Stephen Hanks - Page 10

Two years ago, in my generally favorable review of Pamela Lewis' quirky, if flawed, cabaret show Dog Walking Diva, I went a little bit out on the limb with . . . “She has the potential to be a major cabaret star.” Well, as Lewis (who given her bubbly and bold personality performs under the totally appropriate moniker of “Champagne Pam”) remarked often in her newest show, during which she assessed whether she had yet achieved a list of life goals, that particular observation would have to get a “check.” Because with Daddy's Little Girl, Champagne Pam--who proudly admitted to having reached the Big 4-0--is all grown up as a cabaret performer and should be a member of that rarified group who even a reviewer on a press comp should pay to see and hear.

I thought about many happy childhood musical theater memories last night while I attended the Dutch Treat Club's Annual Gold Medal Tribute Dinner and Show at the Harvard Club in honor of the legendary 'Fiddler of the Roof' lyricist Sheldon Harnick, who received the Club's Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Stephen Hanks, BroadwayWorld.com Cabaret Columnist has produced and will host Stephen's Angels, a cabaret variety show presented by ScoBar Entertainment and slated for the Iridium Jazz Club on May 14 at 10pm. Stephen's Angels will introduce audiences to six 'smart, sassy, sexy young women, whose singing is sublime.' Five of the six ladies are currently preparing summer or fall cabaret shows for the Metropolitan Room, and one will be launching a CD release show at the Laurie Beechman Theater in June.

When you're a cabaret reviewer on the evening show prowl between Monday night and Saturday evening (although not every night, thank goodness), you'd like to think that the God of Cabaret would make Sunday a day of rest. No such luck, since the weekend allows clubs to book shows as early as brunch time. I learned this again early this month when I felt compelled to attend three shows starring charming female singers-Corinna Sowers-Adler at Stage 72 (the Triad), Eva Kantor at the Laurie Beechman, and Lianne Marie Dobbs at the Metropolitan Room. I didn't break my personal Sunday record of four shows in one day set in late January (yes, I should be committed), but there was a two-hour break in this mix so it still turned out to be an 8-hour cabaret extravaganza. (Thank you, oh God of Cabaret, for press comps!) While it would have been sweet for the musical marathon to have been a clean sweep of excellent shows, as Meat Loaf might croon, 'Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad.'

Texas born and bred singer William Blake--who came to New York six years ago at age 24--has lately taken the town by storm with his terrific tribute show to the legendary Etta James. In the process, Blake has also managed to transform some of the town's most prestigious nightclub/cabaret venues into his own personal concert halls. First it was at Birdland, where in the summer of 2012 and with the support of 'Cast Party' impresario Jim Caruso, Blake launched his Echoes of Etta raucous, standing-room only crowds. Then last February, Blake, his five piece band and three girl backup singers, overpowered Joe's Pub. But the last two nights might have been Blake's most impressive performances to date, as he totally captured the crowd at the elegant and sedate Cafe Carlyle (for the room's new 10:45 'Second Act' sets). It was almost as if you were experiencing an R & B concert at Carnegie Hall.

It's April 1st. Do you know when your Spring is coming? During another longggggg New York winter, the good news is that there were a ton of warming cabaret shows. The bad news is that there were so many, even during this seemingly endless winter our intrepid reviewer Stephen Hanks didn't have enough time to review them all right after the performances. So in what is becoming a seasonal ritual, here he offers yet another compilation of 13 'catch-up' cabaret show reviews.

Well, it took me almost a year and a half and a long car ride deep into New Jersey to do it, but when last Saturday night (March 23) I finally got a chance to see and hear Lauren Fox's Joni Mitchell/Leonard Cohen Tribute Show ('The painter and the poet who mesmerized the world with their songs,' as Fox put it), it was well worth the wait--and the trip. Actually, the show itself was a trip, as Fox not only embodied the look, spirit, and vocal timbre of Mitchell and her songs (if not completely reaching her soaring soprano), she also managed to channel the persona of the intense and mysterious machoness of Cohen simply by donning a fedora and maximizing her deeper register voice. It's not at all a surprise that Fox not only received rave media reviews and the 2012 MAC Award for 'Best Debut' for this show, but that a 750-seat theater like the recently-renovated, Art Deco style Landis in Vineland, NJ, would want to bring this stunning, 16-song cabaret set and Fox's transcendent performance to their stage

