Barry Levitt News

BREAKING NEWS !!!!! The Election will soon be over! Come spend a relaxing evening of music away from it all with RON DABNEY at New York's METROPOLITAN ROOM. SATURDAY, November 5, 2016 at 9:30 pm.  TICKETS ARE STILL available to  this no debate, no politics. night of great music and merriment.

Urban Stages has announced the line-up for this year's Award Winning series, WINTER RHYTHMS 2016, which will begin Thursday, December 1 and will feature some of New York's best musical performances through Sunday, December 11, 2016 at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30th Street, just East of 8th Avenue).

Ron Dabney will return to The Metropolitan Room on November 5, 2016 at 9:30 p.m. in NOT LIKE TONIGHT.

Join the Imperial Court of New York's Raise Your Voice II benefit concert on July 11, 2016 hosted by Gary Cosgrove and Doris Dear.

The fourth time was the charm for Minda Larsen, winner of the 2015 MetroStar Competition: “I have an MFA in opera,” she joked during the debut of her show, My Southern Song, at the Metropolitan Room on May 21, “So it took four tries in six years to win that competition.” The remark is typical of the self-deprecating humor of the versatile singer from Jacksonville, FL, who spent time in Georgia and went to school in South Carolina. Itching all her life to get out of the South, now she longs to get back. Her new show (a four-date run that is her award for winning the MetroStar) captures that longing with love, laughter, and an occasional tear.

For her first appearances at The Metropolitan Room, Andrea Axelrod will present Almost Like Being in Love - exploring songs 'about the cusp of love', with music director Barry Levitt and bass player Jon Burr.

The angel of death did not pass over Dana Lorge's house last night and the world of New York cabaret is grieving as a result. During the evening of the second Passover seder, the New York cabaret community was shocked to learn that MAC Award-winning performer and variety show host Dana Lorge died from complications of lung cancer, which was diagnosed just a few months ago.

Urban Stages will extend its critically acclaimed World Premiere of Mabel Madness written and performed by Tony Award Winner Trezana Beverley (For Colored Girls...) tells the dramatic story with music about the life of the famous cabaret chanteuse, Mabel Mercer. Co-directed by Frances Hill and Peter Napolitano with musical direction by Tuffus Zimbabwe, Mabel Madness began performances on February 19 and was originally set to end its run on March 20, will now play Wednesday nights at 7PM and Sundays at 3PM & 7PM through April 10, 2016. Tickets are $40 and are available at www.urbanstages.org or by calling 1-866-811-4111.

FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents Carol Woods on March 30, 2016. As Rex Reed so eloquently described her, "Carol Woods is a spectacular performer, with a voice like a brand new trumpet and a personality that wraps her audience in a blanket of warmth and peace. In a box of crayons, she's the fire-engine red!"

Cabaret performers and musicians and fans of the art form tend to refer to the people in this tight-knit niche as "the Cabaret Community." Well, that community is really coming together for one of its own with a benefit concert to raise funds for the extremely popular actor, director, and cabaret performer Erin Cronican, one of a very rare group of women in her 30s who is staging a fierce battle with breast cancer. The star-studded show, billed as Cabaret Beats Cancer and a call to arms to "Crush The Beast" is at Don't Tell Mama (343 West 46th Street, 212-757-0788) on February 27 at 5 pm.

There are milestones in everyone's life--events that are so strongly embedded in your memory that you can actually recall the date, the time, the place, and the feelings you had when they occurred. Events like a joyful marriage, the birth of a child, or the loss of a loved one all help to define us as human beings. For a woman you can add to that list a diagnosis of breast cancer. Erin Cronican, a young professional singer, director, writer, show business coach, and self professed “Actor and All-Around fun gal” is a beloved member of the New York theatrical and cabaret communities who is currently undergoing 28 radiation treatments (having previously completed three months of intense chemo therapy) for breast cancer.

