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Talking to John Clinton Eisner is like hopping on a surfboard in a bracing sea and riding an endless wave. His thoughts, his views, his intentions keep flowing, and the [...]

'It's almost revolutionary for a Broadway singer,' Katie Agresta is saying. The vocal coach, whose promotional slogan runs 'We have your art down to a science,' is talking about rock [...]

Woody Allen, Harry Connick, Jr., Bette Midler, and Barbra Streisand started their careers in cabaret. But that was yesterday. What's happening today in the intimate rooms? Is it the best [...]

Hard as it is for those of us associated with the Back Stage Bistro Awards to believe, this year marks the 20th anniversary of an event inaugurated by the late [...]

Among the best things in life that are tree, some of the very best are songs. You might even rank songs just short of the sun in the morning, the [...]

I have heard all the arguments in favor of the five-paragraph structure: It is all students can handle; it is a good 'crutch' for lower-level writers; it teaches structure. I [...]

This article on finding a voice teacher, coach, or combination of the two is by someone who once had to make the search. So you'd think recording my considered thoughts [...]

And now a few words about longevity. Watching entertainers with years of practice behind them is exhilarating. You're reminded of seasoning, of maturity, of craft polished so highly you can [...]

Dialect coaches give great interview. They'll talk eagerly to you about Nicole Kidman's marvelous ear and Tom Hanks' wonderful ear and Lily Tomlin's particularly good ear. They'll run on about [...]

An observer of what's happening in cabaret today might be tempted to paraphrase Charles Dickens: It's the best of times, it's the worst of times. That kind of facile summation, [...]

When David Wojnarowicz was a kid, a neighborhood bully caught him playing in a house under construction and forced him into the unfinished attic. Wojnarowicz had to tie the older [...]

TRUE CROSS By T. R. Pearson. 255 pp. New York: Viking. $24.95. THE RABBIT FACTORY By Larry Brown. 339 pp. New York: Free Press. $25. AN old literary debate that [...]

If the world changed when the World Trade Center towers were attacked, it follows that cabaret has also changed--or will. In the short term, dates and even entire gigs were [...]

Rooms for Improvement What makes a cabaret room work? The question crossed my mind when I joined le tout cabaret, or most of it, for the launching last week of [...]

Genius' is a word you don't want to throw around too often lest it lose its powerful meaning. Nonetheless, the elaborate encomium applies to Sam Harris, whose current Arci's Place [...]

The press material that arrived from Natalie Blalock with a cell phone number and an invitation to her just-ended Don't Tell Mama stay informed me she 'has a fine ass [...]

'There's joy in everything,' Tsidii LeLoka sings. There certainly is when she's on stage, as she was at Arci's Place for a few performances recently. LeLoka is best known for [...]

Attending a Mark Coffin show is like tuning in to a late-night deejay broadcasting from a parallel universe. In between songs, he goes on--sometimes aggressively, sometimes soothingly--about what's clicking across [...]

Mary Stout killed during the second of two shows she did last week at the bordello-like Upstairs at Studio 54. I imagine she received the same reaction for the first [...]

The New York cabaret community, often rife with gossip, has had an especially juicy dish to munch on the past few weeks. Word got around more speedily than a Top [...]

Watching and listening to composer Larry Grossman at the second of his just completed three Joe's Pub nights, it occurred to me there's a trove of unexplored material through which [...]

Buddy Greco isn't certain how long he's been in show business. On opening night of his month long Arci's Place layover, he estimated he's been pleasing paying customers for 51 [...]

While waiting to make his mark as a performer, Ron Ramsay did long-term fitness-instruction and personal trainer duty. He looks it. In addition to amassing a large following, which he's [...]

In a kinda wonderful act at Judy's Chelsea, Leslie Anderson explains her show's called 'Still Untitled' because, 'I'm playing around with my image.' In fact, she mentions the image thing [...]

When Mabel Commanded the Room Mabel Mercer gets the biography treatment from Margaret Cheney in 'Midnight at Mabel's' (New Voyage), and it's an accept able look at the singer's life. [...]

For me there's nothing like singing a Puccini aria,' Anna Bergman effervesced, just before throwing her boaed self into 'Quando M'en Vo'--you know, 'Musetta' s Waltz.' It was the first [...]

TALK TO ME Listening Between the Lines. By Anna Deavere Smith. 300 pp. New York: Random House. $24.95. In Anna Deavere Smith's ''Talk to Me: Listening Between the Lines'' -- [...]

Donald Smith's yearly grab bag--known this frame as the 11th Annual Cabaret Convention--bowed with high-chic-boned Karen Akers singing about one of her favorite subjects: tough romantic times in Paris. Once [...]

When Barbra Streisand sat on a stool in Madison Square Garden a few weeks ago and sang 'Cry Me A River' as if she'd returned to the Bon Soir or [...]

As John Hoglund was saying only the other column, autumn in New York is spelling the thrill of first-nighting in new cabaret surroundings. Last week Timothy Gray opened the High [...]

Jazz and cabaret--for a long time two quite separate genres--are increasingly invading each other's territory. There are undoubtedly many reasons, one of which could be that practitioners of the two [...]

Serendipity Green By Rob Levandoski. 272 pp. Sag Harbor, N.Y.: The Permanent Press. $25. ROB LEVANDOSKI'S hilarious swipe at small-town narrow-mindedness is the type of comic novel in which the [...]

Lynn Loosier, making her New York debut, entered the narrow south side of The FireBird, Cafe room singing 'Georgia on My Mind.' It may be safe to say that no [...]

Catching up on some new discs, we sally forth with Steve Tyrell's 'A New Standard' (on Atlantic): Since he's an A&R man who's only worked at the best places with [...]

If being charming and funny is second nature for you, you're more than halfway to having the requirements for a certain kind of solid cabaret act. Which means that Matthew [...]

Having the courage of your convictions goes a long way in the planning and execution of a cabaret act. Often, though, it simply leads to conviction--of the punitive kind--by part [...]