The Happiest Medium » Cabaret

Champagne Pam Is A Fizzy Delight

Karen Tortora-Lee — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:38:40 +0000

Vocalist Champagne Pam, the Dog Walking Diva had the audience eating out of her palm last night at Don’t Tell Mama, New York’s legendary cabaret room. With a song list that ranged from jazz to R&B to original songs, every note was a little drop of love for the clients she so adoringly tends to day after day … the dogs who depend on her, love her unconditionally and occasionally steal her heart.

Backed by a terrific pair of musicians: Donald Rebic on piano, and John Hurley on guitar, Champagne Pam’s voice is given free reign to seduce the audience note by note, song by song with her between-song-patter being kept at enough of a minimum to not turn this into a one-woman-show-with-tunes but rather keep this as it should be – a night of smoky chanteuse numbers that revolve around a theme.

The theme – which this Diva simply reworks to a finer and finer point as each new song is introduced – is, as her moniker might imply, dogs, dogs and more dogs. Though animal lovers might find a kindred spirit on stage you need not be a member of PETA to find Pam’s tale of tails engaging, charming, alluring and yes, even touching. Think back to the purity of Jimmy Stewart on the Johnny Carson show reading his poetry dedicated to his dog Beau and you’ll understand the underlying love that drives this show and makes every song a winner. This is a gal who loves what she does and has allowed each little pooch to help redefine the daily ins and outs of her life.

As for the thing that makes or breaks a good cabaret act – the actual vocals – Pam delivers the goods, and how. Her voice twists, turns, soars, belts to the rafters and coaxes from behind the sultry corners of her persona, all of it mixing up in a delightful frothy cocktail that had the audience falling in love. Rebic’s fantastic piano and Hurley’s bluesy guitar are the perfect accessory to Pam’s smoky voice, taking a back seat and letting her shine center stage. However there are also moments when the wonderful arrangements and artistry of these musicians transform a song from just a simple ditty into a downright gem.

With old standards such as “Them There Eyes”, “Just In Time”, “Hurts So Bad”, “Tracks of My Tears” mixed in with some songs obviously written for the show, there isn’t a moment when Pam isn’t delighting the crowd.

