You might have thought it was the 1920s, and you were in a cabaret in Berlin. But it was really 2025 and you were in 54 Below watching Artemisia LeFay perform her new show, Wasted Girl. A rising star in the cabaret world, thanks to her two past shows, Ghosts of Weimar Past and Phantoms of the Cabaret, LeFay, in her 54 Below debut, did not disappoint.

Dressed in sexy black and wearing Goth makeup, Lefay, with Hannah Mount on vocals, Renée Guerrero on piano, Quintin Harris on piano and vocals, and Khullip Jeung on violin, sang original, vintage-inspired songs filled with wisdom, humor and nostalgia.

LeFay favors long ballads with tragic stories: “Ballad of the Unmarked Grave,” “Ballad of Anita and Sebastian” (about the relationship between Weimar Republic performer Anita Berber and her partner Sebastian Droste) and “Ballad of the Scopophile” (a person with a sexual attraction to watching others). There’s also a lot of dark humor, as in “Coffin Built for Two” (a jaunty number about love, which, said LeFay, is just as eternal as death.

“Ich Liebe Dich” draws on the naughty absurdity of Berlin between the wars. And “Neither Fish Nor Fowl” explores the feeling of being in between.

Much of the show is in the spirit of Berber, dancer, actress, and writer (and the subject of an Otto Dix painting) who according to LeFay, “Did everything and everyone.” But LeFay definitely puts her own quirky and intelligent mark on everything she does.

With a powerful, sexy voice to match her image, LeFay is not wasted at all. In fact, she’s quite wonderful.

photo by Conor Weiss

Wasted Girl
54 Below, 254 W 54th St.
reviewed on Oct. 3, 2025