Critically-Acclaimed Performer Kim David Smith Presents MORE MOSTLY MARLENE at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater

Australian cabaret performer Kim David Smith conjures the glitter, doom, and decadence of 1920's Berlin and beyond in his intimate celebration of Dietrich's musical and cultural legacy: “More Mostly Marlene,” with more Minnelli, more Minogue, and much more Marlene than ever before!  

Queer mega-muses collide with Marlene's reimagined repertoire in Smith's luxurious musical rearrangements, stravaging from Weimar Berlin, to Hollywood, through to the battlefields of Europe and into the stratosphere with Dietrich's immortal "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss.” Musical direction is by award-winning accompanist Tracy Stark, with costumes by Miodrag Guberinic (Gaga, Madonna, Broadway, film, and television). Debuting at Club Cumming in March 2020, Smith's original iteration of “Mostly Marlene” (littered with more than a modest modicum of Minogue, Madonna, Minnelli, and more!) enjoyed a sold-out Australian premiere at Alan Cumming's 2021 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, more sold-out antics at Club Cumming on the Coast (Kennebunkport, Maine, August 2021), a celebrated return to NYC's Club Cumming in September and October of 2022, and performances at Joe's Pub (2022), the Post Office Café (Provincetown, 2023) and Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie (2022, 2023).

February 2024 sees Smith joined by Matt Podd (accordion), Skip Ward (bass), and David Silliman (drums) for an exuberant and expanded “More Mostly Marlene” at Joe's Pub, to be recorded as Kim's newest album, alongside bonus track duets featuring the legendary Joey Arias, the extraordinary Charles Busch, and Smith's own darling mother, Linda Randall, among other celestial juggernauts of the queer cabaret pantheon.   

"Smith doesn't impersonate Dietrich in any strict sense. Rather he channels her essence. Donning her trademark hat and tails, Smith, in fact, goes Dietrich one better as a man playing a woman playing a man. This sort of androgyny is straight out of the Dietrich playbook...The wonderful, magical part is that Kim David Smith plays none of it for camp. He winks at the audience, to be sure, but the evening is an honest and loving tribute to Marlene. He captures her signature style: the languid delivery, the fluid gestures, the almost predatory sexuality, and those breathtaking moments when she became so still and internal it was a little spooky. None of it feels natural, and that's precisely the point. Marlene Dietrich always let the audience in on the fact that they weren't watching reality, they were watching an inspired creation. Kim David Smith is inspired, indeed.” - Ricky Pope, Broadway World

Australian Kim David Smith is a Helpmann Award nominated singer and cabaret performer, known for his Weimar-era inspired works that juxtapose authentic musical material with stylistic takes on current popular tunes. His debut live album “Kim David Smith Live at Joe's Pub” was released in July 2020 (for which he received a 2022 Bistro Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Recording”). His cabaret programmes, “Mostly Marlene, “A Wery Weimar Christmas,” “Morphium Kabarett” and “Kim Sings Kylie” have performed regularly in New York City at Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie, Joe's Pub at The Public Theatre, Club Cumming, and Pangea. In Australia, Smith has been presented at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, the inaugural Sydney Cabaret Festival, The Festival of Voices, The Brisbane Cabaret Festival, The Ballarat Cabaret Festival, Chapel Off Chapel, the National Gallery of Victoria, and Smith's cabaret birthplace, Melbourne's Butterfly Club. 2009 saw Smith presented with the Bistro Award for Special Achievement (honored alongside Liza Minnelli and Charles Aznavour). He was also nominated for 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2017, and 2022 Manhattan Association of Cabaret (MAC) Awards in the Outstanding Male Vocalist category, and received the 2023 Singnasium Trailblazer award in recognition of his devotion to the Weimar Kabarett catalogue, and the art form of Cabaret in general. Smith is a recipient of the American Australian Association's Dame Joan Sutherland Award for aspiring artists (2008), and is a member of the Kabarett Kollektif, a troupe of New York-based artists dedicated to preserving the European cabaret tradition. Mr. Smith studied at the Ballarat Arts Academy in Australia (BA, Music Theatre).