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Rob Lester
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Cabaret Review: JUDY WEXLER (Pangea, NYC)
IT’S JAZZ. IT’S JOY. IT’S JUDY On the very rainy night May 14th, performing at that place called Pangea, the attractive venue on Second Avenue in Greenwich Village, vocalist Judy Wexler is the featured attraction. It’s a one-night-only opportunity to catch her, so it’s worth getting wet. Notably, a cluster of admirers includes other singers…
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Cabaret Review: GEORGE & ME (Bill Bartus, The Green Room 42)
ANY TIME IS A GOOD TIME TO GIVE MY REGARDS TO [THE MAN WHO OWNED] BROADWAY The tribute show is called George & Me. The only singer on the bill is a man named Bill: That’s Bill Bartus, bow tie at his neck and hat and cane at the ready, and he’s ready to share…
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Album Review: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH – ELLA AT THE COLISEUM (Ella Fitzgerald)
The Moment of Truth is music full of memorable moments It was June of 1967. What music filled the air and the airwaves? The Beatles had released an album called Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Barbra Streisand performed a free concert in Central Park for 135,000 people. At the Monterey Pop Festival, music fans…
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Cabaret Review: JENNIFER ROBERTS: SHE LOVES… SHELDON! (Green Room 42)
HARNICK…HEARTFELT & HEARTWARMING Sheldon Harnick, who passed away in 2023 at age 99, is alphabetically in good company among the great Broadway writers. His name comes after E.Y. “Yip” Harburg — whose work and personal encouragement inspired him as he began his career — and the witty Lorenz Hart, but before Jerry Herman, who similarly…
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Off-Broadway Review: DRAT! THE CAT! (J2 Spotlight Theater Company at AMT Theater)
The “J2” in the name J2 Spotlight Theater Company of Manhattan doesn’t refer to descriptions that start with the letter “J,” like “joyful” and “joke-filled,” but it might as well, because their current offering is all that and more. The double dose of J is actually a nod to its co-founder/executive producer, Jim Jimirro, partnered…
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Album Review: LET’S FALL IN LOVE (Judy Whitmore)
Don’t look for anything very heartbreaking or groundbreaking in the familiar musical ground surveyed by the generally joyful Judy Whitmore. When she toasts love, it’s with a glass she sees as much more than half full; in fact, it runneth over. Let’s Fall in Love is her most recent release, returning to mostly rosily romantic…
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Broadway Review: FLOYD COLLINS (Vivian Beaumont Theater)
THIS IS HOW GLORY FEELS Here’s an especially poignant and powerful musical about a real episode from the past that finally gains the word “Broadway” to its history exactly 100 years after the actual incidents took place. Its triumphant current incarnation is prominent in the lists of nominees for various theatre awards (including six Tony…
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Broadway Review: SONDHEIM’S OLD FRIENDS (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
HOORAY FOR THIS BANQUET OF BLISS— ALL THOSE SENSATIONAL SONGS AND ENERGY— BEING ALIVE ON STAGE Words seem woefully inadequate to praise the wonderful, song-stuffed, dazzling and polished production featuring highlights from the musicals of Stephen Sondheim. The limited run of Sondheim’s Old Friends is highlight after highlight. For those many fans who’ve seen Bernadette…
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Off-Broadway Review: ZORBA! (J2 Spotlight at AMT Theater)
A FUN, LIVELY KANDER & EBB MUSICAL AND THE TICKET PRICE ISN’T EX-ZORBA-TANT Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: If a character in musical theatre is going to make a declaration of independence, these three things are cherished. A good example is Zorba!. It is a cornucopia of carpe diem being treated to a…
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Concert Review: A TRIBUTE TO TOM JOBIM (Stacey Kent and Danilo Caymmi at The Town Hall)
BOSSA NOVA BEAUTY: MUSICAL PLEASURE WITH A BEAT THAT CAN’T BE BEAT Music historians surveying what impacted, influenced, and changed what was on the charts and in the ears of listeners during the 1960s talk about two happy “invasions” from other continents shaking up America—in a good way. And with lasting resonance. There was the…
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Cabaret Review: TWO OF A KIND: FROM HOLLYWOOD TO BROADWAY (Lorna Luft and Andrea McArdle at 54 Below)
