…And Then You Die

Robert Windeler
Despite its possibly off-putting title, this 70-minute revue by David B. Goldberg, which had a recent four-night run at Don't Tell Mama, was a mostly benign, even breezy, look at what we do, or should do, to deal with the inevitability of death. In twelve scenes introducing fourteen songs (all by Goldberg), three eager and...

I Sort Of Enjoyed It

Gerry Geddes
When one comes across a show entitled I Sort Of Enjoyed It, which played recently at the Metropolitan Room, a lot of things come to mind before the show actually begins. Are the creators providing the first or last line of a potential review? Are they setting themselves up for a fall? Are they trying...

Todd Murray

Mark Dundas Wood
Todd Murray brought a new iteration of his show “Croon” to The Triad for a few performances in August. It was both a cabaret show and a history lesson in American popular music. Between numbers, Murray talked about men's approaches to romantic pop singing—beginning with Rudy Vallee in the 1920s; proceeding through the eras of...

Joe Gulla

Mark Dundas Wood
Joe Gulla's monologue The Bronx Queen is the first installment of a trilogy that was originally presented on Manhattan's Theatre Row a few years ago. Earlier this year it was restaged in the cabaret setting of Joe's Pub, and on August 20 it had an encore performance there. The work explores themes that have become...

Jeff Macauley

Gerry Geddes
In Le Grand Tour, which debuted recently at the Metropolitan Room, singer Jeff Macauley completes his trilogy of shows about classic Hollywood songwriters. Having previously paid tribute to Henry Mancini and Norman Gimbel, he focused this time on Michel Legrand, a true master of film music, with over 200 film and TV scores to his...

Barbra Streisand

Mark Dundas Wood
It's been several decades since Barbra Streisand had any real connection to the world of New York cabaret. But that, of course, is how her career began—in such small clubs as the Bon Soir and the Blue Angel, where she became a sensation while en route to becoming a legend. In 2009, she gave a...

Loni Love

Mark Dundas Wood
A comedian, actor, and author, Loni Love is probably best known as a panelist on television's talk fest The Real. Her brand of stand-up may not necessarily stick out in a crowd—she trades in traditional comic staples: race and ethnicity, politics, religion, sex, the misbehavior of celebrities. And she embraces, with seemingly no hesitation, the...

Anya Turner & Robert Grusecki

Robert Windeler
At the start of their current new show at Don't Tell Mama, Anya Turner, the lead-vocal half of this married couple's self-written evening of what she calls "modern cabaret" songs, acknowledges that this description might just be an oxymoron. Not to worry. A cabaret show need not be a compendium drawn from the American songbook,...

Lindsey Brett Carothers

Gerry Geddes
Lindsey Brett Carothers has been in a number of musicals, among them the off-Broadway hit Mad Libs, and she has guest-starred in a number of cabaret reviews and tributes. (I first saw her at the Duplex in the ongoing series Madame Mathieu's Soirée; she was one of the reasons I liked that show so much.)...

David Vernon

Roy Sander
David Vernon's new show is terrific. Before I elaborate, I'd like to back up to 2005, when I was introduced to his artistry through his CD "By Myself…" I was taken with his voice—pure, ethereal, hauntingly beautiful. I was struck by his eclectic musical taste, embracing such different worlds as Dietz & Schwartz, Michel Legrand, Édith...