Stephen Hanks News

On December 13, 2015 Meg Flather revived her 1993 solo show PORTRAITS as part of Stephen Hanks' Metropolitan Room series NEW YORK CABARET'S GREATEST HITS (Associate Producer, Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD). Backed by Paul Greenwood on piano and John Mettam on drums, and with Lennie Watts on board as Director to tweak the former show, Meg mesmerized the Metropolitan Room audience with what has become a critically acclaimed performance, perhaps one of her best ever. Flather then performed her new PORTRAITS three times early this year to packed houses at Don't Tell Mama. Now she's doing it one more time at the venue on Sunday, December 11 at 7 pm.

Sarah Rice first burst onto the Broadway musical theater world in 1979 as the original Johanna in Stephen Sondheim's TONY Award-winning musical Sweeney Todd. The dazzling soprano later became a cabaret star, winning a 2010 Bistro Award and 2011 MAC Award for Best Female Vocalist. After performing cabaret in almost every major venue in New York, Rice has been performing an exciting new show—MUSIC OF THE NIGHT--at the popular restaurant/club PANGEA (178 2nd Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets) and will be presenting her fourth performance at the venue on Friday, November 25 at 7 pm. Back in August, TIMEOUT NEW YORK recommended it as one of their “shows to see.”

In what he is calling the third part of a 'Cabaret Trilogy of Classic Hollywood Songwriters,' 2016 MAC Award nominee and 2015 BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Award Nominee Jeff Macauley will continue the run of his new show, Le Grand Tour: The Music of Michel Legrand, at the Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd St., New York, NY) on November 19 at 7 pm. Macauley's Musical Director/Arranger/Pianist Tex Arnold and Jon Burr is on bass.

With a show that is a perfect fit for holiday season and the winter ahead, Cabaret's hottest series, New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits (Producer, Stephen Hanks; Associate Producer Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD), will feature Nightclub Singer/Entrepreneur Ellen Kaye with a reprise of her hit 2010 show, Ice Wine: Songs For Christmas and Dark Winter Nights, at the Metropolitan Room on Tuesday, December 13 at 7 pm. Kaye's show will be the 16th presentation in the series, which launched in August, 2015. The Metropolitan Room is at 34 West 22nd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues). Tickets for Ice Wine are $25 ($20 for MAC Members) with a two-drink minimum.

It will be a festive Halloween night on October 31 at the Pangea Club and Restaurant (178 Second Avenue, between 11th and 12th streets) when Stephen Hanks and his Cabaret Life Productions presents the second of his new bi-monthly variety series with a special Halloween Night Variety Show. The show stars six sensational and highly-praised women cabaret performers who are smart, sassy, sexy, and whose singing is SCARY great--SANDRA BARGMAN, REMY BLOCK, CORY SEMINOWICZ, RACHEL WINELL, MAC Award-Winning Songwriter AMY ENGELHARDT, and KIM SUTTON, who won a 2015 BroadwayWorld.com Cabaret Award for 'Best Show, Female.' Featuring Musical Director/Pianist DARYL KOJAK with Hanks as host.

Many New York cabaret performers have tackled the songbook of the iconic Joni Mitchell, but few have put the kind of transformative twist on it the way Remy Block did when she performed On a Lonely Road: Travelin' with Joni between 2014-2015 at Don't Tell Mama and The Duplex. Block's tribute to the legendary pop singer/songwriter was a personal exploration of a young woman's life as a seeker, a lover, and an artist, with Mitchell's tunes serving as the "sacred text and rough guide" for her journey. Cabaret show reviewers raved about Remy's take on Joni's songs. Now, Remy Block is bringing a revised version of On a Lonely Road: Travelin' with Joni to PANGEA (178 2nd Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets) on November 7 at 9:30 pm and December 8 at 7 pm.

