369 stories by "Rob Lester"
Aaron Tveit's live recording from 54 Below, and Maud Hixson sings the Music of Michael Leonard.
... at every turn, there's serious and shaded acting going on and that takes center stage in the Classic Stage Company interpretation directed by John Doyle and conducted by Rob Berman, who…
Four decades after its first Broadway incarnation, Pippin's peppy, pop-inflected score has popped up again on Broadway, fresh and flush with energy.
When looking for thoughtful, rich, articulate material about experiences and feelings that speak to mature adults with some life mileage, song sleuths, cabaret singers, musical theatre audit…
Dogfight fights to overcome some theatrical challenges—in a theatre or on disc ... You don't have to be a true detective or musical comedy sleuth to see where we're going in the dour and d…
Is that beloved, spunky, optimistic little redhead showing her age? To answer with a song title from the Annie score: Maybe.
One night!! Two sets!! Three cheers!! For it's five " That is, it's a five-piece band with Marilyn Maye at Iridium NYC on July 10, in an act titled Marilyn Maye Takes Five. The name referenc…
Dig in your heels to resist and say it's not much more than a well-done high-budget piece of force-fed fluff and pop puffery, or kick back and accept it as fine fun at best and a guilty plea…
One began as the Rodgers & Hammerstein TV special over a half-century ago ... The other, by way of an Oregon theatre production, has a charmer of a score by Ezra Weiss and taps into the love…
Welcome to the sophistication and very grown-up world of Noël Coward, inhabited by Steve Ross and guests, and the very much child-centric world of a kid named Nancy in the musical for kids,…
In the musical See Rock City & Other Destinations, various traveling characters embark on important trips ... intrepid jazz journeyer Mark Winkler navigates the adventurous Laura Nyro songb…
Two of the most heartfelt albums I've heard in quite a while make their gentle way to the column now on a calm April breeze.
Different types, Andrea McArdle and Faith Prince entertain their audiences, relating high points from their careers (with song samples). Included in both acts are things from Jerry Herman, t…
We open our musical book of singers to the 'R' page this time, and spend some time with recent recordings by Johnny Rodgers and Molly Ringwald and a reissue of early record albums by Chita R…
Although they are different types of cabaret ladies, the first more Broadway and big-voiced, the other a low-key but graceful presence, both have recent CDs and will be back in Manhattan clu…
Norbert Leo Butz was captured at New York's hot venue 54 Below in a show he called Memory & Mayhem. ... on the other coast, singer Tom Culver's endeavor is titled Thanks for the Memory.
Since it's our policy that cabaret picks represent events/people I've seen a lot, and been glad I went, this week's pick is the annual MAC Awards on Thursday, March 21 --- at BB King in Time…
In a cabaret show, to take on the songbook and legacy of the formidable, fearless Elaine Stritch, you'd have to be formidable or fearless yourself-or kind of crazy.
Whether brightly brimming with optimism or-as in "Born to Be Blue"-telling a tale of woe, Wopat makes it all sound effortless, without artifice, without sweat.
... in the key of B today: buoyant with a trio and vocalist recording from Bobby Belfry and the Budway boys; blisteringly honest and back to basics with Barb Jungr; and back to the bright B…
MAC Male Vocalist nominee and Bistro Award winner T. Oliver Reid's Do I Love You, Bistro Award winner Moira Danis' Some People's Lives, Together Through Time: The Brownings in Word & Song, w…
... t the cast album from the brief Broadway run of a musical based on the life of Hollywood's immortal figures, with a heartfelt score ... duo-disc set of strong appealing "guide vocals" a…
She's back! And she looks and sounds terrific. As you might expect, Dreamgirls star Jennifer Holliday includes two big songs from that very musical that put her on the Broadway map.
Maria Jacobs demonstrates the Art of the Duo, mostly with one guitarist or another (or, instead, bass or piano player). Jessica Molaskey's pianist du jour is also her singing partner and the…
You can say that all musical theatre roads liltingly lead back to composer Jerome Kern.