Though her stint at Don’t Tell Mama is brief, catch this show while you can. You’ve got one more night to toast with Champagne Pam.

~~~
Don’t Tell Mama

343 West 46th Street, NYC
Champagne Pam is The Dog-Walking Diva

Donald Rebic, piano, and John Hurley, guitar – 3 night run
Thursday – Saturday November 3rd, 4th & 5th *7:30 shows

$20 + 2 drink minimum – CASH ONLY
Click Here to reserve your ticket or make reservations by phone: (212) 757-0788

$5 off for MAC & Cabaret Hotline Online Members
Find out more at www.champagnepam.com

Don’t Forget! The Dog Walking Diva At Don’t Tell Mama

Karen Tortora-Lee — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:51:49 +0000

Champagne Pam is The Dog Walking Diva!

Vocalist “Champagne Pam” returns to Don’t Tell Mama’s in her cabaret show The Dog-Walking Diva. Bubbling with a spectrum of sound from contemporary music to jazz, this show is intended to pop with the cabaret devotee as well as dog lovers everywhere!

Donald Rebic, piano, and John Hurley, guitar – 3 night run

Thursday – Saturday November 3rd, 4th & 5th *7:30 shows

at Legendary Cabaret Room – Don’t Tell Mama – 343 West 46th Street, NYC

$20 + 2 drink minimum – CASH ONLY

Click Here to reserve your ticket or make reservations by phone: (212) 757-0788

$5 off for MAC & Cabaret Hotline Online Members

Find out more at www.champagnepam.com

Bold, Brave, Bawdy – BUSTED

Karen Tortora-Lee — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:34:05 +0000

It’s easy to point out the obvious – that Bianca Leigh is transgendered, gorgeous and talented. But what lies beyond the sequins, the lively productions numbers and the hilarious anecdotes which pepper her one-woman show, BUSTED: The Musical is the simply stated – but nevertheless complex – concept that how we see ourselves is not always how other see us.

As Ms. Leigh points out in catchy songs (co-written by a team of talented writers: Jeff Whitty, Taylor Mac and Ellen Maddow, Jeff Domoto, Super Buddha, and Matty Pritchard and Isam Rum, along with William TN Hall, who also serves as musical director) sometimes that chasm between perception and reality can be vast. Luckily, BUSTED is set around dozens of charismatic characters who are all ready to be thrust into the spotlight via Ms. Leigh’s seemingly endless ability to channel yet another ghost from the 80s. With lightening speed they make their appearance: aging dungeon mistress, Latin drag queen, tough prison guard, or anyone else Leigh encountered who can lend color and texture to her story.

The action starts way back in 1987, long after the “skinny boy from Jersey” transformed – at least partially – into the preening swan that can rock a plunging neckline. While working as a dominatrix she finds herself arrested. It is more set-up than actual crime, however Leigh finds herself being shuttled off to the tombs nonetheless just like all the other convicts awaiting arraignment. It is there where she meets every color of the rainbow flag, from flamboyant drag queens to men who only claim to be gay in order to avoid the alternative overnight lodgings courtesy of NYPD.

Expected to be treated like a woman Leigh quickly learns that no matter what her outward appearance – or her heart – makes her, she’s still considered a man and is destined to be treated as one in this horrible place. She waits out the 36 endless hours in the murky cell picking out the watershed moments of her past with as much gusto as her cellmates herald the arrival of their prison-issued baloney sandwiches.

Tim Cusack directs Leigh with an even hand – never allowing a tragic scenario to grow to overly melodramatic but never letting the humor roll away without first coating it in a good healthy sheath of darkness. This is, after all, a tale of prison and not since Jean Valjean and Javert has there been a musical that so deeply explored the relationship between prisoner and captor. Okay – well, I may be exaggerating a bit, but watching Ms. Leigh’s complete and utter surrender to her guard at a moment of total helplessness dropped the room to a hush as we held our breath, felt her humiliation, and ached for her. To see Leigh use the symbol that marked her transformation – the thing she’d been fighting for – turned against her in an effort to degrade her was more powerful than anything I’d seen in a long time – let alone during a night of cabaret and laughter. But in that one moment Leigh – like any strong woman – did what the situation called for, knowing that she’d have to put aside whatever made her cringe and simply deal with the emotional fallout later. Now tell me this isn’t a plot arc worthy of Les Miz.

Most of the cabaret style evening had the gung-ho audience hooting and hollering in admiration and full-on worship of all Leigh’s charms; she knows how to win a room over and hold the crowd in the palm of her hand. Her big, brassy singing voice does much to bring home the songs that are catchy, clever and funny. Once in a great while a note wandered away from her but it soon found its way home and the forgiving audience was too dazzled to care, embracing these small missteps as part of the complete package.

At the end of the night the evening is anthemic, the mood – uplifting. “Nothing much happened in that cell,” she concludes … “just enough to change everything“. And by the end, as we see the journey that took her from one end of the cell to the other, we value our various freedoms a little bit more. Nothing about life is easy. Transgendered life – even less. But if you can hold your head high and come out the other side with your dignity in tact, your sense of self fortified, and the ability to swirl it all into a musical … then you’re golden.

~~~

Busted: The Musical ran Mondays September 26 through October 10 at The Laurie Beechman Theatre (407 W. 42nd St, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues) for a limited run.

BUSTED: The Musical

Written and performed by Bianca Leigh

Directed by Theatre Askew artistic director Tim Cusack

Original songs by Tony-winner Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q),

Obie-winners Taylor Mac (The Lily’s Revenge) and Ellen Maddow (The Talking Band),

Jeff Domoto (Cornbury: The Queen’s Governor),

Super Buddha (Debbie Harry, Scissor Sisters),

Matty Pritchard and Isam Rum (The Din),

and William TN Hall.

The production, which was workshopped last year under the title A Night at the Tombs, features musical direction by William TN Hall and costuming by Arthur Oliver.

Take A Stroll With The Dog Walking Diva – Champagne Pam Comes To Don’t Tell Mama

Karen Tortora-Lee — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 14:23:34 +0000

Champagne Pam is The Dog Walking Diva!

