Tovah Feldshuh and Charles Busch Will Receive 2025 MAC Lifetime Achievement Award

The Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC) has announced all of the honorees who will be celebrated as part of the upcoming 39th Annual MAC Awards. The awards presentation and show will take place on Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 7:00 pm, at Peter Norton Symphony Space at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street in New York City.

Tovah Feldshuh and Charles Busch will be receiving Lifetime Achievement Awards and will perform live at the show. Brandy's Piano Bar will receive the Board of Directors Award and will be celebrated with a musical number performed live by past and present piano bar performers from Brandy's. Diane D'Angelo will receive the Hanson Award. Marianne Solivan will receive the first NiteLife Exchange Barry Levitt Jazz Award, in a new partnership between the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and NiteLifeExchange.com. Both Diane and Marianne also will be performing live at the show.

Tovah Feldshuh has been on the Broadway marquee for 50 years and is a six-time Emmy and Tony Award nominee, four-time winner of the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards and has been awarded three honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters. Her one-woman shows, Tovah is LEONA! and Aging Is Optional, directed by Jeff Harnar with musical direction and arrangements by James Bassi enjoy sold-out engagements and rave reviews all over the United States. Tovah: Out of Her Mind (now streaming on Spotify) has played four continents and was voted Best One-Woman Show of the Year by the Boston Globe. TV audiences know her as the hot Russian mother of “Hot Rabbi” Adam Brody in the hit Netflix series Nobody Wants This and the overbearing Naomi Bunch, mother of Rachel Bloom in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Other TV credits include Deanna Monroe in The Walking Dead, Danielle Melnick in Law & Order, U.S. President Mackenzie in Salvation, Miryam in Scenes from a Marriage, and Helena in Holocaust. She has graced us on the Broadway stage in the title roles of Yentl, Golda's Balcony, Irena's Vow, plus Lend Me a Tenor, Saravá, Dreyfus in Rehearsal, Rodgers & Hart, Cyrano, the trapeze-swinging Berthe in Pippin, and most recently as Rosie Brice in Funny Girl. Her extensive Off-Broadway/regional credits include portrayals of Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Films include Armageddon Time opposite Anthony Hopkins, Kissing Jessica Stein (Golden Satellite Award), A Walk on the Moon, Brewster's Millions, Just My Luck, Daniel, The Idolmaker, Clifford, Golda's Balcony: The Film, and the just completed Tuner opposite Dustin Hoffman. Her award-winning memoir LILYVILLE: Mother, Daughter and Other Roles I've Played was #1 in Parent-Child Relationships on Amazon. She is the founder of The Feldshuh Fund for Women's Health for early detection of ovarian and all reproductive cancers. Follow her travels @tovahfeld on Instagram. www.tovahfeldshuh.com Photo by Julio Gaggia.

Charles Busch is the author and star of such plays as Psycho Beach Party, Die Mommie Die, The Divine Sister, and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, one of the longest-running plays in Off-Broadway history. His comedy The Tale of the Allergist's Wife ran nearly two years on Broadway and received a Tony nomination for Best Play. In 2024, he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. As a cabaret entertainer, Mr. Busch has appeared in many cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and in concert in New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. Photo by Eric Stephen Jacobs

BRANDY'S PIANO BAR began its life as a bar over a century ago. It operated as a small neighborhood saloon until the 1950s when the owner doubled the space by knocking down a connecting wall that was shared with a sewing store next door. In the 1950s and '60s it was a favorite “hippie” hangout where many artists and musicians congregated, many times painting pictures or jamming on the piano to pay off their bar tab. Billy Joel was known to play a few sets and Bobby Hebb also worked at the bar where legend says that he wrote the 1960s hit “Sunny.” Many of the paintings are still at the bar after being uncovered in the 1990s during some renovation work. In 1979, Rob Hoskins and Erv Raible bought the bar, already owning The Duplex on Grove Street, and later Don't Tell Mama. Health reasons forced Rob and Erv to sell the bar and it was bought by Joe Connell, a retired NYPD sergeant, in 1985. Joe owned it for the next 33 years until his death in 2018. Known as “The Best Kept Secret on the Upper East Side,” Brandys is still going strong with James Luzar as owner. We take pride in our wonderful group of performers, who are always welcomed back after doing a show on the road or in town, and we are very proud to accept this award from our MAC family. 

DIANE D'ANGELO relocated from San Francisco to Manhattan in early 2020 with the intention of returning to live performance on the New York City cabaret stages where, from 1998 to 2004, she worked with her dear friend, musical director, songwriter, and pianist Rick Jensen. During that time, Diane crafted and performed in acclaimed shows at Arci's Place, Don't Tell Mama, Judy's Chelsea, The Waldorf Astoria, and the Firebird. Her last show with Jensen and bassist Tom Hubbard was at a sold-out 54 Below in October 2017 and Feinstein's at the Nikko in San Francisco in April 2018. Diane is a classically trained vocalist who has sung for two former U.S. Presidents. She can be heard on the soundtrack for The Godfather III and has worked with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. As a soloist, Diane has sung the comic operas of Gilbert & Sullivan with the Lamplighters Music Theatre and the San Diego Comic Opera. She has performed at the World Expo in Shanghai, on the Greek island of Mykonos, and on the Playa at the Burning Man Festival in the original opera, The Daughter's of Ishtar, creating the role of Ishtar, the Goddess of Love. With her unique, warm, and exciting spin, Diane sings songs from the American Songbook along with tunes she has picked up from around the world. She has achieved an elegant metamorphosis into a sultry, sophisticated singer gracing the cabaret stage with her very own lush vocal interpretations. She is thrilled to announce her forthcoming album with pianists Tedd Firth and the late Mike Renzi. Which will include musical arrangements by Gregory Toroian, Christopher Denny, Tedd Firth, Michael Orland, and Beckie Menzie! Photo by Helane Blumfield.

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