Billy Stritch & Nicolas King :Come to the Cabaret

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Billy Stritch & Nicolas King

Come to the Cabaret

The Green Room 42, NYC, January 8, 2025

Reviewed by Bart Greenberg

Nicolas King and Billy Stritch
Photo: Kevin Alvey

Two of the most talented and charming performers in the cabaret business came together to entertain an audience and pay tribute to the Lighthouse Guild. When those two fellows are Billy Stritch and Nicolas King, the value is guaranteed. They brought along drummer Daniel Glass and bassist Tom Hubbard, which added to the luster. The only thing missing from the evening was a solid core for the show, which consisted mostly of random segments that expressed the various interests of the artists.

There were some great moments, such as King’s blending of “Yes I Can” (Charles Strouse/Lee Adams) and “I Can See It” (Harvey Schmidt/Tom Jones), which created a positive energy that infected the audience. King then showed he was just as adept at ballads as with up tunes with an intense and moving “Time Heals Everything” (Jerry Herman). His mix of both fully vocalizing and talking lyrics worked really well with this material.

Stritch shined too, demonstrating his contrasting personality. Where King was all high energy, the singer/pianist was relaxed and easy-going (perhaps it’s that Southern-boy dynamic as opposed to the other’s New York City vibe). Stritch’s delivery of “That Old Feeling” (Sammy Fain/Lew Brown) glowed. But the best was yet to come as he paid tribute to his old friend and mentor Cy Coleman when King joined in for a mini show within the show to sing such delicious tunes as “You Fascinate Me So,” “When in Rome (I Do as the Romans Do)” and “It Amazes Me” (all with lyrics by Carolyn Leigh). These moments were the absolute definition of the intimate art of cabaret.

Bart Greenberg

Bart Greenberg first discovered cabaret a few weeks after arriving in New York City by seeing Julie Wilson and William Roy performing Stephen Sondheim and Cole Porter outdoors at Rockefeller Center. It was instant love for both Ms. Wilson and the art form. Some years later, he was given the opportunity to create his own series of cabaret shows while working at Tower Records. "Any Wednesday" was born, a weekly half-hour performance by a singer promoting a new CD release. Ann Hampton Callaway launched the series. When Tower shut down, Bart was lucky to move the program across the street to Barnes & Noble, where it thrived under the generous support of the company. The series received both The MAC Board of Directors Award and The Bistro Award. Some of the performers who took part in "Any Wednesday" include Barbara Fasano and Eric Comstock, Tony Desare, Andrea Marcovicci, Carole Bufford, the Karens, Akers, Mason and Oberlin, and Julie Wilson. Privately, Greenberg is happily married to writer/photographer Mark Wallis, who as a performance artist in his native England gathered a major following as "I Am Cereal Killer."

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