Ilieva Says Farewell to Danny's with 'So Many Nights'

Milla Ilieva, the 2006 Bistro Award-winner and 2004 and 2006 Nightlife Award finalist will return with her critically-acclaimed show "So Many Nights, So Many Men" to Danny's Skylight Room Cabaret, 346 West 46th Street for another back-by-popular demand one-night stand on Friday, December 29 at 9:15pm.

"The style-spanning romantic round robin of songs about love -- many rarely heard and some that will knock your clothes off -- will be performed in tribute to the Don Schaffer-run room's last week," as press materials state.

"A slightly more chaste version of the 'So Many Nights, So Many Men' will also play a special engagement at The Mahwah Library, 100 Ridge Street, in Mahwah New Jersey, on Sunday January 14 at 2pm. It will be renamed 'Taking a Chance on Love' for the occasion.

Mixing Broadway ballads, rediscovered theatre comic curios, and a bon bon sampler from the American popular songbook, 'So Many Nights, So Many Men,' features music director Paul Trueblood on piano, and is directed by Margery Beddow.

A multifaceted vocalist, Ilieva is as comfortable performing standards as she is singing opera and country western. Ilieva's colorful upbringing includes her formative years as a country girl in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and stints learning the trade -- the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins, the Académie Ravel in France, and The Juilliard School's Professional Studies Program. She is proud of her Russian heritage.

In 'So Many Nights, So Many Men,' Ilieva lampoons her apparently insatiable appetite for love (she was engaged five times) as she jumps from songs by composers as varied as Rimsky-Korsakov, Vernon Duke, Jule Styne, Ray Jessel, Harold Arlen, Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, Jacques Urbont, Lionel Bart and Arthur Schwartz. Singing of love's heartbreak, loss, excess, quixotic optimism, and out-and-out-decadence, she wraps the whole affair in dazzling packages that show off her vocal mastery, emotional range and urbane wit. Among the show's juicier musical morsels are songs from the cult classics All in Love, Lock Up Your Daughters, and The Act."

"So Many Nights, So Many Men," Ilieva's swan song for Danny's, plays on Friday December 29 at 9:15pm. The music charge is $20, with a $12 food and drink minimum. All major credit cards accepted. For reservations call (212) 265-8133. Danny's Skylight Room Cabaret, 346 West 46th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues).