In the world of musical theatre, anything can happen, and often does. This is especially true at the New York International Fringe Festival.  Dinosaurs can sing and dance in one show and bring a fresh energy to musical theatre traditions that may seem, um, prehistoric…and the next day, at another show, the genre can seem as extinct as dinosaurs.  I’ve seen musicals with feminist themes, set centuries and worlds apart: one involving an 18-year-old woman who wants to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps and be a grand wizard and the other an assertive woman coming to NYC to program computers and wishing she could de-program the sexist men. 

The search for singing talent is in full swing on West 22^nd Street. Here is the latest report on the doings and undoings of MetroStar contestants, those singers competing in the singing contest at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Room for a chance to have an all-expenses-paid nightclub engagement there.  Competing is also great exposure, performing experience—and a learning experience as our reporter on the scene, Kathleen France continues to tell us. The competition continues each Monday through August 30.  What follows is a wrap-up of the last two Mondays.  Earlier reports by Kathleen, writing from the perspective of someone who was a contestant last year, can be found elsewhere on this website.

 Once again, we invite Kathleen France, singer and blogger, to comment on Metropolitan Room's weekly rounds of the singing competition. It's held each Monday at 7pm. Here is her report from the second night of preliminaries. She is a former competitor herself, and last year, was a MAC nominee for her debut cabaret show.

(Editor’s Note: Here is our observer/interviewer on the scene bringing you up to date as  Metropolitan Room’s NYC singing contest gets down to its finalists, with the winner getting a run at the club and a CD recording of it.  It’s been sold out, so call (212)206-0440 right away for one of the last two nights, August 23 and 30, when the winners are chosen…or be content to listen to the buzz from our fly on the wall,

"I don't need to hear this song ever again!" That's what I heard a musician of many years' experience muttering. We were both in the audience at an event with many singers, as yet another chanteuse launched into an old standard that gets sung more than the other 99% of the others we hear in cabaret acts, open mics and variety shows.

I wanted to let our readers get an inside view of the birthing process where a MetroStar is born: the delights, the divas-in-training, the dramas of discovery.  Since I’m one of the judges in this every-Monday singing contest at Metropolitan Room, along with fellow reviewer Roy Sander (with guest judges joining us in August, and the audience vote factored in), I have a different kind of role in observing the proceedings, and this regular cabaret column should not be a place for me to state opinions at this point,  However, it is an important and interesting event – and I wanted to let readers know more about what goes on in the room, if not in my head.