, August 20, 27 "Comedian/singer Keri Heidecker has always attracted freaks. And she is one." So read an online tag for her show, "Freak Magnet." The idea piqued my interest. I imagined something approximating early John Waters movies, only in a cabaret setting. I didn't necessarily imagine that, as...

The Chalks

Kevin Scott Hall
"Denim and Gasoline World Tour" Laurie Beechman Theatre  –  August 15 & 29 "We've been in seclusion, putting our life story to music," says Judeen Chalk, explaining the year and a half since she and her two "sisters," Judelle and Belva—The Chalks—have performed in clubs. If their return to the Laurie Beechman Theatre—with a slew...

Rebecca Kilgore

Roy Sander
"Some Like It Hot – The Music of Marilyn Monroe" Feinstein's at Loews Regency  –  August 9 - 13 Early in her program of songs that Marilyn Monroe sang, Rebecca Kilgore stated her view that many people don't realize how good a singer Monroe was. She had good timing, good intonation, and she swung," Kilgore...

Gregory Generet

Roy Sander
"A Slow Hot Wind" The Metropolitan Room  -  August 9 - 12 After a career with CBS that won him three Emmys, Gregory Generet has been making a quick ascent in New York's jazz world with the release last year of his well-received CD "[re] Generet-ion" and appearances at  high-profile nightspots like Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola...

Jean Brassard & Steve Ross

Roy Sander
"French Lessons" TheTriad  –  July 26 We all know singer-pianist Steve Ross, one of the world's foremost interpreters of good songs. French-Canadian singer-actor Jean Brassard is less familiar, at least on the New York cabaret scene. I first became aware of him a few years ago through his participation in the Kabarett Kollectif, and with...