Union Temple of Brooklyn (17 Eastern Parkway) and Cabaret Life Productions Producer Stephen Hanks have announced that Union Temple will be presenting the third show of its 'Cabaret Concert Series' (which serve as fundraising events to help finance some of Temple's many programs and projects). On Saturday, November 5, international Cabaret Superstar Mark Nadler will present his Award-Winning and critically acclaimed show Tschaikowsky (And Other Russians), which won a 2003 Bistro Award for 'Raising Standards of Cabaret Performance,' and received MAC and Nightlife Award Nominations for 'Outstanding Performance in a Major Engagement.' Union Temple will host Nadler's show in the Third Floor Social Hall. Tickets for the event are $30. Doors open at 6:30 pm, with the show starting at 7:30 pm.

Manhattan Musical Theatre Lab, a developmental organization founded 17 years ago by the late Director and Choreographer Bick Goss, will present the new musical Brooklyn Bridge at the St. Luke's Theatre on October 24 at 6:30 pm (St. Luke's is at 308 West 46th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues). With a book and lyrics by Ray Roderick, music by Joseph Baker, and musical direction by Laura Bergquist, Brooklyn Bridge is an innovative musical inspired by the extraordinary life of Emily Roebling, wife of Brooklyn Bridge Chief Engineer Washington Roebling. 

When singer Billie Roe returned to performing in 2012 after a nearly 30-year hiatus, she set the New York cabaret scene on fire, winning the annual MetroStar Talent Challenge at the Metropolitan Room and capturing a 2012 Bistro Award for "Outstanding Theme Show" for her compelling Dangerous Women: Life In Film Noir. Roe quickly followed that up with her critically acclaimed Tom Waits Tribute Show 1978 NYC Underground, which earned her another Bistro Award and also a 2014 MAC Award for "Best Female Vocalist." Now Billie is back again, this time with a uniquely provocative musical show, MONOPOLY: SINGING THE LIVES FROM BALTIC AVENUE TO BOARDWALK, that combines biting political commentary, humanity, and humor with songs by composers as diverse as Kurt Weill, Alan Jay Lerner, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones, Pink Floyd, and Bono from U2. Roe continues her three-show run on October 15 and November 20, both shows at 7 pm.

'Without Dietrich, there would have been no Madonna...and no Gaga,' Janice Hall announced at the outset of her brilliant revival of GRAND ILLUSIONS: THE MUSIC OF MARLENE DIETRICH, the most recent installment of Stephen Hanks' New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits. Co-produced by Father Jeffrey R. Hamblin and flawlessly directed by Peter Napolitano, Hall's show---for which the former opera singer won both MAC and Bistro awards in 2011 and 2012, respectively---seamlessly weaves together the music and life of the enigmatic movie star and international cabaret sensation whose greatest creation, in Hall's words, 'was herself.'

No matter the song, style, or setting, Janice Hall, the multi-talented opera singer, cabaret chanteuse, and character actress, is her own master. She broke into the cabaret scene in 2010 in a big way with the 2011 Bistro Award Winner for Best Tribute Show and 2012 MAC Award Winner for Best Female Vocalist. The show that earned her those awards? 'GRAND ILLUSIONS: THE MUSIC OF MARLENE DIETRICH,' which Hall debuted in 2010 and will revive for one night on September 13 at 7:00 pm at the Metropolitan Room. Before Hall takes the stage this upcoming Tuesday night, we sat down for a discussion on career invention, reinvention, and versatility--- both Dietrich's and her own.

Cabaret Performer Meg Flather certainly didn't rest on her laurels after capturing two MAC Awards over the last three years (the 'Hanson' Award in 2014 and the Award for 'Best Original Song' in 2016). If some cabaret website or magazine comes up with an award next year for 'the hardest working cabaret star' over the past year, Flather will definitely be one of the candidates. Since early March, the charming singer/songwriter has been performing runs of two different shows at Don't Tell Mama, the famed cabaret hotspot on Restaurant Row in Manhattan. Flather has recently announced that she will be continuing her runs of two different shows at Don't Tell Mama, bringing back 'Carly & Me' on September 27 at 7 pm, and on November 7 at 7 pm, and reprising 'Portraits' for a fourth show on December 11 at 7 pm.

