Current Press Release | Features and Reviews

'Hamilton' star Joshua Henry gives S.F. a 'History of Soul' and so much more

Datebook
Steven Winn,October 30, 2023

"I'm here to smile. I'm here to celebrate," Joshua Henry told his San Francisco audience.

And the Grammy winner and multiple Tony Award-nominated performer was good to his word.

During his one-night Venetian Room performance on Sunday, Oct. 29, beaming a mile-wide grin, he injected Anthony Newley, James Brown and Prince tributes with volcanic verve, as well as numbers from the Broadway blockbuster musical "Hamilton." In a compact but capacious 75-minute show that featured a 25-minute "History of Soul" as its centerpiece, he used his flexibly succulent baritone, punchy phrasing, fluid vamps and playful flair to claim every selection as his own. .

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JOSHUA HENRY - AN EVENING OF BROADWAY AND SOUL at Venetian Room

Broadway World
Steve Murray, October 30, 2023

Bay Area Cabaret opened its 2023/24 season with Tony-nominated (Carousel, The Scottsboro Boys, Violet) and Grammy Award-winning artist Joshua Henry who presented his take on retro-soul and R&B to an enthusiastic audience.

Backed by a tight quartet led by musical director/guitarist Jordan Peters, Henry opened with R&B interpretations of two standards: George Gershwin's "Summertime" and Anthony Newley's "Feeling Good", both displaying Henry's affinity for high energy soul-infused pop. "Hold Me" (Sam Ashworth / Theron Feemster / Joshua Henry) from his 2021 Grow CD shows a sensitive singer/songwriter capable of infectious hook material that had the audience singing backup.

To read the whole article, please click here.


Bay Area Cabaret Reveals 2023-24 Season Lineup

Broadway World
By Stephi Wild, September 20, 2023

Bay Area Cabaret has announced the 2023-24 season starring five exceptional and critically acclaimed cabaret, jazz and Broadway artists, all to be presented at the famed Venetian Room, Fairmont San Francisco, beginning Sunday, October 29 through Sunday, April 14.

Opening night of Bay Area Cabaret's 13th Season will launch in grand style with three-time Tony-nominee and star of Hamilton's national tour, Joshua Henry; just in time for the holidays, the Bay Area Cabaret debut of Canadian virtuoso trumpeter and jazz singer, Bria Skonberg with Jingle Bell Swing; the Venetian Room premier of Broadway's critically acclaimed leading man, the dashing Max von Essen, with his music director extraordinaire, Billy Stritch, for an elegant pre-Valentine's Day cabaret; the debut of a new musical show, Venetian Evenings: In Celebration of the legendary Venetian Room with guest artists to be announced; and a season finale featuring the triumphant return of Funny Girl's Julie Benko with music director Jason Yeager, in a new, nationally praised cabaret show, Julie Sings Jule (Styne).

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Bay Area Cabaret, Fairmont San Francisco Preview – An Experience to Remember

Splash Magazine
by Splash Staff, September 15, 2019

A visit to the Venetian Room at the Fairmont San Francisco atop Nob Hill is always special and memorable. Whether one is visiting from far away or from across the bay or other nearby places, the experience is unforgettable. Tony Bennett singing "I left my heart in San Francisco…" achieved fame for himself and this venue at a performance in 1961. For the next 20 years, Bennett reprised his love song to the city whenever he was in town and made a stop at "San Francisco's premier supper club. The room holds memories of wonderful performances by music legends that have graced the stage at this ornate and magnificent venue during its heyday, and include Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Marlene Dietrich, Joel Grey, Vic Damone, The Mills Brothers, and moving forward -Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Manhattan Transfer, Sergio Mendes and other headliners.

To read the whole article, please click here.



Always-prescient cabaret star Meow Meow finds last century's apocalypse still relevant

October 26, 2022
SF Chronicle review by Andrew Gilbert

Meow Meow was languorously grooming herself after a performance with the Melbourne Symphony when she answered a recent phone call from The Chronicle.

