Norman Lasiter: Still Gray and Feelin’ Groovy!

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Norman Lasiter

Still Gray and Feelin’ Groovy!

Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, July 25, 2026

Reviewed by Bart Greenberg

Norman Lasiter

Norman Lasiter is gay. And he really enjoys it (having taken his time coming out). He is also old enough to have lived through the ’60s, which colored his taste in music. Unfortunately, he has been less lucky in love, which led to some of his darker musical selections (this is a fortunate thing as this singer excels at moody ballads). Oh, and he also loves zinnias, as the shirt he wore at Don’t Tell Mama conveyed, along with his “pretty (gay) in pink” dapper suit. With excellent support from his music director Christopher Marlowe and the touches provided by his creative advisor Mark Madama, he truly charmed and delighted the audience.

He could have slowed his opening mash up of “If I Were a Bell” (Frank Loesser) and “I Hear Bells” (Richard Maltby, Jr./David Shire) just a bit so the words, delivered clearly, could sink in a bit more. His following patter, “welcome to my annual reunion at Mama’s where I make my friends pay to see me,” was witty in its honesty. Seeming to take the advice of his own lyrics, he indeed took it easily as he charmed with “Feelin’ Groovy” (Paul Simon). A conversational delivery of “Soon It’s Going to Rain” (Harvey Schmidt/Tom Jones) was touching indeed.

Lasiter obviously adores props, which in this show ranged from a photo of his rocking chair (an obsession), to funny glasses, to an old telephone (which came close to electrocuting him when he confused it with a glass of water). Of course, when it came to the torch ballads, such as the Stephen Sondheim mash-up of “Good Thing Going” and “Not a Day Goes By” and the wonderfully ironic “Another Mr. Right” (Jonathan Sheffer/David Zippel), he kept it simple and honest.

He displayed a great sense of humor on the specialty number “Secrets” (Michael Thomas), which he summed up as “an old gay man sings a song about cats.” The only major flaw in his patter was his insistence on referring to his first show, which ran the danger of making those who missed it feel like outsiders. But anyone who can project all the joy in “Pick Yourself Up” (Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields) and the passionate yearning in “I Still Believe in Love” (Carol Bayer Sager/Marvin Hamlisch) can override such bumps and offer a delightful show.

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."