Bistro Bits: Kazan Shazam! With Re-Released Albums, the World Gets a Burst of Vintage Lainie
Mark Dundas Wood
On February 3, 1965, singer-actor Lainie Kazan stepped onto the stage of Manhattan’s Winter Garden Theatre for the first time as Fanny Brice in the Broadway production of Funny Girl, the bio-musical that had opened nearly a year earlier. At that Wednesday matinee, she filled in for ailing star Barbra Streisand in one of musical...
Bistro Bits: Rolling Back the Years—with Mary Hopkin, Dory Previn, and Eydie Gormé
Mark Dundas Wood
The songs, sonatas, and symphonies we gravitate to early in our lives set in motion our own particular musical educations. If we hear and love Mozart or The Grateful Dead or Dolly Parton early on, we’re likely to seek out other music makers in the same general bucket. Of course, we may outgrow or otherwise...
2024 Bistro Awards Role Call: Maud Hixson
BistroAwards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUYbgxPm_Q&t=11s Maud Hixson–Outstanding Recording: Permanent Moonlight: Songs of Richard Rodney BennettIn paying tribute to one of her musical mentors, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Maud Hixson gives us a glimpse at the depth and breadth of both his genius and her art. She sings a beautiful, adventurous selection of songs both familiar and rare. Here she...
2024 Bistro Awards Roll Call: Elvira Tortora
BistroAwards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yXJQGqK7ss Elvira Tortora performs her cabaret show, The Bookmaker's Daughter, which is as unique as the family tale she has to tell. Filled with humor and heart, story and song, she captures the audience in ways that only the finest storytellers can do. Here she is accompanied by her musical director, Gregory Toroian.
Roll Call: 2024 Bistro Awardee Julie Gold
BistroAwards
https://youtu.be/sW22iE7pKOQ Julie Gold: Outstanding Singer-Songwriter-RaconteurA veteran New York City singer/songwriter, Julie Gold has been a presence in New York cabaret for decades. She is best known for Bette Midler's version of her anthem,, "From A Distance," which won a Grammy Award as Song of the Year. Other Julie Gold songs have been recorded by an...
Roll Call: 2024 Bistro Awardee Roberto Araujo
BistroAwards
https://youtu.be/_5daTU98C0c Robert Araujo: Outstanding Autobiographical Show Originally from Mexico City, Roberto Araujo has established a presence as a performer across Mexico and the United States. Bistro Awards reviewer Gerry Geddes writes," Araujo's charming, multi-media show, was filled with bursts of humor, drama, and theatrical panache. He sang his way into the audience's hearts as he...
Robert Windeler, Arts Journalist, Biographer, Theatre and Cabaret Critic: We Mourn His Loss
BistroAwards
The Bistro Awards team regrettably shares the news that one of our own—arts and entertainment journalist Robert Windeler—has passed away unexpectedly. He was 84. His cause of death is not yet known. His passing occurred in his Manhattan home, likely in the early morning hours of June 10. He had been in recovery from an...
Critical Thoughts: Direction Can Help/Direction Can Hurt—A Tale of Two Singers
Gerry Geddes
I recently saw two singers whose shows might have very little in common on the surface but whose failings were pretty much identical, albeit brought to light in different ways. Their main similarity is that each was ill-served by their directors and by the shows in which they presented themselves. Coincidentally, each was also directed...
The Reinvented (and Always Reinventing) Stand-Up Comic
Simi Horwitz
In a song snippet, dubbed “Denial,” filmed at New York's Comedy Cellar more than a decade ago, stand-up comic Rick Crom slyly alluded to people kidding themselves when “when they dress in spandex and weigh 300 pounds.” The audience laughed with recognition and appreciation. Rick Crom Now sporting many hats, not least Guru Teacher of...
One-Man-Show–manship: Lifetime Achievement Bistro Award Honoree Robert Klein on His Singular Comedic Career
Mark Dundas Wood
Last November, shortly after comedian and actor Robert Klein was confirmed as the recipient of 2024’s Bob Harrington Lifetime Achievement Bistro Award, producer Sherry Eaker and I attended a Saturday night comedy concert of his at the Argyle Theatre in Babylon, New York. Klein was the whole show that night—aside from some assistance from Bob Stein,...