"Pulling off sequins and glitter and false eyelashes, darling," she practically purred.

Back home in Australia, the post-postmodern New York diva, songwriter and Pink Martini muse was still buzzing from her show "The 20s, and all that dissonance," a typically erudite and over-the-top three-hour Meow Meow production exploring Europe's cultural unraveling after the bloodletting of World War I.

The music might be a century old, but in evoking the era of Dada and Kurt Schwitters, Weimar Germany, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, she said she was struck by "how similar the situation is today."

To read the whole article, please click here.





Meow Meow opens 12th Season for Bay Area Cabaret

October 26, 2022
Baystages review by Robert Sokol

Vamp and historian? Philosopher and chanteuse? Comedian and harmonist? Student, linguist, dancer, dramaturg, raconteur? The disciplines spin like electrons around the nucleus of the artist known as Meow Meow. Her extensive CV defies easy categorization. Legit stage roles from the diverse canons of Shakespeare, Brecht-Weill, and Frank Loesser intersperse with "kamikaze" cabaret, symphony concerts, fringe festivals, songwriting, solo performances, and collaborations with renowned international artists like Emma Rice, Alan Cumming, Barry Humphries, and Thomas Lauderdale.

On Sunday evening, she opens the twelfth season of Bay Area Cabaret in the Venetian Room at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, a return to the region after triumphant engagements of An Audience with Meow Meow and album-promoting concerts with Pink Martini. What follows are excerpts from a far-ranging WhatsApp chat with the Australian-born entertainer, mildly edited for continuity and crafting her rapid-fire exclamations and curves in the conversational road into the sort of arc she might intend for one of her performances.

To read the whole article, please click here.





BAY AREA CABARET PRESENTS MEOW MEOW at Venetian Room

November, 2022
BroadwayWorld.com review by Steve Murray

Bay Area Cabaret opened its 2022-23 season with a rare programming choice: post-modern diva Meow Meow, the alter ego of Melissa Madden Gray. It's unusual in that Meow Meow's modern cabaret has an in-your-face 20th-century Weimar style that challenges and provokes audiences. This was not a show-tunes and Great American Songbook evening, and it wasn't for everyone's palate for sure. Behind the comic façade and burlesque slapstick was a thoughtful, talented chanteuse who allowed the music to do the talking.

She played on her unique appearance, looking like a windswept Joan Collins. Strutting onstage as the diva she is, Meow understatedly observed "It's a lot, I know." When no one threw flowers at her feet, she stopped the show to provide her own adoration. She played with the lighting techie, providing her own queues, often to mask his taking a gulp of wine straight out of the bottle or chewing on hard candies. When she shockingly couldn't get the stage to revolve, stagehands presented her with a lazy susan and spun her around during a lovely cover of Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees."

To read the whole article, please click here.





Meow Meow

November, 2022
Cabaret Scenes Magazine reviewed by Steve Murray

Bay Area Cabaret opened its 2022-23 season with a rare programming choice: post-modern diva Meow Meow, the alter ego of Melissa Madden Gray. It's unusual in that Meow Meow's modern cabaret has an in-your-face 20th-century Weimar style that challenges and provokes audiences. This was not a show-tunes and Great American Songbook evening, and it wasn't for everyone's palate for sure. Behind the comic façade and burlesque slapstick was a thoughtful, talented chanteuse who allowed the music to do the talking.

She played on her unique appearance, looking like a windswept Joan Collins. Strutting onstage as the diva she is, Meow understatedly observed "It's a lot, I know." When no one threw flowers at her feet, she stopped the show to provide her own adoration. She played with the lighting techie, providing her own queues, often to mask his taking a gulp of wine straight out of the bottle or chewing on hard candies. When she shockingly couldn't get the stage to revolve, stagehands presented her with a lazy susan and spun her around during a lovely cover of Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees."

To read the whole article, please click here.





