A recent one-nighter at 54 Below brought Australian performer (and a Bistro Award winner in 2001 and 2002) Kane Alexander back to Manhattan. He’d first appeared in the city a decade and a half ago. An appealing performer with bright eyes and a friend …Read more

Singer Shepley Metcalf and her musical director and pianist Ron Roy are like coffee with cream, and sometimes champagne and caviar, in their new show Going Places at the Metropolitan Room.  The magnificent musicianship and innovative song choices of …Read more

In Dark Blue-Eyed Blues the extraordinary Betty Buckley presents a collection of songs, old and new, meant to evoke the chanteuses she grew up listening to and loving. The eclectic  selection includes show tunes like “This Nearly was Mine” from South …Read more

I first met Jason Kravits at a party. Well, not exactly… Wait. Let’s back up. I often play catchup on TV programs and movies, sometimes coming to them years after the fanfare has died. For example, the TV show “The Practice” was pretty big in the lat …Read more

Bouncy and brassy, in “Anchors Away!,” her current show at Don’t Tell Mama, Kim Sutton pays a robust tribute to Fleet Week and the United States Navy, in which she served for six years in the mid-1980s. She starts out with a driving, semi-disco “Star …Read more

Kevin Dozier’s recent show at the Metropolitan Room (which will return to the club in November) was called “A New York Romance.” It was a suitable title, I suppose, as Dozier did touch quite a bit on his life in (and love for) New York City. But then …Read more

Rob Sutton’s recent Don’t Tell Mama show, “Not the Boy Next Door,” was not so much an autobiographical program as it was a deeply personal musical reverie on what it means to live an authentic, self-aware life. That theme was hinted at in the show’s …Read more

In her recent one-night show at 54 Below, Alexis Cole demonstrated vocal dexterity, solid musicianship and a willingness to range over a variety of sources for her material. Her technical delivery, whether in a soothing or upbeat contralto, was super …Read more

Other songbirds may warble sweeter notes than Brenda Braxton. Other raconteurs may spout wittier quips. But where rapport with an audience is concerned, Braxton is hard to beat. Braxton is, first and foremost, a good host—she knows how to share a mom …Read more

At The New York Pops’ Christmas 2014 concert, a young singer by the name of Arlo Hill practically stole the show from Kelli O’Hara and Matthew Morrison; performing a number called “Songs of Freedom: A Celebration of Chanukah”, the baritone’s voice fi …Read more