Donald Rebic, piano, and John Hurley, guitar – 3 night run

Thursday – Saturday November 3rd, 4th & 5th *7:30 shows

at Legendary Cabaret Room – Don’t Tell Mama – 343 West 46th Street, NYC

$20 + 2 drink minimum – CASH ONLY

Click Here to reserve your ticket or make reservations by phone: (212) 757-0788

$5 off for MAC & Cabaret Hotline Online Members

Find out more at www.champagnepam.com

Fate, Fury and Musical Theatre: A Kind of Cabaret – That Would Be My Kind (FRIGID New York 2011)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:04:45 +0000

You know how to get me to fall in love with your production within the first minute? Start off with a smooth cocktail made up of one part Lady Gaga and one part Sweeney Todd, mix it up with some hot choreography, garnish the hell out of it with a lavender back light, then have it served up hot and sweet by a trio of beauteous A Capella boys. Then, just keep going. Walk into Fate, Fury and Musical Theatre: A Kind of Cabaret expecting to be drunk on talent and damn – you’ll get your elixir and more. Much more. Written and performed by front-woman Liz Wasser, Fate, Fury is Fabulous, Fun and Fantastic.

So, back to these voices. These three beautifully blended voices are tethered to the bodies of Michael Hull, Ryan David LaMont and Kennedy Kanagawa, dancing the sleek steps of choreographer Chanda Calentine. The trio represent the three Furies – the three who are one (they not only sing in harmony but speak in perfect unison – intonation and all), and they welcome us – The Children of the 8^th day (which is the day AFTER the creator rested). We are special, because we heard the call and responded. What a warm greeting, Furies!

Soon to arrive upon the scene is the lady herself: Liz Wasser, and she makes herself known with a roar of talent, not so much “taking” the stage as “commanding” it. This gal’s got the soul of Aretha and the spirit of Midler – she’s got the pipes AND the three pips, out-Knighting Ms. Gladys herself. This is one hell of a force to be reckoned with so it make sense that the reckoning will be done by the likes of the mystical Fates and Furies.

Elizabeth Wasser

After blowing you away with her opening number Ms. Wasser takes you on a journey of how this all came to pass, this meeting with the Fates. Entertaining, clever, and not one bit airbrushed, Wasser’s monologue about being a non-equity grain of sand on the beach of equity actors around her is recognizable to both the actors as well as the non-actors in the audience. After all, doesn’t it feel like we’re all trying to swim upstream most days? But as she tells it, it was on one particular harrowing day that Ms. Wasser found herself all the way back in Long Island – Montauk . . . the end of the line. Facing her fate, her fury – her future.

The rest of the show is monologues mixed with music – perfectly paced by director Amanda Thompson and energetically devised by musical director Kristin Sgarro. Wasser’s “Poor Unfortunate Soul” number is so fiery, so electric, so powerful, that she literally transcends the small space of the Red Room and gives a performance worthy of Madison Square Garden.

Wasser brilliantly (and I’m talking from experience here) illustrates and encapsulates the relationship between the gay man and the chubby girl – two genres of social outcast bound together by the feeling that they are performing all the time. She and the Furies then do a fantastic mash up of Fat Bottomed Girls, Baby Got Back and Big Girls You Are Beautiful. Liz – thank you.

A slightly self-indulgent power ballad “How Do I Get You Alone” sung to pictures of Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch and a slide show of a few other Englishmen shows off her considerable vocal chops but slightly mis-fires. Still, this chick is a firecracker and at this point I was so enamored of her that she could have taken three minutes to go down to KGB bar, get a beer, come back up, and I would have applauded her. Yes, folks, she’s THAT GOOD.

Towards the end, just when I thought there was no more love left to give her Wasser found my secret passion for Hedwig and performed a deeply personal song to the tune of Wicked Little Town.

Finally, she leaves us with this last thought – despite everything it’s just you, but for this one hour, you’re not alone. So if all we have is our own voice . . . we might as well sing.

