Cabaret

CHICAGO – My portrait of Liza Minnelli is one of my favorites not just for what appears in frame, but equally for the story of what happened after the shutter was clicked. This was back in 1992, when my focus was on Rock and Roll photojournalism, and I had been granted access to Liza through Tower Records in Chicago. She was promoting her “Live From Radio City Music Hall” release.

CHICAGO – When faced with adversity, the best way around it is to somehow break into song. That is the feeling behind the Brown Paper Box Co.’s “Positively Present: An Uplifting Cabaret,” running April 7th and 8th at Mary’s Attic in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood. The event features company member Kristi Szczepanek as host, and presents song stylings by other company members, including Anna Schutz, plus some special guests. For details and ticket information, click here.

CHICAGO – One of the top musical theater voices working in Chicago is actress/singer Jillian Kate Weingart. After triumphs in several local productions, she is currently featured in the iconic role of Sally Bowles in a staging of “Cabaret,” presented by BrightSide Theatre of Naperville, Ill., through June 29th, 2014.

CHICAGO – It’s “Cabaret” for god’s sake. It’s not “Bambi”. You’re supposed to need to leave the kids at home watching their own Disney flick. You don’t go to McDonald’s to eat healthy just like you don’t go to “Cabaret” for good clean fun.

CHICAGO – Warner Brothers is using their 100th anniversary to release a series of special Blu-ray and DVD box sets that would make great gifts for the movie lover in your life. To be fair, a number of films in the latest box, “Best of Warner Bros. 20 Film Collection: Musicals” are available in stellar Blu-ray editions and that should be the way to go if you can but for the standard-only movie fan in your life or someone who doesn’t own any of these 20 (mostly) classics, it’s a stellar starter set for musical history.

CHICAGO – It’s easy to see why “Cabaret” was such a phenomenon when it was released in 1972. The film not only tackles issues of sexuality that the musical genre had largely ignored up to that point, it features the kind of evocative visual compositions and performances not often seen in the genre. It is a “serious musical.”

CHICAGO – The Greek actress with the hard-to-pronounce name (kan-uh-kuh-REE-deez), was a presenter in Chicago at the Gabby Awards, honoring Greek Americans, between seasons portraying a forensics expert on her hit TV show, “CSI: NY”.