If it isn’t, it should be common knowledge that, at least in New York, virtually all the piano bar and cabaret room personnel are singers and actors. The bar jobs are perfect: audition during the day, make a living at night. They provide a stand-by station between hoped-for national tours, musical theater roles or their own cabaret shows. The staffers intermittently take the open mic that attracts the late-night crowds for a song or two of their own, then return to work behind the bar or serving the tables.

Don’t Tell Mama has one of New York’s longest-established piano bars, attracting theatergoers, tourists, and post-show (or ‘twixt shows) performers seeking the camaraderie and the chance to take the mic. Recently, Don’t Tell Mama has taken the piano bar routine up a notch. Twice a week, staffers take over one of the club’s performance rooms for their own Our Way, Your Way, Broadway.

The night we visited, Kenny Green was at the piano, opening with his own colorful rendition of “The Colors of My Life.”  For the next couple of hours, a parade of Don’t Tell Mama staff members, bar regulars and visiting vocalists arrived to offer a musical kaleidoscope of ballads, novelty numbers, serious stuff and tongue-in-cheek songs.

Alison Eckert displayed a strong voice as she stressed the line from The Drowsy Chaperone’s otherwise dour “As We Stumble Along,” suggesting everyone “Keep your eyeball on the highball in your hand” – an appropriate admonition from our bar server. Her colleague, Kristina Culotta, followed with “the only happy song given to a female” in The Last Five Years, “I Can Do Better Than That.”

“I Just Want to Be a Star” from Nunsense provided bartender Sean Bernardi with his “big number.” He sang, “When I became a nun at a very early age…” accompanied with some body language not usually seen in a convent and garnering guffaws from the audience.  Bartender Alison Nusbaum was not far behind with “The Wizard and I.” Eric Pickering took a break from his duties in the piano bar to come in and add his heat to the fire.

Speaking of heat, Curtis Wiley, who was warming up to perform with pianist Green at Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday party in a few days, sang. As did visiting vocalist Thesa Loving with a powerful “Rose’s Turn,” the breakdown song from Gypsy.

The twice-weekly showcase/get-together is an appealing opportunity for serious vocalists: an open mic and an attentive audience without the usual hubbub of most piano bars that often turns their songs into background music. It’s worth a late night visit.

Our Way, Your Way, Broadway is on Tuesday and Saturday nights.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
March 9, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org