Amy Friedl Stoner

Gerry Geddes
Amy Friedl Stoner's Dreamchaser at the Metropolitan Room was one of the most stylish, assured, intelligent, entertaining New York cabaret debuts I have had the pleasure to witness. Using an inspired and well-thought-out program of songs spanning Broadway, the Great American Songbook, country, folk, and contemporary, she filtered all selections through a singular vision and...

Liz Rubino

Gerry Geddes
In Make Yourself Comfortable, singer Liz Rubino's Don't Tell Mama debut, there are two elements and styles at war with each other. One is that of a thoughtful, emotional storyteller making even very well-known lyrics live and breathe in ways that surprise and satisfy. The other is that of a nervous, inexperienced novice (which she...

Louis-and-Ella!

Gerry Geddes
Trent Armand Kendall and Natasha Yvette Williams are terrific singers with lengthy theatre credits, and the idea of them singing songs made famous by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald is very promising. Unfortunately, in Louis-and-Ella! (written by Kendall) at the Cutting Room, they were awash in a conceptual sea. Classifying the show as a "jazzical"...

The Outer Space

Gerry Geddes
The Outer Space, currently running at Joe's Pub, is a song cycle set in the future about the desire to escape the stress, fear, danger ,and drudgery of urban life and the inevitability that those same problems, albeit in different forms, are waiting in whatever destination that escape winds up. Ethan Lipton, who wrote the...

Kim Sutton

Mark Dundas Wood
With Live to Tell: My Life, Madonna's Songs, performer Kim Sutton, director Lennie Watts, and musical director Steven Ray Watkins have created an immensely ambitious cabaret event. Using songs associated with—and often written (or co-written) by—pop star Madonna Ciccone, Sutton presents a sort of sung-through musical pageant based on her own personal history. We see...

Shelly Watson

Gerry Geddes
Singer/comedienne Shelly Watson takes the stage at the Laurie Beechman Theatre as equal parts Sophie Tucker, Bette Midler, Dolly Parton, Beverly Sills, and a drag queen (in this case a female drag queen). She's been hosting burlesque evenings at the same venue for a while, so her loud, bawdy style is easily traced back to...

Susanne Mack

Robert Windeler
Anyone who can legitimately include the Patsy Cline country standard "I Fall to Pieces" (Hank Cochran, Harlan Howard) in a show about a German girlhood near the Black Forest certainly has my admiration as well as my attention. Susanne Mack accomplished that and more in her recent compelling outing at Pangea (directed by Gretchen Cryer)....

Risa Finkel

Mark Dundas Wood
Risa Finkel drives a mean welcome wagon. For her recent show at Pangea, "Moment to Moment," the singer assembled a program with a smart balance of humor and seriousness. She displayed a warm and pleasant singing voice, as well. But Finkel had something even more essential going for her: an impressive talent for making listeners...

Liz Callaway Sings Maltby & Shire

Gerry Geddes
Liz Callaway is a wonder! The Story Goes On: Liz Callaway Sings Maltby & Shire, her loving and beautifully sung tribute at the Appel Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook Series, showed the star of theatre and concert stage at the height of her powers. The clarity, the feeling, and the remarkable technique of...

thirtywhatever

Mark Dundas Wood
The musical revue is a durable genre—and why shouldn't it be? A link of sorts between a standard cabaret show and a musical play, the revue is a straightforward way of showcasing the work of emerging songwriters as well as of performers. The careers of such talents as Rodgers & Hart, Comden & Green, Jerry Herman, Eartha...