Robert Windeler

Robert Windeler is the author of 18 books, including biographies of Mary Pickford, Julie Andrews, Shirley Temple, and Burt Lancaster. As a West Coast correspondent for The New York Times and Time magazine, he covered movies, television and music, and he was an arts and entertainment critic for National Public Radio. He has contributed to a variety of other publications, including TV Guide, Architectural Digest, The Sondheim Review, and People, for which he wrote 35 cover stories. He is a graduate of Duke University in English literature and holds a masters in journalism from Columbia, where he studied critical writing with Judith Crist. He has been a theatre critic for Back Stage since 1999, writes reviews for BistroAwards.com, and is a member of The Players and the American Theatre Critics Association.

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Articles by this Author:

Laurie Krauz & Daryl Kojak

In a time when most marriages don't last 25 years, it can be comforting to celebrate the silver anniversary of any quarter-century collaboration, in business or elsewhere. It's even better...

Melinda Hughes

The somewhat generic title of her recent show at the Metropolitan Room, "An English Girl in New York," doesn't begin to describe the theme of the evening, nor the breadth...

Sally Darling

Her current Don't Tell Mama show could be the one Sally Darling was truly born to do. Back in the 1970s she created four revues combining the songs of Noël...

Celia Berk

No sophomore slump here. On the contrary, Celia Berk's new Metropolitan Room show, "Manhattan Serenade," is even better than her remarkable debut outing of last season. Under the fluid direction...

Jennifer Roberts

Lyricist Sheldon Harnick, who will turn 92 on April 30, could hardly have asked for a more exuberant or heartfelt early birthday celebration than the one Jennifer Roberts threw for...

Melissa Errico

In her recent show at Feinstein's/54 Below, directed by Robbie Rozelle and backed only by musical director Tedd Firth ("my orchestra") on piano, Melissa Errico neatly melded the two major...

Carol Woods

If any cabaret singer these days can get away with an amorphously themed show with no discernable through-line, surely it's Carol Woods. Oh, she had a sort-of title for her...

Denise Donatelli

In last month's five-night engagement—at five different venues—Denise Donatelli made it clear that she is on a determined quest to expand the parameters of the jazz cabaret songbook. In "Big...

Lennie Watts’ RockArrange – Top-40 with a Twist

For the Winter Rhythms festival at Urban Stages, Lennie Watts uncovered a new category of cabaret songs. He reconfigured recordings, mostly by rock groups, that were popular from the early...

The Best of Ricky Ritzel’s Broadway

Pianist/music director Ricky Ritzel produces and hosts Ricky Ritzel's Broadway¸a cabaret series honoring Broadway musicals, both hits and flops, featuring Broadway standards, cult show favorites, and otherwise lesser-known Main Stem...