 Tweet this article !
|
By: Rob Lester
|
|
As a member of Bistro Awards Committee, my lips have gotten sore and chapped from being sealed for so long, not revealing the chosen winners. But look for the announcement finally this week! The awards show is Tuesday, April 13, at Gotham Comedy Club on West 23 Street. See www.bistroawards.com for all the juicy details and tickets as they become available, and the news will be here as well. Meanwhile, two ladies you saw as part of last year’s Bistro show are around this week. Catch ‘em while you can: At 6pm this Wednesday, March 9, last year’s Bistro Award winner for Outstanding Vocalist, SUSAN WINTER, appears as part of the ongoing FREE series at Barnes & Noble on Broadway at West 66th Street. She’ll be singing from her first CD, a live recording of her cabaret show Love Rolls On. Well worth the roll, or, rather spin.
|
|
Read more...
|
Tweet this article !
|
By: Rob Lester
|
|
Mention the word “Cabaret” even to people who don’t frequent cabaret rooms, or drop the word into the search box at YouTube, and the first thing that comes up might simply be the song “Cabaret” by Kander and Ebb. I guess I shouldn’t exactly be surprised that I heard it twice within a few minutes, in two different rooms, near the end of a marathon Saturday night I spent at the West 46th Street cabaret/piano bar/restaurant Don’t Tell Mama.
|
|
Read more...
|
Tweet this article !
|
On my way from The Metropolitan Room to Don’t Tell Mama in Midtown on Restaurant Row (that’s West 46 Street betwixt Eighth and Ninth Avenues, to those of you who never noticed the street sign or the row of restaurants), I couldn’t help but notice that the Christmas decorations are up around town. And there on the billboards, are ads for the Disney holiday movie, the latest in a long line of screen versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Is it time for a pre-Christmas carol? Maybe.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Tweet this article !
|
By: Rob Lester
|
|
Despite the attractions of cabaret, I can understand how on many of these so very frigid nights it was tempting to stay warm and snuggly under the covers. But now that the temperature is easing back up, why not go to Under the Covers instead of staying under the covers? Under the Covers --- that’s “covers” as in “cover songs” where a singer re-does material that was a success for someone else. It’s not the usual tribute show cherry-picking songs from across a star’s whole career --- we’re talking about taking an entire classic old vinyl album by an icon and doing all the songs.
|
|
Read more...
|
Tweet this article !
|
By: Rob Lester
|
|
Is it too early to start missing good ol’ 2009? Call it “The January Syndrome.” Looking back at a year just ended, makes an entertainment reporter/addict amazed at how those twelve months flew, or dragged, and, in the blur and whir of shows and songs, some stand out in the memory. This is not an attempt to have an exhaustive rehash of 2009, but just some thoughts on a few things: reflective, random ramblings.
|
|
Read more...
|
Tweet this article !
|
By: Rob Lester
|
|
As Cabaret Exchange becomes NiteLife Exchange, cabaret remains a strong presence on the website. And here in September, as the seasons do their own “exchange,” trading summer for fall, a new cabaret season begins.
The big rooms that were silent, or running different kinds of programs during the summer, are starting their official seasons.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Tweet this article !
|
By: Rob Lester
|
|
The groundhog saw his shadow on February 2, so you know what that means: six more weeks of freezing during cabaret-going while wearing lots of layers. But then again, cabaret has always been a multi-layered experience. Bundle up, because there are bundles of music experiences to have this month, until the time comes that you can go out to cabaret without a couple of scarves (except as a fashion statement, as my cabaret-reviewing colleague Barbara Siegel will do in all kinds of weather).
|
|
Read more...
|
Tweet this article !
|
By: Rob Lester
|
|
MARK JANAS has been the musical maestro behind an open mic series that, in recent times, had been held on Sundays at The Algonquin Hotel on West 44 Street. The series was M.I.A. for some time, but is landing again, returning this Sunday (November 29), but landing in a new location, further west on the same street, at the restaurant Etc. Etc. 352 West 44 Street (upstairs). Songs will fill the air from 7pm til 10:30pm. Singers can sign up at 6:30pm.
|
|
Read more...
|
Tweet this article !
|
By: Rob Lester
|
|
2009 IS GETTIN’ OLD….CATCH-UP ON CABARET
If you’re a regular New York City cabaret-goer, you might want to join me in a toast to the first half of 2009 as we take a midsummer night’s dreamy look ahead at what’s to come in the months ahead.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
