Stephen Hanks - Page 3

At last December's 12-day, 20-show Urban Stages Winter Rhythms Festival, composer Steve Schalchlin presented one of the highlights the two-week program with his dramatic, passionate, political, witty, and melodically soaring song cycle New World Waking. (Read BroadwayWorld's entire review here.) Now Schalchlin, who was recently honored with a 2014 BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Award for "Excellence in Songwriting," will have his stirring piece performed by the EarthStone Theatre Company at the Boston Conservatory tonight, March 10 at 8 pm.

By popular demand, The York Theatre Company and producers Amy Engelhardt and Heather Shields, will present the March edition of the new musical theater game show called Tune in Time, hosted by Emily McNamara. Music direction is by Nate Buccieri, and Sheila Head is the annoyingly insistent timekeeper, on Monday, March 9, 2015 at The York Theatre Company at Saint Peter's (Citicorp Building, entrance on East 54th Street, just east of Lexington Avenue). Additional dates announced include April 5, May 4, with more to come. All performances will begin at 7:30 p.m.

At last December's 12-day, 20-show Urban Stages Winter Rhythms Festival, composer Steve Schalchlin presented one of the highlights the two-week program with his dramatic, passionate, political, witty, and melodically soaring song cycle New World Waking. (Read BroadwayWorld's entire review here.) Now Schalchlin, who was recently honored with a 2014 BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Award for “Excellence in Songwriting,” will have his stirring piece performed by the EarthStone Theatre Company at the Boston Conservatory on Tuesday night, March 10 at 8 pm.

In 2015, the CabaretFest in Provincetown (MA), one of America's biggest Cabaret events, is returning to its roots. After a one-year layoff, this weekend extravaganza of song that began in 1999 under the guidance of actor and cabaret performer John O'Neil, will be back this June (4-7) bigger and better than ever. Singer and Cape Cod resident Patricia Fitzpatrick and Ambassador Productions has recruited O'Neil to help re-launch the event in its original format-only longer. CabaretFest 2015 Provincetown weekend will be jammed-packed with activities and shows that Fitzpatrick says, 'Promise to be educational, entertaining, and fun, and all will celebrate 'The Art of Cabaret!'

After performing two sold-out shows in mid-January that garnered rave reviews from New York cabaret critics, Pamela Lewis (a.k.a. Champagne Pam), again brings her unique interpretation of Long Island icon Billy Joel's songbook to the New York's Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues) on Saturday, March 7 at 7 pm. In New York State of Mind: The Songs of Billy Joel, you'll hear the 2013 BroadwayWorld New York Cabaret Award Winner for 'Best Female Vocalist' deliver unique and stirring interpretations of classic Joel songs such as, 'The Stranger,' 'My Life,' 'A Matter of Trust,' 'Just the Way You Are,' 'New York State of Mine,' and many more beloved Joel hits.

The 2014 BWW New York Cabaret Awards will celebrate the best cabaret performers and shows of last year as voted on by 7,500 fans in December after a one-month preliminary ballot process. Produced, directed, and hosted for the third straight year by BWW Cabaret Editor Stephen Hanks, the BWW Awards show will feature performances by many of the winners, many of whom are among the cream of the crop in the art of cabaret. Joining a star-studded cast (see below) will be two-time 2014 BWW Cabaret Award nominee and Broadway Musical star Len Cariou, who will perform a special tribute to the late songwriter Ervin Drake.

As the days dwindled down to a precious few in 2014, a few cabaret goers and performers in what is affectionately but also self-mockingly called the “cabaret community” would sidle up and ask if I was planning my annual end-of-the year “Best Of” column, similar to the “Top 20 Bests and Favorites” piece over the first half of the year I posted back in early July. I would respond in the negative with very reasonable and believable excuses, but the truth is I didn't want to reveal my “Bests” of the year until the voting for the 2014 BroadwayWorld New York Cabaret Awards had ended. There's enough baggage and backstage whispering that comes with administering the BWW Awards, so I wasn't about to publish any opinions that might influence the vote while it was in process. I may be crazy but I'm not masochistic. But now all bets are off. You want lists? I'll give you lists.

Last September, after appearing at the popular Manhattan open mic cabaret show, Salon, Bistro and MAC Award-winning singer Amy Beth Williams was struck by a car near her home in Brooklyn. Now an all-star roster of Williams' fellow cabaret performers and friends will stage a benefit show, Once In Love With Amy, at Don't Tell Mama tonight, January 21 at 7 pm, to help replace the funds Williams has lost during her extensive recovery.

Last September, after appearing at the popular Manhattan open mic cabaret show, Salon, Bistro and MAC Award-winning singer Amy Beth Williams was struck by a car near her home in Brooklyn. Now an all-star roster of Williams' fellow cabaret performers and friends will stage a benefit show, Once In Love With Amy, at Don't Tell Mama on January 21 at 7 pm, to help raise the funds Williams has lost during her extensive recovery.

BroadwayWorld has called Ann Hampton Callaway the current “Queen of Cabaret” and apparently much of the cabaret audience agrees. The votes for the 2014 BroadwayWorld New York Cabaret Awards are official and Callaway is the “Performer of the Year,” having garnered 2,194 votes (the most of any nominee) out of the 66,179 votes cast by approximately 7,500 voters for 148 nominees in 17 categories. Here are your 2014 BWW New York Cabaret Award Winners.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Nelson Riddle / Linda Ronstadt collaboration of the Great American Songbook, 2001 BroadwayWorld Award Winner for 'Best LA Cabaret Performer' Robyn Spangler will bring her show featuring selections from the three platinum certified albums: “What's New”, “Lush Life,” and “For Sentimental Reasons” to the Metropolitan Room on January 12 and 17.

