Ira Lee Collings

Kevin Scott Hall
There could hardly be a more appropriate song for Ira Lee Collings to open his show "Off the Charts!" with than "I Want to Be Happy" (Irving Caesar, Vincent Youmans), which he performs with a childlike energy and joy, even inviting his audience to share in his enthusiasm. Now 79, Collings immediately gives the impression...

Louis St. Louis

Robert Windeler
The cabaret act as backers' audition is not a brand new concept. But Louis St. Louis took it to extremes in this outing, with generous selections from five of the shows for which he has written music (and mostly co-written lyrics) that have yet to make it to Broadway—apparently not for lack of trying. Collectively, the...

Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical

Kevin Scott Hall
It is rather surprising that until now nobody has done a stage show or film about the life of Sylvester, a flamboyant African-American singer whose flame burned brightly and memorably during the disco years. (A documentary is apparently in the works.) Years before Boy George, Sylvester was cross-dressing (although he rejected the label "drag queen"),...

Luba Mason

Tonya Pinkins
Luba Mason slinked onto the stage of the Metropolitan room in a cream floor-length gown accented with blue brocade flowers riding the curves of her lithe frame. Her hips swayed, her shoulders kept the beat, her voice soared from smoky bassoon to blaring soprano sax in a rendition of Van Morrison's "Moondance" that was for...

Patrick DeGennaro

Kevin Scott Hall
A versatile veteran of New York’s cabaret scene, Patrick DeGennaro has become known not only for the many hats he wears (singer in many styles, musical director, songwriter, and vocal coach), but also for the way he has transformed his look over the years. Now a tattooed (he admitted an addiction), muscular, mustached rocker in...

Jason Morris

Mark Dundas Wood
Jason Morris certainly has talent. He is blessed with a malleable singing voice with a pleasing timbre. He seems at home with the conventions of contemporary pop singing. He favors melisma, but keeps it in check. For his show "Musically Yogic" at the Metropolitan Room, Morris has surrounded himself with some top-of-the-line collaborators, including director...

Tom Andersen

Mark Dundas Wood
The closing performance of Tom Andersen's recent Don't Tell Mama show (his first solo program in almost a decade) had a casual pre-Labor Day vibe. He wore cool summer attire, befitting a box social. And he'd tucked plenty of fresh, thoughtfully prepared musical treats in his picnic hamper. He opened the show with "Gosh, It's...

Liam Forde

Roy Sander
The title of Liam Forde's offering at Stage 72—"A Fleet Phantasmagoria!"—is a bit much and a little precious, isn't it? Well, the show, itself, is a lot much and very precious—with both adjectives now used in their most plauditory sense: much signifying the prodigious amount of artistic creativity on display; precious in that the musical numbers...

Jake Mendes

Mark Dundas Wood
Although his recent Don't Tell Mama show, "Lady Songs," had more than a few rough edges, Jake Mendes is, I think, on the right path to finding out who he is as a solo performer and what his place might be in New York's cabaret community. Or, if he isn't on that path quite yet,...

KT Sullivan & Jeff Harnar

Tonya Pinkins
Stephen Sondheim is so special, so specific, so idiosyncratic. Sung by everyone, everywhere, how could anyone possibly do anything new and unique? In "Our Time – Sullivan & Harnar Sing Sondheim" at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, Jeff Harnar and KT Sullivan, along with musical director Jon Weber and director Sondra Lee, have done just that: they...