Club Review: Peter Calo & Anne Carpenter—”Timeless Singer-Songwriters”
Gerry Geddes
A soft blanket on a snowy night. A cool lemonade on a summer afternoon. Mac and cheese on a cool October Saturday. They all spell “comfort.” Add to that list an evening spent listening to singer-guitarist Peter Calo and vocalist Anne Carpenter singing the songs of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, James Taylor, and...
Bistro Bits: There Are Many Ways to Approach a Tribute Show—Here Are Two
Mark Dundas Wood
Singers preparing a tribute show, whether they’re celebrating the tune list of a songwriter or feting the career of a performer, have a number of decisions to make. Do they want to talk about the subject’s biography—perhaps telling the life story chronologically? Maybe they prefer to organize the program by looking at several components of...
Club Review: Can Yasar—”A Turkish Rhapsody”
Gerry Geddes
Can (pronounced “John”) Yasar had a dream growing up in his native Turkey with which many of us can identify. His wish was to move to New York City and live his true life, find his true happiness, and pursue his true career all of which would have been denied had he stayed in his...
Club Review: “The Rocky Horror Skivvies Show”
Gerry Geddes
The Skivvies are the brainchild of Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley, singer/actor/musicians with many Broadway and theatre credits including Sweeney Todd, Rock of Ages, Pageant, and Marry Me a Little; they banded together to perform stripped-down arrangements of eclectic covers, often in inventive (and possibly insane) mashups. They also strip themselves down when they perform...
Club Review: Shannon Daley—”Love and Let Die: Confessions of a Bond Girl”
Mark Dundas Wood
In her breezy yet ambitious Don’t Tell Mama show, Love and Let Die: Confessions of a Bond Girl (directed by Lennie Watts and first performed in June of this year), Shannon Daley portrays a specific James Bond love interest, Sylvia Trench—the character enacted by Eunice Gayson in the first two Bond films, Dr. No (1962)...
Club Review: Janis Siegel with Yaron Gershovsky—”The Colors of My Life”
Gerry Geddes
For his contributions to Broadway and the Great American Songbook, composer Cy Coleman deserves every accolade and tribute that has been or could be bestowed upon him. One of the latest, and one of the best, was presented by acclaimed (and Bistro Award-winning) jazz vocalist Janis Siegel at the legendary Blue Note. With repertoire taken from her...
Club Review: Tierney Sutton with Shelly Berg— “Songs of Loss, Justice, and Hope”
Gerry Geddes
If you are going to call a show Songs of Loss, Justice, and Hope, all I can say is you had better deliver. And that’s just what Tierney Sutton and Shelly Berg did in their new show at Birdland Theater—delivered! Sutton sat on a stool center stage next to the piano which was turned so that...
Club Review: Val Hawk—”Special Material”
Mark Dundas Wood
Val Hawk is a singer with an earthy, wry presence—she’s funny, friendly and unpretentious. Shortly before she was officially called to take the stage at her recent Pangea show, Special Material, she was there in front of it: shooting the breeze with audience members—confiding that when she’d purchased the dress she was wearing, she’d assumed...
Club Review: The Kinsey Sicks—”Deep Inside Tonight”
Gerry Geddes
The Green Room 42, which recently celebrated its own sixth anniversary, played host to the 30th anniversary Show of “the dragapella, beauty shop quartet"—The Kinsey Sicks. As its title Deep Inside Tonight implies, it was a parody of a cable news show through a skewered, madcap, political, hilarious lens. It was an evening filled with original material...
Club Review: Dane Terry—”How to Play the Piano”
Gerry Geddes
Dane Terry splits his artistic life between painting and music. The musical half frequently leads him to cabaret stages around town. Most recently he brought his show, How to Play the Piano, to Pangea in the East Village. The show is a look at the singer/composer’s back catalog of material, which he has revisited and sometimes...