Sarah Rice first burst onto the Broadway musical theater world in 1979 as the original Johanna in Stephen Sondheim's TONY Award-winning musical Sweeney Todd. The dazzling soprano later became a cabaret star, winning a 2010 Bistro Award and 2011 MAC Award for Best Female Vocalist. After performing cabaret in almost every major venue in New York, Rice has been performing an exciting new show-MUSIC OF THE NIGHT--at the popular restaurant/club PANGEA (178 2nd Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets) and will be presenting her third performance at the venue on September 20 at 7 pm.

When one describes a meal or a performance as 'interesting,' it's usually a euphemism for awful, or at least deeply flawed. But Rosemary Loar's STING*chronicity, the musical theater and cabaret performer's second show devoted to Sting's songbook, is genuinely interesting---and ballsy. Featuring 13 characters who share little beyond a profound love for Sting (and mutual attendance at the Police reunion tour at Madison Square Garden in 2007), the show presents Loar's highly stylized and unusual interpretations of songs both from the Police era and Sting's forays into jazz as a solo artist.

When a show at the Metropolitan Room starts over thirty minutes late because the staff is frantically trying to find chairs and room for the better part of New York's cabaret community, you know you're in store for something truly special. And unless there's a chair thief on the loose in Flatiron who doesn't like Broadway, someone clearly oversold this show and/or lost track of comps; this was extremely vexing with a heat advisory in effect. Still, the mood was festive in anticipation of Jeff Harnar's 1959 Broadway Songbook, the 12th installment in Stephen Hanks' impressive (and increasingly well-known) New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits series. Harnar's show premiered 25 years ago at the Algonquin's Oak Room. Two years later, PBS filmed the collaboration with musical director Alex Rybeck, whose arrangements honor the original compositions but reimagine them in sometimes astonishing ways, making them genuinely creative acts.

Broadway and opera performer and multiple award winner Sarah Rice is in her first solo cabaret act since 2013 -- with a pianist, David Vernon, and her Theremin all at her side.

Eight years after launching her show 'Love Rolls On' (originally directed by Lina Koutrakos) at the Metropolitan Room, Susan Winter will reprise her critically acclaimed show, featuring classics of the Great American Songbook and future standards by contemporary writers, at the same venue in the 13th installment of the celebrated monthly series produced by Stephen Hanks' NEW YORK CABARET'S GREATEST HITS (Associate Producer Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD). With Rick Jensen as Musical Director on piano and Tom Hubbard on bass, Winter will perform LOVE ROLLS ON on October 7 at 7 pm.

Fresh off her 2016 MAC Award for best original song after a successful revival of Portraits (1993) for Stephen Hanks' New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits series, Meg Flather paid tribute in Carly & Me to the 'artist who gave [her] her voice.' With her longtime musical director Paul Greenwood on piano and the versatile John Mettam on guitar and drums both singing backup, Flather performed hits and lesser-known songs alike from Carly Simon's oeuvre, along with a handful of original songs influenced by her musical heroine.

Cabaret producer, promoter, and performer Stephen Hanks is bringing his highly praised show, Don McLean: Storyteller to the popular restaurant/club Pangea (178 2nd Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets) for a special performance on August 26 at 7 pm. The show features the Award-Winning Guitarist Sean Harkness as Musical Director, with Skip Ward on bass, and Special Guest Vocalist Rob Davis.

Cabaret audiences who fell head over heels for opera singer Janice Hall's 2010-2011 solo debut show—Grand Illusions: The Music of Marlene Dietrich—will get to fall in love all over again (and a new audience can become smitten for the first time) when Hall reprises her Award-winning show at the Metropolitan Room on September 13 at 7 pm, in the 12th installment of Stephen Hanks' monthly New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits Series (Associate Producer, Fr. Jeffrey Hamblin, MD). Hall's Marlene Dietrich show is directed by Peter Napolitano, with Matthew Martin Ward as Musical Director/Pianist and Ritt Henn on bass and ukulele.