It’s that time of year again—things get WARM, and BIRDS are singing, there’s an overwhelming feeling of GRATITUDE. Of course, I am talking about that great season that is upon us: Awards Season. Things get WARM as congratulations and warm wishes are passed around, SONGBIRDS scheduled to perform in the Awards shows get their songs ready, and the GRATITUDE is thick as honorees try to find new ways to say “thank you.”
It’s the cabaret tradition and condition and mission to give out prized prizes to those who made the preceding year memorable. (Ah, yes, remember 2008? In between the Times Square New Year’s thingamajig dropping and the stock market crashing, all during the drama with Obama preventing a reign of McCain, there was cabaret all over the place.) 2008’s cabaret high points will be celebrated with speeches and songs and such ….with the Back Stage Bistro Awards on Tuesday…. and the MAC Awards on May 18. An upcoming column will preview the MAC Awards show (see the nominees and ticket info at www.macnyc.com), but since the Bistros are first, let’s get to the Bistros first.
Actually, you WON’T get to the Bistros at The Gotham Comedy Club if you weren’t smart enough to get your tickets already. It was announced yesterday that it is now utterly and completely SOLD OUT. Yup, that’s right. What did you expect with the kind of talent that will be present, starting with two superstars (and that’s an understatement) being honored for their long careers: CHARLES AZNAVOUR and LIZA MINNELLI, who will introduce each other. Monsieur Aznavour is in town for a series of concerts. Last year’s Lifetime Achievement honoree (who has a time-share program with Liza for the talents of musical director BILLY STRITCH who will be there, too) is MARILYN MAYE who will get a hip-hooray for her cabaret way, as she’ll return to wow us again. Same Lifetime. Marilyn is also a MAC nominee this year, in the Celebrity category. She’s still glowing, she’s still crowing, she’s still going strong, to use the lingo from Hello, Dolly!, one of her credits (its score fills up one of her CDs).
You can get more information and see a wonderfully done little film piece by Stage Buddy at the year-round website, www.BistroAwards.com with glimpses of the winners, such as the charming vocalist SUSAN WINTER (who told me last week she is about to record a live album--- can’t wait). Back Stage, the theatre weekly began the awards almost a quarter of a century ago! Time flies. (This is your cue to break into the Aznavour classic, “Yesterday, When I Was Young.”) Longtime Back Stage editor, SHERRY EAKER, is the hard-working dynamo multi-tasker in charge and charging ahead full steam. “I have a great team behind me,” she is quick to say. Perhaps no one is more excited about the big night than she is: Asked what she most looks forward to for Tuesday, she tells me, it’s “seeing all the various components that we’ve all been working so hard on finally gel!”
THE WINNING FORMULA
Winners are announced ahead of time, unlike the nail-biting and nerves and dramatic tension that can dominate award shows where winners are announced at the last minute on stage like at the MAC Awards show, the Oscars, American Idol, Miss America, and the Westminster Dog Show (the fur can fly in any of these, and there may be some howling). Until last year, the Bistro Award winners were chosen exclusively by Back Stage’s writers. Now the circle has been expanded. Writer Liz Ahlfors, a colleague from my work at Cabaret Scenes magazine and its website, www.CabaretScenes.org came on board last year and returns this season. Cabaret veteran Erv Raible is now a judge, too. Returning are Back Stage longtimers David Finkle, Roy Sander and, of course, Sherry. I am very pleased to have been asked to join the team to make this year’s choices, too, so I thought I’d take you behind the scenes and explain our process of choosing the winners:
It ain’t easy. We all are rather strongly opinionated people with different personalities and perspectives and I can’t say we always agree right away. It takes a great deal of discussion and debate over many meetings and months before we arrive at a consensus. We compare notes and quotes and votes for many hours after all the cabaret observations and watching and listening. It’s the opposite of the lyric in The King and I that laments, "our meetings are few and over too soon.” As the new kid on the block, I had to sign a confidentiality agreement and cannot tell you specifics of our secret talks. What happens in Bistro conference rooms stays in Bistro conference rooms. It was the most interesting and the grand total of 304 hours of talks seemed like a lot, though a couple of cabaret shows we saw seemed longer. Thanks to Sherry and Roy’s connections with two elderly monks who were cabaret singers in Europe in the 1940s, we spent an intense 48 hours holed up in a small monastery reviewing tapes and meditating. To be fair, possible winners are all compared on a level playing field --- literally: we met in a former football field next to the spartan rooms we stay in --- as we listened to solicited recordings of 127 singers being considered, all singing the same famous American song. This year, we asked each of the 127 to record the Motown classic hit of The Four Tops, “It’s the Same Old Song.” We finish with an intense weeklong retreat on the island of Terabac in the Indian Ocean where we begin with chanting and meditation; any disagreements between judges are amicably solved by mud wrestling in the field. OK, none of this is quite true at all except for the strong opinions and dedication and long hours of talks. (Indulge me; I never got around to writing my intended April Fool’s column earlier this month.) We did have some heated discussions, but that’s partly because we met many times in February and they turned up the central heating system in the offices of Back Stage.