When Dana Lorge's run as a Variety Show hosted ended at the Iguana Restaurant last July-and after winning two 2012 MAC Awards for 'Best Variety Show' and 'Best Variety Show Host'-who knew she'd be reduced to being a cabaret audience member searching for a new showcase? But a Metropolitan Room Mentch has come to the rescue in the form of Bernie Furshpan (the Met Room's General Partner and Manager), who has provided Dana with a monthly forum for her unique brand of cabaret shtick beginning Friday, April 5 at 7-8:15 pm. While the new show won't be the two-hour plus extravaganza of yore featuring more than a dozen performers, Dana's new 'Variety Show' promises to feature a solid group of experienced and well-known cabaret and musical theater pros. For the April 5 opener, the Lorge Lineup features Richard Skipper, her former Award-winning Co-host from the Iguana days; film and stage actor Jim Brochu (of Zero Mostel One-Man Show fame), singers LaTanya Hall (from the CBS show 'Blue Bloods) and Peggy Herman Klat, Rick Crom (Creator of Newsical the Musical), and Mr. Furshpan, who will show off his stand-up comedy chops. But the real star of the show will always be the hilarious, unpredictable, darling Dana, who will both crack you up with her infectious humor and surprise you with her engaging singing performances.

Observing the evolution of young Marissa Mulder's cabaret career is like watching a high jumper going for the gold at the Olympic Games. With every show or performance, she and the creative teams around her set the bar just a little bit higher and she keeps clearing the dang thing. But with her new Tom Waits Tribute Show, which opened last night at the Metropolitan Room (and continues through Saturday night, all at 7pm), the bar was raised multiple notches, and damn if she didn't clear it with inches to spare. With Tom . . . In His Own Words/The Songs of Tom Waits, Mulder has vaulted herself into major cabaret performer territory and even managed to stick the landing.

Wednesday night was the second of Marilyn Maye's first 54 Below run (which will continue until March 16) and she sashayed around the stage in front of an almost full house like a woman of 35. Like most of her shows, Maye's performance was a 'live' cabaret Master Class for budding cabaret performers and seasoned professionals alike, and this 'Maye-den Voyage' never went adrift (thanks in part to solid and unobtrusive support from Tedd Frith on piano, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Jim Eklof on drums).

The cabaret gods must be smiling on this reviewer because this past Saturday evening my wife and I celebrated her birthday with an intimate dinner in between a couple of totally engaging shows from two lovely ladies of cabaret; the beautiful Jillian Laurain paying homage to classic Broadway show tunes at the Metropolitan Room, and the beguiling Stacy Sullivan in her MAC and BroadwayWorld.com Award-nominated tribute to Peggy Lee, 'It's a Good Day,' at the Cafe Carlyle. For me and the Birthday Girl, it was definitely a good night.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will issue a proclamation declaring March "Cabaret Month" in honor of a tradition long observed by New York City club owners. The proclamation will be presented at the Cabaret Hotline Anniversary Gala at the Laurie Beechman Theater on March 6th. Vocalist Craig Pomranz, who spearheaded the campaign to get the Mayor on board, will accept the document on behalf of the cabaret community including the organizations: Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC), Cabaret Hotline, and The Mabel Mercer Foundation, which presents the annual Cabaret Convention each October.

Who would have ever thought that the New York Cabaret scene would end up having almost as many awards shows as the film industry? The Nightlife Awards Show at Town Hall was presented on January 14, and the newly established BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Awards Show filled the Metropolitan Room on February 21. The Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC) will hold it's 27th Annual MAC Awards Show on March 21 at B.B. King's Blues Club. But next up is the 28th Annual Bistro Awards Gala, which recognizes outstanding achievement in New York cabaret, jazz, and comedy, on March 4 at 6:30pm at the Gotham Comedy Club (208 West 23rd Street, Between 7th & 8th Ave). The evening, under the direction of Shellen Lubin, will once again be co-hosted by comedian and actor Jim David, and will feature performances from most of this year's Bistro-winning artists.

Performing legends Ben Vereen and Marilyn Maye, celebrated composer Jason Robert Brown, as well as cabaret stars Billy Stritch, KT Sullivan, Karen Kohler, Jim Caruso, and Colleen McHugh are among the winners of the first-ever BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Awards, and who will appear in a star-studded show at the Metropolitan Room today, February 21 (6:30-9 pm). These entertainers and many others became award-winners after almost two months of voting and the casting of an astounding 10,000 votes over 20 categories on the Cabaret section of the BroadwayWorld.com website. The 2012 BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Awards Show will be hosted by BroadwayWorld.com's lead Cabaret Reviewer/Columnist Stephen Hanks, while the show's Musical Director will be MAC Award-winning MD and composer Bill Zeffiro.

