Marta Sanders

Robert Windeler
A deft three-song medley of "Follow Me" (Lerner & Loewe), "Gotta Move" (Peter Matz), and "The Gypsy in My Soul" (Clay Boland, Moe Jaffe) perfectly sets up the trip that is Marta Sanders's current show at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Her longevity as both a person and a performer could have allowed her to rely solely...

Jana Robbins

Robert Windeler
When this show was previously done at Feinstein's/54 Below, it was called "I'm Still Here!" but for this second outing at the club, it was newly named "Jana Robbins Returns!" Both titles turn out to be apt enough. After all, by her own upfront admission, she's been a New York-based singer and actress for some...

Billy Lykken

Gerry Geddes
The provocative title of Billy Lykken's recent show at the Metropolitan Room, "Sacred Monster," refers to the posters of various music divas, like Bette Midler and Whitney Houston, that used to hang on his walls when he was growing up as, in his words, "a Filipino Viking." It's an intriguing premise for a show: exploring...

Rachelle Garniez

Gerry Geddes
Much has been written, reported, and broadcast about the celebrity death toll in 2016. While it is probably not substantially different from previous years, it did seem that a disproportionate number of major figures left us. I doubt that there has been a more personal, smart, funny, touching celebration of the artistry and legacy of...

Rebecca Kilgore

Robert Windeler
In a welcome, too-rare, and too-brief return to New York cabaret, the Portland (OR)-based Rebecca Kilgore proved anew that sometimes just singing the song more or less how it was written or previously sung by others can be quite enough, even for a jazz singer. Don't get me wrong. Kilgore certainly possesses a subtly swinging...

Jesse Luttrell

Gerry Geddes
Before I go into the show that Jesse Luttrell performed at Feinstein's/54 Below with the Fred Barton Broadway Band, let me digress into a bit of metaphorical art criticism. Imagine, if you will, that you have been invited to view the work of an exciting new painter at a gallery show of fourteen of his latest...

Bob Diamond

Gerry Geddes
It's funny how over time, words can lose or change their meanings in popular culture. Before it became a kiss-of-death description, the word "nice" was a perfectly acceptable positive description of something that was neither remarkably good, nor terribly bad. In matters of performing and cabaret, it would indicate a pleasant diversion for an hour...

Lavender Songs – A Queer Weimar Berlin Cabaret

Gerry Geddes
In Lavender Songs – A Queer Weimar Berlin Cabaret, actor/singer/writer Jeremy Lawrence, in the guise of his alter ego, "kabarettist extraordinaire" Tante Fritzy, manages to turn the tiny stage at Pangea into a veritable time machine, whisking the audience away to a beautifully realized evocation of a club in Germany in the thirties—a time when...

Love for Sale

Mark Dundas Wood
Tilted Productions' Love for Sale—a "cabaret play" directed by Robert F. Gross—features international songs from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, many of them titles from the Kurt Weill catalogue. Kelly Burke portrays an unnamed American chanteuse—a struggling but spirited character with a penchant for self-dramatization—who undoubtedly will bring the name Sally Bowles (or, at any...

Lee Squared

Robert Windeler
Showbiz mavens of a certain age will likely chortle nonstop during "Lee Squared," the show created by David Maiocco and Chuck Sweeney and currently playing at the Metropolitan Room. The pair portray, respectively, Liberace and Peggy Lee, in what can scarcely be called a tribute. (Ms. Lee, at least, has already had her deserved share of...