Judy Pancoast

Gerry Geddes
I think pretty much all of us at one point or another in our music listening lives had a soft spot for The Carpenters and for Karen Carpenter's extraordinary vocals, at once light and dark, gentle and strong; in her hands, the most saccharine of songs revealed a steely spine, and the saddest of ballads...

The Meeting*

Gerry Geddes
Justin Sayre has one of the most distinctive voices in New York clubs and cabarets. I mean that in both senses of the word "voice." He sounds like no one else—his voice is arch, camp, musical, barbed, questioning and hilarious. It is just the sort of voice and sound one would expect from the creator...

Life Is for Living: Conversations with Coward

Gerry Geddes
Sir Noël Coward, the subject of Simon Green's Life Is for Living: Conversations with Coward—which was co-created by its star, Simon Green, and its musical director, David Shrubsole, and is currently on view at 59E59 Theaters—was often referred to as "the master" for his prodigious talents as composer, lyricist, playwright, director, actor (on stage, screen,...

Mary Sue Daniels

Mark Dundas Wood
Mary Sue Daniels's delightful show at Don't Tell Mama—"Straight Outta 'Conda" (directed by Lina Koutrakos)—had something good in common with the previous show I reviewed for this site: Jen Fellman's "Frenchy." Both were staged memoirs in which carefully chosen songs were integrated into a narrative that would be solid without any music at all. Also...

Duchess

Robert Windeler
For those of us who occasionally crave a close-harmony dose of the Boswell Sisters or the Andrews Sisters in our cabaret-attending lives (and there may be more of us than we care to admit) Duchess will do nicely. And if any one of us desires a small dose of the tropical strumming of vintage Hawaiian...

Remy Block

Gerry Geddes
Singer Remy Block returned to Pangea with a revised version of her earlier show "On a Lonely Road: Travelin’ with Joni"—her tribute to Joni Mitchell. Her love of the iconic singer/songwriter was obvious, but she often failed to translate that feeling into successful takes on her songs. Mitchell’s lyrics/stories are often at a remove from...

Jen Fellman

Mark Dundas Wood
In her recent show "Frenchy," at Don't Tell Mama, Jen Fellman told of her three-year stint living in Paris, striving to transform herself into a Parisian. The show was a striking piece of cabaret theatre, graced by the sharp direction of John-Richard Thompson and the sensitivity and show-woman-ship of Fellman herself. The evening was not...

Natalie Arneson

Gerry Geddes
In her new show, "I Love Being Here with You," Natalie Arneson sings songs written by and/ or associated with the great Peggy Lee. One of the tricky things about doing a tribute to a singer is that if one chooses an iconic star like Lee, or Ella Fitzgerald, or Frank Sinatra, one can pretty...

Laura Osnes

Robert Windeler
  Many—perhaps too many—cabaret performers frame their autobiographical shows in terms of songs that influenced their decisions to aspire to a show business career, or that they eventually got to sing for a paying audience—or both. In her terrific show at Feinstein's/54 Below, Laura Osnes turned this "and-then-I-sang" cliché on its head. Osnes, who at...

Tune in Time

Mark Dundas Wood
Presented by Amy Engelhardt and Heather Shields, the musical-theatre game show "Tune in Time" has been playing in New York City for a couple of years now. Currently it appears regularly at the York Theatre Company. This rollicking show pits three composer/lyricist teams against one another as they strive to write coherent and entertaining songs...