Mark Dundas Wood

Mark Dundas Wood is an arts/entertainment journalist and dramaturg. He began writing for BistroAwards.com in 2011. Currently, he writes the "Bistro Bits" column for the site. Other reviews and articles have appeared at theaterscene.net and talkinbroadway.com, as well as in American Theatre and Back Stage. As a dramaturg, he has worked with New Professional Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is currently literary manager for Broad Horizons Theatre Company.

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Bistro Bits: Artist Tributes Highlight the 15th Annual Winter Rhythms Season

Next to the NY Cabaret Convention each October, December’s annual Winter Rhythms festival at Urban Stages, is arguably the most important yearly collection of cabaret performances in the city. I...

Bistro Bits: Jazz and Cabaret…. Kissing Cousins or Estranged Siblings? Veronica Swift and Mary Foster Conklin Shed Some Light

Jazz and cabaret—two spheres, almost adjacent, yet set just apart. I’ve often thought about the ways these two musical performance genres intersect and the ways they don’t. I have so...

Bistro Bits: A Greeting—Plus, What Makes for Super-Great Cabaret?

As you may have noticed, cabaret singers customarily perform two songs before greeting their audience at the top of a show. Occasionally, though, a performer will break the unwritten rule...

Bistro Bits: This New Memoir Is Not a Drag; A Roundup of Cabaret Confessions

Charles Busch spills it. A cabaret venue can sometimes seem pretty chameleonic. Monday, you'll find a singer performing a Burton Lane tribute. Tuesday you’ll get a comedic sketch show with...

More Songwriters Explain How Their Artistry Has Evolved

A few weeks ago, we shared with you the thoughts of four songwriters associated with cabaret: Amanda McBroom, Michael Holland, Tim Di Pasqua, and Joe Iconis. (Read our earlier feature...

Changing Their Tunes…or Not: Cabaret Songwriters Adapt in a Volatile World

All sorts of people in cabaret circles can put “songwriter” on their résumés: singer-songwriters in the tradition of James Taylor and Joni Mitchell; cabaret artists who long to write songs...

“Does This Song Look Good on Me?”—Four Singers Discuss Their Approaches to Repertoire

It’s one of the central issues that cabaret and jazz performers face throughout their careers: How do you best go about picking material to sing? And that initial query prompts...

“Barbra Streisand: the Music, the Albums, the Singles”—a Conversation with Author Matt Howe

It was Yentl that turned Matt Howe into a Barbra Streisand aficionado.  He’d been in high school when A Star Is Born came out in 1976—too young to see an...

Cabaret Setlist: “Let’s Not Talk About Love” – Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter

Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Article #24 in this ongoing series. In 23 installments of Cabaret Setlist, how have we not yet looked at a song by...

“The Real Ambassadors”: New Book Recalls an Anti-Segregation Jazz Musical Starring Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae

Say, show tune lovers—did you ever hear of The Real Ambassadors, a musical developed by famed jazz pianist Dave Brubeck (“Take Five”) and his wife, Iola, in the late 1950s...