BRAVURA BELTING, BONDING, AND BONHOMIE A double dose of old-school star power, show biz history, and charisma radiated through the showroom at 54 Below, fondly received and encouraged by a cheering, packed audience. The ladies have played the venue before with their solo acts, but when Lorna Luft and Andrea McArdle share the bill and…
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Cabaret Review: TAKE ME TO THE WORLD (Donna McKechnie: The Songs of Stephen Sondheim at 54 Below)
DONNA MCKECHNIE TAKES US INTO SONDHEIM’S WORLD It may be impossible NOT to be charmed by the mega-vivacious, sunny-spirited, endearing veteran Donna McKechnie. Her smile and talent light up the room and the mood at 54 Below where Take Me to the World, her show devoted solely to Stephen Sondheim material, continues for two more…
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Off-Broadway Review: COMPANY (Theater 2020 in Brooklyn)
A BARE-BONES BOBBY IN BROOKLYN: A COMPANY THAT GHOSTS THE GOODS IS STILL ABOUT BEING ALIVE A revival of a show featuring the smart songs by the late Stephen Sondheim is sure to draw interest and audiences. Broadway is currently hosting the revue Sondheim’s Old Friends and his lyrics (with Jule Styne’s music) are in…
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Cabaret Review: TAKE ONE: ORIGINAL “SMILE” CONCERT PRESENTATION (In The Spotlight, The J2 Cabaret Series)
TAKE ONE: J2 AND A TALE OF TWO SMILES: THE FINAL SCORE AND WHAT CAME BEFORE While some companies reviving musicals long after their time on the Great White White might restore one or more songs that had been cut, or record them as bonus tracks on a cast album, how about a resourceful group…
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Broadway Review: THE LAST FIVE YEARS (Hudson Theatre)
IT WON’T LAST FIVE YEARS, BUT IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO (THE RELATIONSHIP AND THE BROADWAY MUSICAL) Although the traditional wedding vow includes the pledge to stay together “‘til death do you part,” sometimes the love and compatibility die first. In some old stories of romance, where marriage is the be-all and end-all, it all…
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Cabaret Review: SUSPENDED IN TIME LIVE (Rondi Charleston, Fred Hersch, Kate McGarry, Gabrielle Stravelli at Joe’s Pub NYC)
A REWARDING TIME SPENT SUSPENDED WITH THE ARTISTS OF SUSPENDED IN TIME Some musical performances—in concert or on recordings—while unquestionably or undemandingly enjoyable, may go in one ear and out the other. Others linger in that place in between the ears and might stay in the heart. Here’s an example of the kind that sticks…
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Broadway Review: SMASH (Imperial Theatre)
MAKING THE IMPLAUSABLE APPLAUSEABLE, SMASH IS A WILD, WACKY, WONDERFUL WOW “S” is for “splashy”; “M” is for “Marilyn Monroe”; “A” is for “audience-pleasing”; “S” is for “snarky”; “H” is for “hilarious.” Put ’em all together and that’s Smash, the broad Broadway musical comedy and the story of the Broadway musical comedy within that Broadway…
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Cabaret Review: SONGBOOK SUNDAYS: RODGERS & HART (Nikki Renée Daniels, Debby Boone & Charles Turner at Dizzy’s)
You probably did not attend the opening of a Broadway revue called Garrick Gaieties, since this year of 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of that show. It presented the first Broadway production for which a certain pair of talented songwriters had contributed the full score. They’d go on to much success, creating many standards that…
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Off-Broadway Review: SMILE (J2 Spotlight at AMT Theater)
GRINS, GOWNS, AND GRIT: A WINNING SMILE SASHAYS BACK ONSTAGE In the year 1919, the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway featured an ode to female finery as a bevy of beauties graced the stage to the strains of the Irving Berlin song “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.” The next year, Congress ratified an amendment…
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Cabaret Review: MARILYN MAYE (NYC’s 54 Below)
THE NONPAREIL NONAGENARIAN REMAINS A NON-STOP WHIRLWIND OF TALENT There’s a problem with singer Marilyn Maye’s appearances. And it’s this: For reviewers, all the positive adjectives have been used up, repeated, and now seem inadequate. The one in the alliterative title of her first RCA album in the 1960s—Meet Marvelous Marilyn Maye—stuck and still applies….
Dance Review: EUGENE ONEGIN (Joffrey Ballet)
by Emma S. Rund | June 9, 2026
in Chicago, DanceTheater Review: CONTINUITY (Shotgun Players / Berkeley)
by Chuck Louden | June 6, 2026
in San Francisco
(Bay Area), TheaterTheater Review: THE PHYSICISTS (The Actors’ Gang / Culver City)
by Ernest Kearney | June 6, 2026
in Los Angeles, Theater
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