Ricky Pope News

Linda Purl has the kind of career that actors dream of. Since she began in the 70s on the daytime drama Secret Storm, she has rarely had a period in which she was not working. She has appeared in films like Crazy Mama, Visiting Hours, Mighty Joe Young, and Fear of the Dark. She has appeared on Broadway in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Getting and Spending, and Off-Broadway in The Baby Dance. With over 50 television movies to her credit, she is a perennial presence on the small screen. She has had recurring roles on Matlock, Murder, She Wrote, The Office, Homeland, and The Oath, among dozens of others. She has the distinction of having played two different characters on the classic sitcom Happy Days. In Season 2, she played Richie Cunningham's girlfriend Gloria. Eight seasons later she played the Fonz's fianceé, Ashley.

Broadway World Cabaret's resident photojournalist Helane Blumfield was on hand to document the return to live performing of the cabaret convention.

Mad Cow Theatre has announced the third production of its 24th season, the high-energy, award-winning musical Pippin to be performed at Mad Cow's Harriett Theatre on December 1 through 19.

It was a family reunion full of friends, family, and 54 Below festivities, as Lorna Luft returned to the scene of her last, pre-pandemic NYC concert.

In honor of Tin Pan Alley being named a designated New York City landmark, the cabaret community threw a lengthy four-hour free concert right under the Flatiron Building.

Helane Blumfield's photo essay of Melissa Errico captures the star in perfect action.

This coming Saturday, October 23 is officially Tin Pan Alley Day in NYC. As a physical destination, Tin Pan Alley is five buildings at 47-55 W. 28th St. near the Flatiron building in the neighborhood called “NoMad,” north of Madison Square Park. But Tin Pan Alley is much more than a physical destination. It is a state of mind. It is the spot where the American music industry was born. From the 1890s to around 1910, this block of publishing houses and agent’s offices was where you went if you had written a song that you wanted the world to hear it. Many of our most illustrious Broadway composers got their start plugging songs in the offices of Tin Pan Alley including Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Jerome Kern.

Today we kick off the series with my conversation with musical director, Tracy Stark. She is one of the most prolific musical directors on the NY scene, playing upwards of 75-100 shows a year. She is the winner of 11 MAC awards in addition to the Bistro award and the Dottie Burman Songwriter of the Year award. She has worked with a plethora of great artists including Lesley Gore, Sarah Dash, Phoebe Snow, Karen Black, Randy Jones, Jimmy Osmond, Tovah Feldshuh, Eric Millegan. Tonya Pinkins, Ann Crumb, Marni Nixon, and hundreds of other rock, jazz, and Broadway artists. In the past 6 months, I have seen shows she worked on with Alice Ripley, Kim David Smith, and Meg Flather.

It’s a very exciting thing when a new cabaret venue is born, though the main thrust of the new venue looks to be more rock, pop, jazz, blues, r&b but with artists like Reeve Carney, Erika Henningsen, and Mason Alexander Park making appearances there, the Broadway crowds will find their way down to Chelsea… and maybe discover some new artists to love... Chelsea Table + Stage is a beautiful and unique, state-of-the-art restaurant and performance space with a staff that was fantastic and efficient. We were treated like old friends from the moment we came in the door.

54 Below welcomed one of their favorite artists back to the boards last week, and Broadway World Cabaret was there to catch her in action.

Bistro Award recipient Sue Matsuki returns to Pangea, alongside her co-Bistro-recipient, Gregory Toroian to treat some Broadway the jazz way.

There are some people who just have a passion for living. Passion is a word that applies to everything Christine Andreas touches. She has been bewitching Broadway audiences since she first appeared as the wicked maid Nancy in Angel Street. Her turns in much-heralded revivals of My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!, and On Your Toes made her Broadway's ingenue of choice and earned her two Tony nominations. She also wowed Broadway audiences in The Scarlet Pimpernel and the 2010 revival of La Cage aux Folles. She conquered the West End in The Fields of Ambrosia, written by her husband and collaborator, Martin Sylvestri.

Happily Elizabeth Ward Land isn't quite finished with her Linda Ronstadt show just yet... and the hits just keep on coming.

When it comes to the art of cabaret, no one has been more successful or more prolific than Michael Feinstein. His influence is literally everywhere you look. In three decades he has gone from a piano bar performer to one of the most driving forces in the music business, the impresario of a cabaret empire. He is an ambassador for the Great American Songbook and his work as an archivist of rare and forgotten scores is unparalleled.

Although Anita Gillette & Penny Fuller have been in show business for a very long time, their close friendship is not even a decade old yet. Fans frequently mistake them for each other. This is the premise of their show SIN TWISTERS which will open at 54 Below Monday, August 16. The title, of course, is a Spoonerism.  Fuller and Gillette explain that, and the mystery of their mistaken identities in the show. They also sing lots of fantastic numbers from the many stages of their careers. I recently caught up with Anita and Penny on Zoom. It was a chatty, delightful afternoon. 

A field trip for the BWW Cabaret team yielded great enjoyment and four different takes on The Drinkwater Brothers.

Pangea is the place to be on Monday nights, whether you are singing or just listening and enjoying a glass of wine.

Everybody has a little bit of Disney in their heart, even the most jaded adult - but Andrew Barth Feldman isn't jaded and he is, in spite of his youthful appearance, an adult. But is he a Disney Adult? Find out in this tour-de-force one-man show in which he builds his own Disney PARK MAP.

Gianni Valenti sure knows how to throw a re-opening, as Birdland audiences last week learned... or re-learned, as it were.

Farah Alvin's is the kind of talent people pray for, but not everyone gets. Her new show at The Green Roon is just one more example of the fact that hers is a voice that needs to be heard, a talent that needs to be seen.