Some years ago when Tony Award-winning actress (for For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (Ntozake Shange) and playwright Trezanna Beverley's voice coach suggested she listen to Mabel Mercer, the artist had not heard of the nightclub and cabaret singing icon. A trip to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Harlem) began a protracted period of research into Mercer's life and work. Beverley found she not only respected and admired her subject, but felt a kinship both in spirit and color. Inspired, she decided to write her own theatrical script about Mercer's life and art with the goal of playing her in a one-woman show. Her dream has been realized with Mabel Madness, a play with music that opened this week at Urban Stages and runs until March 20.

Cabaret performers and musicians and fans of the art form tend to refer to the people in this tight-knit niche as “the Cabaret Community.” Well, that community is really coming together for one of its own with a benefit concert to raise funds for the extremely popular actor, director, and cabaret performer Erin Cronican, one of a very rare group of women in her 30s who is staging a fierce battle with breast cancer. The star-studded show, billed as Cabaret Beats Cancer and a call to arms to “Crush The Beast” is at Don't Tell Mama (343 West 46th Street, 212-757-0788) on February 27 at 5 pm.

Jazz vocalist Ron Dabney returns to the Metropolitan Room in a sensational new show 'TONIGHT,' that indeed won't be just any night. Weaving together songs from the American Songbook, Broadway and jazz standards, the evening showcases songs of love - in all its hues.

She's been married and not. She's had serious relationships, flings, and romances with men of all ages (but mostly younger). She's experienced all the charms, foibles, and idiosyncrasies of the opposite sex--and loves them anyway. Actress and comedian Charlotte Patton brings all of that worldly wisdom to her sensual, provocative, and playful show . . . Celebrating Men (Bless Their Hearts) back to the Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd Street) on February 20 at 7 pm. Patton's show is Directed by Award-winning cabaret performer Karen Oberlin with Music Direction by MAC Award winner Barry Levitt and Jon Burr on bass. Peter Napolitano contributes as Creative Consultant.

Urban Stages (Frances Hill, Founding Artistic Director; Peter Napolitano, Associate Producer) continues its 32nd season with the World Premiere of Mabel Madness, the dramatic story with music about the life of the famous cabaret chanteuse, Mabel Mercer, written and performed by Tony Award Winner Trezana Beverley (For Colored Girls...).  Co-directed by Frances Hill and Peter Napolitano with musical direction by Tuffus Zimbabwe, Mabel Madness begins its Off-Broadway run at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30th Street) beginning February 19, opening on Thursday, February 25 and running through March 20, 2016. Tickets are $40 ($25 during previews; Students are $15) and are available at www.urbanstages.org or by calling 1-866-811-4111.

New Yorkers will be dancing in the streets this December when Broadway, regional and Las Vegas star, Andrea Bell Wolff, reprises her smashing show 'Bad Girls Do Cry,' conceived and written by Andrea Bell Wolff and Barry Levitt, at Iridium tonight, Dec. 22.

Urban Stages Founder and Artistic Director Frances Hill and Producer Peter Napolitano last night officially launched the 2015 'Winter Rhythms,' a 20-shows-in 11-days festival featuring more than 100 star cabaret performers and musicians. The opening night show was ANY WEDNESDAY SINGS AGAIN, an homage to the old cabaret series favorite, ANY WEDNESDAY, which was a popular CD release concert series from June 2005 (the first show featured Ann Hampton Callaway) to late 2011 and was staged at Tower Records and then Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center. 

On Thanksgiving Day, BroadwayWorld announced the nominees in 14 categories for the 2015 BWW New York Cabaret Awards. BroadwayWorld's cabaret editors and reviewers congratulate all the deserving nominees and everyone who performs in the great art of cabaret in New York. But today, as you munch on the leftovers from last night's dinner, it's time to actually vote for that one performer who you think is the absolute best in each category. Voting ends on December 31 and after a review of the ballots, winners will be announced officially early the week of January 4, 2016. (Note: There will not be a BWW Awards Show this year.)