Little Ol' Boy 1933

Next month, 54 BELOW will present some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond.

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the best film musicals since the sound era began; see if your favorites made the list!

Next month, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club & Private Event Destination, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond.

KRAVIS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Announces 26th Annual Season of Spectacular Concerts, Blockbuster Performances and Smash Hits from Broadway

I was just a little more than a year into my new side career as a cabaret show reviewer when I first saw a Karen Oberlin show. It was Valentine's Day night 2012 and Oberlin—with guitarist Sean Harkness and guest violinist Aaron Weinstein—would be performing her romance-laced set, Stringing Along With Love, at the Metropolitan Room. At the time, all I knew about Oberlin was that she was considered among New York's best female cabaret singers, and I hadn't researched her performing history pre-show. About a third of the way into her set I leaned over to my wife (it was Valentine's Day after all) and whispered, “You know, she has a real Doris Day quality in her voice and in the way she delivers some lyrics.” This immediately ratcheted up my appreciation for Oberlin since there are four passions I inherited from my Dad—baseball, reading the morning papers, sports writing and Doris Day (well, also Sophia Loren, but that's for another column). Since Dad had grown up during the prime of the Big Band Era of the 1940s, I heard the sultry sounds of a young Doris Day singing songs like “Sentimental Journey” on the family stereo more than a few times. Once I saw Day's strikingly adorable blondness on a record cover and her rocking body in one of her films, I knew what Dad was talking about. As popular, famous, and near iconic as Doris Day became, in my book, as a singer and screen beauty she's always been vastly underrated. Little did I know that Karen Oberlin had been doing a Doris Day tribute show so since 2001 at places like Firebird, Iridium, and the late Danny's Skylight Room, and produced a CD, Secret Love: The Music of Doris Day, in 2002. Karen Oberlin had instantly become my secret love.

The Museum of the Moving Image's popular series See It Big! will turn its focus to the movie musical with a fourteen-film celebration of the genre, from today, January 24 through February 28, 2014. Musicals are, by their very nature, filled with spectacle. They are heightened forms of storytelling, in which the narrative is amplified by song and dance, where characters express their innermost feelings in the most extravagant ways imaginable. It is a genre that celebrates excess and stylization, and the best examples of the form can only be truly enjoyed... big!

The Museum of the Moving Image's popular series See It Big! will turn its focus to the movie musical with a fourteen-film celebration of the genre, from January 24 through February 28, 2014. Musicals are, by their very nature, filled with spectacle. They are heightened forms of storytelling, in which the narrative is amplified by song and dance, where characters express their innermost feelings in the most extravagant ways imaginable. It is a genre that celebrates excess and stylization, and the best examples of the form can only be truly enjoyed… big!

Come fly through the ages and around the world as the Theater of the Stars presents a slate of beloved classic and contemporary hit musicals at the Fox Theatre.