Donna's Chronicles, "The Golden State Warriors once again saluted…"

November 3, 2022
SF Bay Times, Donna Sachet column

Sunday night found us in the charming company of Erika Atkinson at the storied Venetian Room of the Fairmont Hotel for the first in the Bay Area Cabaret series, now in its seventh year under the careful direction of creator Marilyn Levinson. In the lobby, we caught up with our host Jon Finck, Carolyne Zinko, Joel Goodrich, Don Berger, Patrick & Hossein Carney, David Landis, and several other music lovers. We anxiously awaited the performance of singer Meow Meow, formerly with Pink Martini and now enjoying widespread popularity across the country, as well as in Berlin, London, and Paris, with an unusual repertoire of original songs and rarely performed gems. Uniquely suited to this Halloween weekend, she conjured a mesmerizing set of song, physical comedy, and audience-engaging entertainment. Beyond her glamorous image and amusing props, she demonstrated an amazingly versatile voice and rare stage presence. We left thoroughly charmed by a very talented performer, new to us, and can't wait for the rest of the Bay Area Cabaret series though 2023, featuring Carole J. Bufford in January, Catherine Russell in February, Julie Benko and Jason Yeager in April, and John Pizzarelli in May.

Outstanding entertainment in a luxurious, historic setting? How can one go wrong?





Bay Area Cabaret's 2022–23 Season: Meow Meow As the Opening Act of the Series

November 3, 2022
SF Bay Times review by Patrick Carney

You know you are putting the COVID-19 funk aside (at least temporarily) when you find yourself all dressed up and passing through the elegant lobby of the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill as you make your way toward the posh and historic Venetian Room for the first time in three years.

Little did my spouse and I know what was in store for us.

It was a one-woman extravaganza, not just a solo singer on a stage with piano accompaniment. Indeed, Meow Meow is a gifted singer—plus she sings in three languages sometimes within the same song: English, German, and French. However, she is much more than a terrific singer; she is a comedienne—and a zany one at that—a glamorous clown. She can also weave a tale that keeps the audience quiet as a mouse when she sometimes whisper-sings with vivid, crisp enunciation as the audience waits with bated breath for each syllable to be sung. Long pauses don't work in most shows, but they sure did here.

To read the whole article, please click here.





Bay Area Cabaret's 2022–23 Season: Meow Meow As the Opening Act of the Series

November 3, 2022
SF Bay Times review by Patrick Carney

You know you are putting the COVID-19 funk aside (at least temporarily) when you find yourself all dressed up and passing through the elegant lobby of the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill as you make your way toward the posh and historic Venetian Room for the first time in three years.

Little did my spouse and I know what was in store for us.

It was a one-woman extravaganza, not just a solo singer on a stage with piano accompaniment. Indeed, Meow Meow is a gifted singer—plus she sings in three languages sometimes within the same song: English, German, and French. However, she is much more than a terrific singer; she is a comedienne—and a zany one at that—a glamorous clown. She can also weave a tale that keeps the audience quiet as a mouse when she sometimes whisper-sings with vivid, crisp enunciation as the audience waits with bated breath for each syllable to be sung. Long pauses don't work in most shows, but they sure did here.

To read the whole article, please click here.





Bay Area Cabaret Roars Back with Meow Meow

November 3, 2022
SF Bay Times review by David Landis

The venerable Bay Area Cabaret at the Fairmont's historic Venetian Room is back—with a roar. That roar, of course, being the sultry Australian chanteuse Meow Meow, who took San Francisco by storm in a show that amused, enthralled, captivated, and surprised an audience with her sold-out October 30 show. Bay Area audiences will remember Meow Meow's successful run at Berkeley Rep 8 years ago or her San Francisco Symphony SoundBox cabaret performance with conductor Edwin Outwater the following year. She's back, after playing the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Sydney Opera House, and with the London Philharmonic.

To read the whole article, please click here.




Cabaret for a new generation

The Bay Area Reporter
by Jim Gladstone, Friday Apr 20, 2018

To read the review, please click here.


