By Myra Chanin   Renee Katz steps on stage at Don’t Tell Mama with a beaming smile on her face and a soul brimming with joy and confidence. “Never Been Gone” is her first one-woman first show in almost two decades. She considers herself lucky despite events that indicate the...

     by Sandi Durell    Summer in the City can be quite a treat if you’re looking for some good talent in the cabarets and clubs. Talent abounds . . . and whatever the temperature, you’ll be feeling just right listening to many of the best in town.   Here’s a short list of some...

        by Myra Chanin   Ira Lee Collings, an 81-year-old imp who blends Maurice Chevalier’s charm with Jimmy Durante’s conviviality, calls himself a Gay Geezer. Collings may have a “gay” sexual orientation. Nowadays who doesn’t? But as a performer he’s also gay in...

  By Myra Chanin   I arrived at Lane Bradbury’s one-woman show, Let Me Entertain You, Again, my heart filled with compassion for the child performer who’d created the role of Baby June in the original Broadway production of Gypsy — the tot forced to sing “Let Me Entertain...

  By Martha Wade Steketee   I’ve spent the past 12 hours melting into the memory of Karen Mason’s voice. Her current show Mason in May runs for the rest of the month in Don’t Tell Mama, the intimate New York cabaret space that she helped to open in 1982. The long narrow main theater...

    By Sandi Durell     Brava Ms. Shedlin! With 19 shows under her belt and a penchant for singing since 1989, the spark still ignites this performer, an octogenarian whose fondest wish was to be a saloon singer, and whose joy and fortitude for the art of cabaret is ever...

    by Peter Haas   Every seat was filled in Don’t Tell Mama’s intimate Brick Room on a Sunday evening in April as friends and fans gathered to enjoy the talents of two of cabaret’s most distinctive performers. On stage: guitarist Sean Harkness and singer Marcus Simeone,...

    By Sandi Durell     Spring is just fooling around because with all the flowers blooming and budding trees, it’s here. The talent, however, in the New York City cabarets and clubs is not fooling at all. Some of the best are slated to appear and you’ll have your pick of many shows. Here’s a...

  Jen Fellman brings April in Paris to New York on a Blustery Spring Night       By Myra Chanin   Mon Dieu! Jen Fellman’s All-American parents may have come to the US from Kiev and raised her in Philadelphia – ditto moi – but any similarity between us, our genes and...

        By Sandi Durell     With all those 50-60 degree days cropping up in February, can it be that March will come in like a lamb? Hard to guess. But be prepared for snow in April! The only thing we can be sure of is that the cabarets and clubs will continue to be filled with...

  By Myra Chanin     January’s Ricky Ritzel’s Broadway XV at Don’t Tell Mama was the best one ever. If you’ve flunked Mathematical Latin, I’m talking about the 15th in the series of monthly rollicking; regular-packed non-extravaganzas performed on the last Thursday or Friday of...

  A Celebration of the Music of The Beatles         by Elizabeth Ahlfors     If you haven’t seen Barb Jungr and John McDaniel’s state-of-the-art tribute show, Come Together: A Celebration of the Music of The Beatles, it’s hard to fully...

    by Sandi Durell   Brrrrrr. . . baby, it is cold outside! But warm and toasty in the clubs and cabarets where you find talent galore here in New York City. After a busy holiday season and New Year, you would think – – time to take a break and relax! No, no, no!...

    By Myra Chanin   Alas, I was (sob! sob!) out of town in late October and missed Ricky’s Ritzel’s Broadway’s Halloween deconstructions of Sweeney Todd, Rocky Horror Show and Little Shop of Horrors, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to immerse myself in his November...

    By Sandi Durell     There’s no doubt that Marci Kraft loves, no, adores the music of the 1960s. And it’s every aspect of it – pop tunes, songs from 60’s Broadway shows, from London to California and all those television theme and silly novelty songs – no stone was left...

    By Marcina Zaccaria   Stepping away from the piano and to the microphone, Christopher Howatt takes the stage at Don’t Tell Mama for Hear My Song. A Music Director and Accompanist who has played for Tyne Daly, Rita Moreno, and David Hyde Pierce, Christopher Howatt is...

  MAC Remembers cabaret legend Julie Wilson with show and dedication of memorial plaque at Don’t Tell Mama       by Linda Amiel Burns       On Sunday, October 30, 2016 a sold out crowd gathered to honor the memory of Julie Wilson with a show and dedication...

        By Sandi Durell     The leaves are still falling, the weather has gone from Fall to Summer back to Fall with a chill in the air, and the Cabarets and Clubs are jammed to the rafters with talent, talent and more talent.   Here’s a short list of some of the shows coming...

  By Myra Chanin   Bob Diamond’s performance at Don’t Tell Mama on Sunday Night October 23rd would have been amazing even if he’d been performing monthly solo musical shows several times a year for the past 25 years. However Diamond’s solo performances have been few and far between...

Late bloomer, Jim Speake, sings a pleasant program celebrating his new CD release   By Joel Benjamin   By his own admission, Jim Speake was a late bloomer—a very late bloomer—starting voice lessons in his forties and turning professional at sixty. Now seventy, he is celebrating a...

  by Susan Hasho     Lucille Carr-Kaffashan took us to school in the best possible way with her show “Unwritten.” Subtitled “Celebrating ­­­­21st Century Female Singer-Songwriters,” the evening was a fascinating search into the minds of the current generation of young women...

    by Alix Cohen   Mystique   It all started with a 1962 Judy Garland television special. The diminutive star affected young Sidney Myer as no entertainer ever had. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Proud and poignant, Garland seemed to vibrate from the screen, to sing...

    by Myra Chanin     Lynn Henderson is a blonde older woman performing three shows entitled “T’aint Nobody’s Bizness if I do: A Life of Song, swing … and shuffle ball change,” at Don’t Tell Mama this month. She introduced herself to a very sparse opening night audience...

      by Sandi Durell   The falling leaves . . . well, not yet, but soon as we ready for a full Fall season of entertainment in the clubs and cabarets of New York City. October features the 27th NY Cabaret Convention at Rose Theater, Lincoln Center October 18-21...

  Not to be Missed!     By Myra Chanin   Ricky Ritzel’s Broadway, the 2016 Mac-Award-Winning series, are my favorite shows, not only because Ricky’s regulars have been more than ready for prime time for a considerable time, and not only because the obscure, delicious...