At last year's Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC) Awards, two of the big winners were T. Oliver Reid (photo left) for Male Debut and Eric Michael Gillett for Major Artist, Male (and both could very likely be MAC nominees again this year). Almost a year later, two of New York cabaret's leading men performed new shows one night apart at 54 Below; Reid on February 6 with Drop Me Off in Harlem, and Gillett the next night with Careless Rhapsody: An Evening Dedicated to the Lyrics of Lorenz Hart. Ironically, what the shows had in common--besides being a fairly good fit of material to singer--was that the majority of their sets featured songs written in the 1930s but in very different styles. With Reid it was the jazz, swing and blues of Harlem; with Gillette it was the romantic Broadway musical sensibility of Hart's lyrics (paired with the timeless melodies of Richard Rodgers). While neither Reid's 'Harlem,' nor Gillett's 'Hart' were stirring or spectacular shows, they were both solid and entertaining enough that both could be nominated for BroadwayWorld.com Awards in 2013.

If you couldn't get to the Ziegfeld Theatre at the end of January to attend the year-late 40th Anniversary Blu-Ray DVD Screening of the 1972 film “Cabaret,” here's how you can do the next best thing. Head over to Stage 72 (formerly The Triad, on 158 W. 72nd Street) and watch KT Sullivan and Karen Kohler in their 2012 BroadwayWorld.com Award-winning revue 'Vienna to Weimar,' which will transport you into the politically infused and sexually steamy period of pre-World War II Austria and Germany, when life and art really was a cabaret. The only things missing will be a decadent MC and scantily-clad dancers.

It's hard to believe that Amanda McBroom--who many consider to be one of the country's leading cabaret performers--had never played the elegant Cafe Carlyle before the current run of her new show A Valentine Rose. But better late than never because few things could warm the cockles of a romance-craved heart more on a frigid early February evening than McBroom sweeping into the Carlyle and singing songs about the vagaries of love that fit her special definition: 'Like a double expresso--a slice of life ground under pressure with a little bit of steam.'

Acclaimed jazz recording star Jane Monheit is the latest 2012 BroadwayWorld.com Cabaret Award winner to join a star-studded performing lineup featuring fellow winners Ben Vereen and Marilyn Maye, composer Jason Robert Brown, as well as cabaret stars Billy Stritch, KT Sullivan, Karen Kohler, Jim Caruso, and Colleen McHugh. All of these great entertainers and many other Award-winners will appear at the first-ever BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Awards show at the Metropolitan Room on Thursday, February 21 (6:30-9 pm). These entertainers and many others became award-winners after almost two months of voting and the casting of an astounding 10,000 votes over 20 categories on the Cabaret section of the BroadwayWorld.com website. The 2012 BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Awards Show will be hosted by BroadwayWorld.com's lead Cabaret Reviewer/Columnist Stephen Hanks, while the show's Musical Director will be MAC Award-winning MD and composer Bill Zeffiro.

Even her biggest fans among the opening night crowd were likely befuddled, slightly bothered, and even a tad bewildered when they heard that Christine Andreas' first cabaret show at 54 Below was called "Bemused," and not exactly sure what that meant. But they would ultimately end up being thoroughly bewitched by a wonderfully engaging show by this totally entertaining pro. While most current or former Broadway stars who are staging shows at 54 Below are performing what amounts to mini-concerts, the lady who first became a Broadway audience favorite as Eliza Doolittle in the 20th anniversary production of My Fair Lady (and is two-time Tony Award nominee) knows her way around cabaret and developed a charmingly creative conceit for this run (continuing on Jan. 29, Feb. 1, 2 at 8:30 pm and Jan. 30, 31 at 7 pm), which included songs from Broadway, pop, the Great American Songbook, and even Edith Piaf.

If you're a cabaret performer thinking about staging a musical comedy theme show, or even if you're just a cabaret fan who appreciates a thoroughly entertaining show on multiple levels, you should try to squeeze yourself into The Duplex on Wednesday night at 7 pm to see Adam Shapiro's encore performance of his Guide to the Perfect Breakup, which is also a textbook on how to create the almost perfect musical comedy cabaret show. With the guidance and support of Director Peter Napolitano and Musical Director Barry Levitt, Shapiro has crafted a structurally intricate yet seamless show about the evolution of romantic relationships-no matter what your gender-which is also funny without being sarcastic, biting without being bitchy, and tender without being cloying. And it showcases the talents of a cuddly teddy bear of a performer, who possesses the kind of solid singing, acting, and comedic chops that make him a young, rising cabaret star.