Sharon McNight: Red Hot Mama – The Sophie Tucker Farewell Tour

Robert Windeler
Those relative few of us who remember Sophie Tucker at all can recall only a stout, corseted old lady in the black-and-white days of the Ed Sullivan TV variety show, waving a white scarf and claiming to be "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas." We knew there must be more to the story, of...

Amy Beth Williams

Roy Sander
Amy Beth Williams's latest show is an exciting hour of risk-taking, a bravura display of artistic derring-do. She has us, in turn, fascinated, laughing delightedly, astonished, and moved to tears. In addition to being an exceptional singer and actress, she has become Amy Beth Williams the compleat entertainer and Amy Beth Williams the daredevil. The...

Lauren Stanford

Roy Sander
When Lauren Stanford competed in last year's MetroStar Talent Challenge, she seemed to flower as the weeks progressed: the range and depth of her skills became more and more evident, and she grew increasingly impressive. Though she appeared almost plain at the outset, she bloomed and we could see that she was actually quite lovely....

Lillias White

Mark Dundas Wood
There is more than one way that cabaret can succeed. Some shows—Shana Farr's recent program of Noël Coward and Cole Porter songs, for example—are carefully manicured gardens. Everything has been planted with care and set to blossom on schedule, down to the last petal. This sort of show can make for a memorable, emotionally rich...

Floanne

Robert Windeler
A set of French (or Frenchified) love songs is a nice, if fairly obvious, idea for a one-off on Bastille Day. The Franco-American singer Floanne (full name Flo Ankah) was happy to comply with the concept—if not exactly fully engage with fashioning a tight, full-fledged set. At one point in her loosey-goosey presentation at Joe's...

Gabrielle Stravelli

Kevin Scott Hall
Gabrielle Stravelli returned to the New York cabaret stage this month, her first multi-night solo New York cabaret engagement since winning a Bistro award in 2008. In the intervening years, she has toured extensively, headlined a jazz brunch in Soho for three years, and recorded the well-received CD "Waiting in Vain." If her opening night...

Darron Cardosa

Roy Sander
Actor-singer Darron Cardosa has performed professionally for twenty-five years, and he's waited tables for nearly as long. Since 2008 he's been writing "The Bitchy Waiter," a very popular blog about his experiences in, and his opinions about, the food service industry. Now he's put it all together in an evening of songs and anecdotes called...

Pat Kirkwood Is Angry

Mark Dundas Wood
If Off-Broadway's recent one-woman musical Pat Kirkwood is Angry (directed by Lee Blakely) did nothing else, it certainly brought the late British music star Kirkwood to the greater attention of a number of American theatergoers. I knew of Kirkwood only because of the song "Love on a Greyhound Bus" (Ralph Blane, Kay Thompson, George Stoll),...

Current and Recent Shows

Roy Sander
In this column I discuss one show that is currently running, a handful of others that played within the past couple of months, and two that will be returning. In the process, I make a few observations that have broader relevance.   Vickie Phillips A short while ago, Vickie Phillips celebrated her birthday at the...

Vivian Reed

Roy Sander
The last time I saw Vivian Reed perform was at Rainbow & Stars in 1996, when she was one-third of the cast of a revue called "20th Century R&B…A Musical Celebration." She was sensational and I wrote glowingly about her. In her recent engagement at 54 Below, she was still sensational; however, it saddens me to...