Sean Harkness, Lina Koutrakos, Marcus Simeone

Mark Dundas Wood
Group cabaret shows can be wonderful, but they can also be tricky. You want to provide variety both in musical content and in terms of who sings what. You want a balance of solos, duets, and ensemble numbers. And you need to make certain that the voices and personalities truly blend well. Being a talented...

Matt Rogers

Gerry Geddes
The holidays are, for most, a time of celebration, and I cannot think of a better cabaret celebration than Matt Rogers's brilliantly funny, wonderfully profane, infectiously musical show at The Duplex, Have You Heard of Christmas? The show features "all the songs off his highly anticipated (non-existent) holiday album." Rogers wrote the smart and hilarious...

Telly Leung

Gerry Geddes
When it comes to popular music in general and singing in particular, it might not be the worst of times, but it is far from the best of times. It started back with Star Search, where contestants were encouraged to favor volume and melismatic riffs above phrasing and musicality—and they were rewarded for doing so....

Dorian Woodruff

David Sabella
Dorian Woodruff is an elegant and refined man. And, with a voice that is just as elegant and refined, he captivated the audience at Pangea with his show Welcome Home: Everybody Has a Story. The MAC Award nominee crafted a lovely program of stories and songs that almost always intertwined seamlessly, sung with a formidable...

Deb Berman

Penelope Thomas
In her recent show at Pangea, Deb Berman took what could have been straight-ahead cabaret fare—American Songbook standards and personal stories—and made every moment land with authenticity and finesse. Opening with "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (Duke Ellington, Irving Mills) and closing with "Things Are Swinging'" (Jack Marshall, Peggy...

Mischa Kischkum

Mark Dundas Wood
There is a kid-like exuberance about Mischa Kischkum that quickly spreads through the audience. In his debut solo cabaret show, Off the Charts: Songs You Don't Know By Writers You Love (directed by Jason Ellis), the performer comes to the stage and quickly commands it, wearing (among other things) a sly smile and a leopard-print...

Aisha de Haas

Gerry Geddes
Singer-actress Aisha de Haas entitled her new show at Birdland The Music That Makes Me Dance, but it might have been more accurately titled The Music That Makes Me SING. Claiming to have been liberated from restrictive impressions of what cabaret should be by attending a recent Natalie Douglas show, she had filled this "hodgepodge" with...

Daryl Glenn

Robert Windeler
You would think that by now there couldn't possibly be a new way to present an all-Sondheim cabaret show. But, as Daryl Glenn proved in this recent Don't Tell Mama outing (directed by Vince DeGeorge), you'd be wrong about that. From the moment Glenn bounded onstage in a colorful paisley tailcoat and launched into his...

Ronnie Marmo: I’m Not a Comedian…I’m Lenny Bruce

Robert Windeler
Like most comics who came of age in the middle of the last century, Lenny Bruce started out on a fairly conventional path. After coming home from the World War II Army, he took a job as emcee at the club where his entertainer mother, Sally Marr, was working. "Stealing material from my mother," as...

Jennifer Bangs

Mark Dundas Wood
In her new show at Don't Tell Mama, She Bangs, She Bangs: Marriage, Adultery, Texas & Jesus, actress-singer Jennifer Bangs delivers one of the most soul-baring cabaret programs I have ever seen. The show (directed by Tanya Moberly) is a true confession, told in excruciating detail. Bangs relates the story of her broken marriage along...