With the official results of the voting for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Cabaret Awards to be revealed later this week, BWW and New York Cabaret Editor Stephen Hanks have announced this year's special “Editor's Awards” for special achievement in categories that were not subject to online voting. The winners will receive their Awards and most will perform at the 3rd Annual BroadwayWorld Cabaret Awards show on February 23 (6:30 pm) at Joe's Pub. Tickets are already on sale and can be purchased here.

When Barb Jungr takes the stage tonight for her debut at 54 Below (she also be at the club tomorrow night and Sunday night; all shows at 7pm), the acclaimed British chanteuse will have conquered another major New York nightclub venue, having in past years performed critically acclaimed shows at the Café Carlyle, Joe's Pub, the Metropolitan Room. She even knocked them dead at the 59E59 theater twice in less than a year, with her show Dancing the Dark (read my review here) in December 2013 and Hard Rain (review here) this past November. While Jungr is still performing the latter--amazing interpretations of some of the most intensely political Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen songs—throughout Europe and has earned enormous praise for the CD of the same name, her 54 Below show, Mad About the Boy and No Regrets, will be an amalgam of Jungr's greatest hits from past shows and CD, plus some songs she'll be doing for the first time.

In my recent very extended assessment of cabaret shows I never reviewed during the second half of 2014, there were two significant omissions. I didn't leave these out of my critical mix because they weren't strikingly significant. In fact, it was just the opposite. The new variety game show, Tune In Time, which dubs itself the “Musical Theater Olympics,” and the musical theater piece/song cycle, New World Waking, were among the most original and entertaining productions I witnessed this year and deserved more of a feature treatment than a quickie review. My take on Tune In Time (which will begin a new monthly run at the York Theatre on January 5) should beat the clock before the next show. So by simple process of elimination, this commentary will be on New World Waking, which when performed on December 6 was one of the highlights of the recent annual 12-day, 20-show Winter Rhythms Festival at Urban Stages.

If you've been a regular reader of this particular reviewer's musings, you know that every year there are long stretches of time where I just haven't been able to critique all the shows I've seen that deserve commentary. So I end up playing what they call in sports, 'Catch-up ball,' and post a mash up of belated reviews from past shows. It's kind of like a critic's version of the song 'Six Months Out of Every Year,' from Damn Yankees. Give or take a month or two, that's usually the time period during which I store unpublished reviews in my fevered brain and then unload them all in one seemingly endless column-like this one is going to be. If my cabaret-show reviewing days will be over (as chronicled here), I might as well go out with a bang-and relieve my procrastination guilt during holiday season. Now I can scratch one New Year's resolution off the list.

With the end of the voting period for the 2014 BroadwayWorld New York Cabaret Awards just eight days away (voting will close at Noon on December 31, 2014), BroadwayWorld.com is pleased to announce that the 3rd Annual BWW NY Cabaret Awards Show will take place for the second successive year at Joe's Pub (The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, NYC) at 6:30 pm. Once again, this Award presenting extravaganza will feature performances by the Award winners (whose schedules make them available), and BWW's New York Cabaret Editor Stephen Hanks will once again host the festivities.

Elton John. Carole King. Joni Mitchell. Carly Simon. Paul Simon. Stevie Wonder. They were six superstar singer/songwriters in a constellation of such stars during the early 1970s, who could be considered the composers of the 'New Great American Songbook. Tonight, December 13 at 7 pm, as part of its annual 12-day 'Winter Rhythms' Festival, Urban Stages will present a star-studded variety show celebrating these great talents of the Golden Age of the Pop Singer/Songwriter.

After four years reviewing cabaret shows, more than two for BroadwayWorld, our lead New York cabaret critic Stephen Hanks will be giving up reviewing shows to be the BWW Cabaret section's Editor and lead feature writer. Here's how he became a cabaret reviewer, why he's giving it up, and who he's brought on board to make up BWW's new cabaret reviewing team.

Elton John. Carole King. Joni Mitchell. Carly Simon. Paul Simon. Stevie Wonder. They were six superstar singer/songwriters in a constellation of such stars during the early 1970s, who could be considered the composers of the 'New Great American Songbook. On Saturday, December 13 at 7 pm, as part of its annual 12-day 'Winter Rhythms' Festival, Urban Stages will present a star-studded variety show celebrating these great talents of the Golden Age of the Pop Singer/Songwriter.

t may not be like getting a gift on each of the 12 Days of Christmas, but for cabaret and musical theater lovers, the 6th Annual Urban Stages Winter Rhythms series--presented over a dozen nights at the not-for-profit Off-Broadway theatre on 259 West 30th Street--could be the closest thing to opening a daily present by the tree. From December 2-14 (no shows on Dec. 9), more than 100 singers, musicians, and songwriters will perform in an eclectic mix of 20 shows including one-night-only group shows, excerpts from new musicals, solo shows, open mics, late night spotlights, and family matinees, with all the proceeds from ticket sales dedicated to the Urban Stages On Tour Outreach Program that brings more than 200 free multicultural theater and music programs to elementary and middle school age children and their families in libraries and schools throughout NYC five boroughs.