Category: Cabaret

  • Calling his Cafe Carlyle show, “Does This Song Make Me Look Fat?” Isaac Mizrahi signals surreal leaps of fancy from music, to looks, to insecurities. Who could ask for more from an evening? Multitalented, the fashion designer/ entertainer croons cabaret standards backed by a great band, his act sprinkled with self-mocking quips recalling Joan Rivers…

  • Not sure whether or not Jill Kargman would riff on the Led Zepplin classic “Stairway to Heaven,” I had to admit, the comedienne, creator of Bravo’s Odd Mom Out, and author of Sprinkle Glitter on my Grave brought something different to the Café Carlyle. The set list, for example, featured only eight songs. Kargman is…

  • Now in his twelfth year performing at the Café Carlyle, Steve Tyrell exulted in the packed house and sold out nights for the holidays. No wonder he seemed so comfortable and set the mood with “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and “You’d be so Nice to Come Home To.” David Mann on flute…

  • Judy Collins ended her set at the Café Carlyle yesterday with Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” a bittersweet homage to the Canadian novelist, composer, and performer—as it turned out. Of course “Suzanne,” from her 1966 album In My Life, is a standard part of her repertoire; it was only after her opening night that guests learned of…

  • Fans who loved Ana Gasteyer’s Saturday Night Live teacher trip with Will Farrell will find her cabaret show at the Café Carlyle a reminder, it’s just acting, or maybe just acting out. In the intimacy of this premiere supper club, located, as Gasteyer redubbed the neighborhood SoDal, that is South of Dalton, invoking the city’s…

  • Broadway diva is one name for Christine Ebersole, and at her sublime performance in the intimacy of the Café Carlyle, call her “working mom.” Her medley of “Inchworm,” “Autumn Leaves,” “(Have I Stayed) Too Long at the Fair” suggests a big-hearted view of love that could embrace children. She has three, adopted, and now finds…

  • With more than a wink, the poised Laura Benanti portrays herself as a child show tune nerd recounting highlights from her stellar career with comedic flair. You could say this Tony Award winner’s show at the Café Carlyle, Tales from Soprano Isle, glimpses her life backwards: songs from her recent hit musical, She Loves Me,…

  • The name Carolines is synonymous with comedy. All year, Caroline Hirsch produces shows at her club Carolines on Broadway, several comedy festivals and some one-off shows such as her upcoming evening Carolines @ The Beach at Guild Hall on August 5. On a recent Friday, I caught up with Caroline by phone, en route to her…

  • Funny woman Sandra Bernhard joins this week’s list of funny women performing at Guild Hall. There was Kathy Griffin, and if you count the many personae of Charles Busch, this Friday night makes the third for her show titled, “Feel the Bernhard.” A few days before, Sandy interrupted her viewing of Venus Williams’ tennis match…

  • A whiff of David Bowie hung over the air at the Café Carlyle as Lena Hall opened her two-week run. Whipping her head punk style, Hall treated her audience to her bad girl history with boys as a way of explaining how a nice girl got here, musically. “I’m pretty sure no one has done…

  • Herb Alpert kept checking in about his pin stripes, asking a rapt audience, some of whom traveled from Florida just to hear him perform at the Café Carlyle for opening night this week: “Was I wearing this suit?” Like a woman who does not want to repeat an outfit for the same group, he joked,…

  • It was a big night for Megan Hilty on Tuesday, not only the opening of her two-week engagement at the Café Carlyle, but she’d garnered a Tony nomination that morning for her comedic bombshell turn in the revival of Noises Off! “And I wasn’t even singing,” she exuded, her blond curls taken back into a…

  • Nobody moves like Chita Rivera. With all due respect to Catherine Zeta-Jones who earned an Oscar for her film role as Velma in Chicago, with one quick pelvic thrust in director Rob Marshall’s direction for Rivera’s opening night at the Carlyle, Chita Rivera blows away all competition. Of course she originated the role of Velma…

  • At Café Carlyle this week, Katherine Jenkins’ magnificent voice fills the intimate room with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” even before she gets to the stage, a wonder in a strapless magnetic blue ball gown. Billed as a Welsh superstar, a title you would never dispute, she sings opera, folk songs, and show tunes, and tells tales of…

  • Rumer Willis, eldest daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis may have her own take on love. At 28, she’s a headliner at the famed Café Carlyle with a jazzy, pop show that looks at love from many angles. Covering Doris Day’s “Perhaps,” she imagines a new honesty in the cha-cha beat. For Buddy Johnson’s…

  • Steven Page, a guy-next-door type who co-founded a Canadian pop band called the Barenaked Ladies, and left to pursue a solo career in 2009, performs at the Café Carlyle for two weeks. You won’t be singing along to his tunes of day-to-day male angst. That’s because his tunes are not familiar: he has composed all of…

  • Joan Osborne’s many fans expected her to sing her signature “One of Us” at the Café Carlyle this week, but instead she sang a specially designed show of Bob Dylan tunes, and had us all in a head bobbing sing-along. “Who knew the Carlyle could become a hootenanny,” she quipped after telling tales of performing…

  • “I’m in a roomful of people I know,” Rita Wilson began her intimate set at the Café Carlyle on Thursday. Though this was not opening night, the room took on an extra glow: on one side sat Michael J. Fox, on the other, Tom Brokaw, Carolina Herrera, Ken Auletta, Richard Cohen, and William Ivey Long…

  • Trading in the tux for leathers, John Lloyd Young used aviator glasses to hide his prom date good looks, but this makeover did not deter his devoted fans on opening night of his set, “Yours Truly,” at the Café Carlyle. Yes, there was no shortage of Jersey Boys hits with “Sherry” and “Can’t Take My…

  • For his Café Carlyle debut performance, vocalist Kurt Elling celebrates Frank Sinatra’s centennial with “Elling Swings Sinatra.” Backed by a wonderful band, maybe the largest I’ve ever seen work this room, featuring Clark Sommers on bass, arranger John McLean on guitar, Jared Schonig on drums, Wayne Tucker on trumpet, Troy Roberts on tenor sax, and…

  • In case you were wondering about his rocker roots, David Johansen can be seen in a photograph flashing amidst many images in the documentary Robert Frank—Don’t Blink. In fact, he was a star in Frank’s 1988 Candy Mountain back in the New York Dolls days, along with Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Dr. John, Joe Strummer,…

  • A consummate showman, the Broadway star, Brian Stokes Mitchell took the stage at Café Carlyle this week as if he were born to perform at the iconic supper club. His debut show there, “Plays With Music,” might be a pun on plays, as in dramas (think Man of La Mancha), or plays as in how…

  • Micky Dolenz sprinkles so many stories through his superb show at 54 Below, you are repeatedly astounded at the decades of history that go with the popular soundtrack of Carole King and Jerry Goffen tunes as well as mint Monkees he performs. That is, if you are of a certain age. And even if you…

  • Facing a crowd that included his mother and brother as well as Tony Danza, next up for a run at the Café Carlyle, Alan Cumming reminded everyone that he would be hosting the Tony Awards with Kristen Chenoweth on Sunday night, admitting that he was “freaking out.” That was hard to believe from the poised…

  • Michele Lee, of ‘80’s era soap opera Knots Landing fame, will perform Cy Coleman tunes in a tribute celebrating the composer’s birthday at 54 Below for three nights, June 11-13. A great and giving storyteller, Lee’s engagement should be a music fest, yes, but also anecdote-laden treat, with some tasty Broadway legend tidbits. The multi-talented…