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...

Martha Lorin

Gerry Geddes
Jazz singer Martha Lorin has been a continuing artist in residency at Cafe Noctambulo at Pangea this year. I attended her most recent appearance at the club. I would be hard-pressed to think of a better room for this kind of sophisticated, intimate jazz show. Lorin is a take-charge, take-no-prisoners jazz vocalist in a long...

Lisa Viggiano

Gerry Geddes
Lisa Viggiano's new show, "Night in the City," which recently played at both the Laurie Beechman Theatre and Don't Tell Mama, is a delight from start to finish. She has a warmly expressive voice that can get big when it needs to, but she doesn't force the issue; she lets each song determine the size...

Carol Woods

Mark Dundas Wood
Carol Woods's show at The Metropolitan Room, "Ain't We Got Fun: The Music of Richard Whiting" (directed by Scott Coulter) marked the 125th anniversary of Whiting's birth. But the show on November 12 was a double celebration, as it was also Woods's birthday eve. And the singer was in a particularly sassy mood during this performance,...

Billie Roe

Robert Windeler
For her current show at the Metropolitan Room, "Monopoly," Billie Roe has fashioned, with the assistance of director Mark Nadler and musical director Steven Ray Watkins, a compelling and affecting spoken-and-sung narrative based on the beloved and long-running board game. She begins by recounting her own childhood memories of often cutthroat family Monopoly games, specifically an...

Abigail Rockwell

Gerry Geddes
I first heard Abigail Rockwell about a year ago, partnering with the great guitarist Sean Harkness in a duo show called Rock & Hark. It was an entertaining debut with great promise and when I saw it a second time a couple of months later at Cafe Noctambulo at Pangea, the show had tightened and had...

Josephine Peacock

Gerry Geddes
"Josephine Peacock Is Back…For the Very First Time," which debuted recently at Don't Tell Mama, had the various elements one often finds in a "first time" cabaret, such as the excitement of watching a good singer stretch her talent to reach an audience and deliver songs that she has wanted to sing for some time....

David Sabella

Robert Windeler
In his current show at the Metropolitan Room, his first in many years, David Sabella proves to have a powerful, wide-ranging voice (from standard legit up through counter-tenor to an astonishing boy soprano), and an evident enthusiasm for being back on stage. He benefits greatly from the strong and accommodating support of musical director Mark...