MORE ON THE BISTROS
One thing that is special about the Bistros is that the same person can’t win twice in the same category, so it’s not the “usual suspects” year after year. As Sherry explains, it’s “So that the same people wouldn’t win over and over. It gives others a chance since there are so many new faces year after year.” But, there can be repeats when a performer becomes a director, or someone winning for a show may later win for a recording, etc. If you haven’t had your face buried in FaceBook, and don’t get e-mails from cabaret folks with their comments and allegedly “gentle reminders” about the honors and shows and tickets, or missed the Bistro winners appearing on Joey Reynolds’ nightly post-midnight radio show on WOR 710 AM (hey, they get a special MAC Award from their Board of Directors), let me point out some folks who are Bistro winners AND nominees for MAC Awards. Coincidence? Nah. More likely, it’s the same cream rising to the top as MAC final nominees are chosen by the MAC membership and special committees of those most familiar with their work, and the Bistros winners are selected by the aforementioned panel of judges/writers who view and review cabaret.
DOUBLY HONORED
Here are some of the overlaps with the honorees: Cabaret Renaissance man LENNIE WATTS, also the man of Manilow songs lately, is a Bistro winner for directing (among his talents) and is directing the MAC Awards and is MAC-nominated for doing so last year as one achievement. The Bistro Show is again being directed by Sara Louise Lazarus. The countrified show bringing back the music of the Robert Altman film NASHVILLE is not only a Bistro winner but a MAC nominee AND Nightlife Award winner. (On Tuesday, its male star DARYL GLENN will sing “I’m Easy” which won the Oscar in its day---or year--- his singing will be unplugged, he tells me, but here his show is plugged---he will return to the Metropolitan Room in June to perform). Australian transplant, transfixing KIM SMITH, gets the Back Stage Ira Eaker Award, named for Sherry’s father, an early Back Stage writer and champion of cabaret, as well as the founder of Back Stage (“He used to take me to the night clubs of the day,” recalls Sherry fondly.) Kim Smith’s show brought him a MAC nom, too. Also getting twice recognized are: DEB BERMAN, in the Debut category; LAURIE KRAUZ’s Tapestry Rewoven, the King-sized tribute in jazz which can be seen the first Tuesday of each month at the Iridium; the vocal group UPTOWN EXPRESS is in harmony with MAC and Bistro anointments; JOSEPH MACCHIA, whose Cabaret Cares variety shows raise money for charities gets a special Bistro and the series is MAC-nominated, too. Musical directors are the backbone of cabaret and the ubiquitous DON REBIC gets a Bistro and is a MAC nominee; DARYL KOJAK, musical director for Ms. Krauz’s Carole King Tapestry show and sharing her Bistro acknowledgement is a MAC nominee for that and his work with various other singers.
Hallways, featuring Carol Hall’s songs—and Carol Hall-- is the Bistro CD choice and it gets MAC nominations for the album and two of its songs. It’s indeed a fine album with lots of cabaret performers, including the Bistro winner in jazz, LAUREL MASSE, and the cabaret honoree for Major Engagement, AMANDA McBROOM and one of Liza’s terrific co-stars, Johnny Rodgers. Past Bistro winners are there, too. See you in the hallways of the cabaret rooms and Awards shows!
CATCH-UP ON CABARET is made possible by the generosity of JAMIE DE ROY AND FRIENDS, current MAC nominee and winner of eight previous MAC Awards and four Bistro Awards… but who’s counting? We are! We’re counting on her for another fine show on June 2 at The Metropolitan Room, with songs from Broadway shows that won Tony Awards. But enough about Awards for now!
Editor's Note & Invite - After the awards are all given out, keep supporting live entertainment by attending one of the many cabaret shows or events going on this night. Admission is comped for all those with Bistro Award ticket stubs to see Terese Genecco & Her Little Big Band at the Iridium. A third set has been added and the night goes to 1am.
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