Liz Wasser and Furies – please don’t ever stop.

~~~

Fate, Fury and Musical Theatre: A Kind of Cabaret

Presented by The Furies Theatre Company New York, NY

The Red Room (85 East 4th Street) $15

Thu 2/24 @ 8pm, Fri 2/25 @ 11pm, Sun 2/27 @ 12:30pm, Thu 3/3 @ 9:30pm, & Sat 3/5 @ 8pm

Friends Of Dorothy – An Oz Cabaret (Fringe Festival 2010)

Karen Tortora-Lee — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:23:12 +0000

When I was a child there were a few things you could count on, and one of them was that (in the days before VCRs – and yes, honey, I AM that old) if you waited long enough The Wizard of Oz was going to be on TV at some point that year. Back in the day, TV had that kind of power . . . it could make you wait expectantly for something and then give you the big reveal – making your heart beat faster for that one joyful night.

Seeing Friends Of Dorothy – An Oz Cabaret was a little bit like that and . . . I have a feeling that – just like the hallowed movie – we haven’t seen the last of it. Dorothy is a Fringe Encore if I ever saw one. So, while the show has packed up its rigging and its pasties, sit tight. Here’s a little breakdown of what will certainly come around again:

“Toto,” Dorothy (Rita MenWeep a.k.a Jessica Silver) says to her iPod – crammed with play lists of the band famous for songs like “Africa” . . . “I don’t think we’re in Starbucks anymore!” Poor Dorothy, she got swept away, not in a huge Twister big enough to carry away a house, but rather in a tiny, tidy-bowl sized twister that swirled her through the toilet that she was doomed to clean, had it not, instead, transported her to this magical Land Of Bras. But Poof! Just like that the tiny twister took this sister away from her minimum wage job and into the glittery world of burlesque.

First on the scene to welcome her is Glinda (Miss Mary Cyn) who is swathed in a puff of stuff . . . but not for long. Seems clothes just don’t stay on a gal in this Cool New Land. Glinda sticks around just long enough to strip off the candy pink confection she arrived in, and to give Dorothy some good advice. Seems the Wicked Bitch of the West (Bianca Del Rio) is looking for the Ruby Pasties (which somehow made their way onto Dorothy’s . . . dainties) and if Dorothy knows what’s good for her she’ll . . .well, you know the story.

Soon Dorothy is carried off to dreamland courtesy of a Munchkin (Veruca Honeyscotch) who then dances on the Aerial Silks to a driving Annie Lennox tune. Sweet Dreams indeed! Ending with a death defying drop that had the audience gasping in unison as if on cue, this is one Munchkin who knows how to represent – more than just The Lollipop Guild.

So, as Dorothy moves through this strange but exciting land it’s the usual gang of suspects – Scarecrow (Jenny C’est Quoi) does a fun striptease from atop her perch amid the corn, Tin Man (Schäffer The Darklord) entertains with a foul mouth and a nasty attitude (“I am the Tinman . . . who the hell are you?”) by breaking it down for us via a 100mph rap that – if you can follow it – does a great job of telling the Tale of Dorothy Gale. And of course there’s The Cowardly Lion (Sizzle Dizzle) who removes her clothes to the A-Team Theme Song. Cute. It’s right about at this point in the show that Gypsy’s “You Gotta Get A Gimmick” popped into my head (Once I was a Schleppa, Now I’m Miss Mazzeppa . . .) and I thought “Wow, this is SOME gimmick!”

The Wicked Bitch does her best to strut and sneer and vamp delightfully, when she’s not introducing the next act. I mean, summoning her minions. Flying monkeys (Harvest Moon and Mr. Fantastic) doing a beautiful routine on the static trapeze and more stripping – courtesy of The Wizard -but not really the Wizard (Ambrose) himself round out much of the middle.

When the gang manages to thwart The Wicked Bitch – not with a pail of water but with something much more frightening to a carefully made-up drag queen – there is rejoicing all over the land, including the joyful Gate Keeper (Go-Go Harder) who does a neat little strip of his own.

In the end, Dorothy realizes that she never wanted to go home anyway, The Land of Bras is where she wants to be . . . and as she strips down to her magical Ruby Red Pasties it’s clear that she’s where she belongs.

Fun from start to finish, with just the right mix of kitch, drag, burlesque, circus, and glam this is one wild ride over the rainbow that doesn’t disappoint. Keep an eye out, this one will be twisting its way back into town again soon – count on it.

~~~

Friends of Dorothy: An Oz Cabaret
Conatus Productions
Writer: Rita MenWeep, Scot Marshall
Director: Megan Doss

www.conatusproductions.com
VENUE #7: The Ellen Stewart Theatre @ LA MAMA

The Happiest Medium » Cabaret

Champagne Pam Is A Fizzy Delight

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