Club Review: Danny Bolero’s “They Call Me Cuban Pete–The Music and Genius of Desi Arnaz”
Betsyann Faiella
An older Desi Arnaz, played by Broadway actor Danny Bolero (In the Heights, and the currently-running Plaza Suite), enters the Brick Room at Don’t Tell Mama reminiscing about the past complete with some ambient sounds that seem like memories he is reliving. Then, with some of Arnaz’s recorded music in the background, the real band kicks...
Club Review: Lauren White with The Quinn Johnson Trio
Gerry Geddes
The casual elegance of the cabaret room at Pangea on an early June night was the perfect setting for Lauren White’s celebration of the COVID-delayed release of her CD, Ever Since the World Ended, as part of Ben Cassara’s Spring Swing Jazz Series. It was a delightful showcase for her laid-back, conversational yet swinging vocals...
Up Close and (Very) Personal: Three Cabaret Singers Discuss Their Musical Memoirs
Mark Dundas Wood
For most any cabaret show, performers will want to share something about themselves. They’ll note, for instance, what a particular song in their setlist means to them personally and why they decided to include it. But certain shows go well beyond that. Such presentations are essentially spoken-word memoirs—deeply personal and sometimes cathartic monologues punctuated with...
Club Review: Amanda McBroom’s “Crimes of the Heart,” with Michele Brourman
Gerry Geddes
"The Portrait" is one of Amanda McBroom’s most beautiful and beloved creations. I was reminded of it during her delightful new show, Crimes of the Heart, at Birdland, not because she sang it, but because I was amazed that she looked the same as when I had seen her decades ago at the old Ballroom...
Club Review: Ann Talman’s “The Shadow of Her Smile”
Charles Nelson
Unique is the best word—maybe the only word—to describe the song-stacked narrative that Ann Talman has created for her cabaret act at Feinstein’s/54Below. She calls the show The Shadow of Her Smile, after the haunting, Oscar-winning song that Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster wrote for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to emote to in 1965’s The Sandpiper—but that’s...
Club Review: Kavita Shah
Penelope Thomas
I first heard vocalist and composer Kavita Shah accidentally. Needing a walk after a long day last fall, I wandered over to 55 Bar, a classic West Village dive jazz club where many of the greats have played and where the cover is $5. (Ed. Note: 55 Bar recently closed.) It was Diwali, the Hindu...
Club Review: Madelaine Warren’s “Invitation”
Penelope Thomas
Madelaine Warren’s most recent cabaret offering, Invitation, featured well-chosen, often cinematically-inspired repertory from 1933-1989. Warren brought conviction and emotional connection to this set, packed with romantic songs that took her on an arc from joy to disappointment and back again. Madelaine Warren (Photo: Michael Bernhaut) Her legit soprano sound did take...
Club Review: “David Dean Bottrell Makes Love: A One-Man Show”
Gerry Geddes
David Dean Bottrell is an actor, a writer, and a fixture on the storytelling circuit in New York City and Los Angeles. He is perhaps best known for his unforgettably scene-stealing, creepy guest star turn on Boston Legal as Lincoln Meyer. His show at The Triad, David Dean Bottrell Makes Love: A One-Man Show, is...
Club Review: Therese Lee’s “Riding the Bus to the Red Carpet”
Gerry Geddes
Singer/actress Therese Lee had her first taste of those "fifteen minutes of fame" interviewing stars whose fame has lasted longer than Warhol predicted. Her story of getting there, and what happened when she did, form the basis for her highly entertaining new show, Riding the Bus to the Red Carpet, smartly and sensitively directed by...
Club Review: Wendy Scherl’s “The Sweetness and the Sorrow: The Songs of Marvin Hamlisch”
Betsyann Faiella
Wendy Scherl treated her audience to an evening of Marvin Hamlisch in her most recent show, The Sweetness and the Sorrow. She sang a variety of music with lyricists that included Howard Liebling, Carole Bayer Sager, David Zippel, and more. Scherl and Hamlisch are a good pairing. Hamlisch was such a versatile artist, and Scherl...