Cabaret act: Who brought the stars back to the Venetian Room?

Published April 26, 2012, Examiner.com

What makes someone want to become an impresario?

We all understand the yearning to be a star, or even a performer at the back of the stage—a backup singer, a dancer in the chorus. The TV series Smash is a highly entertaining reminder of how hard such people work, against all odds, to make it, or just to perform from time to time.

So we can comprehend the drive that gets performers onstage at venues like…oh, let's just say the Venetian Room, in the Fairmont Hotel. Someone like Laura Benanti, for instance—a Tony-winning actress (for her Louise/Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy)—who happens to be performing there, for the Bay Area Cabaret series, on May 12. She's the latest of the performers BAC has booked since 2007, among them Broadway stars Sutton Foster and Chita Rivera; jazz vocalist Jane Monheit and soprano Patricia Racette; jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli and his wife, singer Jessica Molaskey; and singer/songwriter Melissa Manchester.

But what about the person who organized that series and signs the performers?

That would be Marilyn Levinson, an intellectual property lawyer until her father's sudden death persuaded her to pursue her true passion. Which was? "I wanted to bring nationally renowned vocalists to San Francisco and present them in intimate, elegant venues," says Levinson, who lives in Larkspur and has offices in Marin and San Francisco. She started big: One of the first concerts she produced brought famed Broadway singer Barbara Cook to Davies Symphony Hall.

Davies is elegant but hardly intimate. What Levinson really wanted was to produce shows in the setting that piqued her imagination as a child, the place that stayed in her dreams. For other kids, that might have been a lake, a park, a secret groves of trees; OK, maybe a mall. For Levinson, it was the Venetian Room.

Levinson's mother had worked with the San Francisco Civic Light Opera, the predecessor to today's Best of Broadway, bringing in the "opening-night crowd" and organizing financial guarantors for the shows. ("So we had in our home Alfred Drake, John Raitt, Ricardo Montalban...") On the heavy-opera side, her uncle, James Schwabacher, founded the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, which showcase up-and-coming classical singers in, yes, intimate settings. He also was president for many years of the Merola Opera Program, a summer training program for young opera singers.

With all that show biz surrounding her, Levinson spent a lot of time at the Fairmont's legendary supper club. "I've been like a Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian Room my whole life," she says. "I'd haunted that room for years."

Since 1947, the Venetian Room had been the swanky setting for stars from Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole to Peggy Lee and Tony Bennett; but it closed in 1989. "San Francisco has so much history encapsulated in hotel ballrooms," says Levinson. "To me, it felt like a tragedy that the room was not in use."

Now it is. First hired to present "supper-club evenings" for the hotel's centennial, in 2007, Levinson has been bringing singing stars to the Venetian Room for Bay Area Cabaret since 2010, when Marvin Hamlisch performed on opening night. BAC 2.0 is a selection of programs for a younger audience, presenting performers like Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp of Rent. Skewing even younger is BAC's Bay Area Teen Idol competition, which began last year. (The judges included Eden Espinosa, from the original cast of Wicked, and American Idol's musical director, Michael Orland.)

With 10 finalists, the second annual Bay Area Teen Idol competition (before judges such as Mary Wilson of the Supremes) takes place May 6. Wrapping up the BAC season the following week is Laura Benanti, who has also appeared in Nine (opposite Antonio Banderas), Into the Woods, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Opening for Benanti is Robert Conte Thornton, last year's Bay Area Teen Idol winner.

May 6, Bay Area Teen Idol competition, 3 p.m.; May 12, Laura Benanti, 8 p.m., Venetian Room, Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St., San Francisco, bayareacabaret.org


Pure pop pleasure with the Puppini Sisters

By Chad Jones, Published April, 2016

To read the review, please click here.


Bay Area News Group

Published Thursday, October 14, 2010


San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com

Published Thursday-Sunday, October 14-17, 2010


NIGHTLIFE - SF Examiner

by Robert Sokol
Published 10/14/2010