The best cabaret shows in NYC this month

PJ Adzima, who currently plays the hopeful but hopelessly repressed Elder McKinley in Broadway's The Book of Mormon, hosts a neovaudevillian monthly variety show at the Slipper Room that proffers an eclectic mix of musical-theater, comedy, drag, circus and burlesque performances. A down-and-dirtier version of the show also plays there every week on Saturdays at midnight.

Part cabaret, part piano bar and part social set, Cast Party offers a chance to hear rising and established talents step up to the microphone (backed by the slap and tickle of Steve Doyle on bass and Billy Stritch at the ivories, plus the bang of Daniel Glass on drums). The waggish Caruso presides as host.

He’s worked with Liza Minnelli, Kylie Minogue and just about every downtown act in NYC. Now composer, pianist and performer Lance Horne hosts his own wild night of singing, drinking and dancing, strip-teasing and bad behavior at the East Village nightlife hub Club Cumming. Expect advanced show-tune geekery and appearances by Broadway stars looking to get down by the piano. Plan to sleep in on Tuesday.

Recovering Broadway actor John Hill, an original Hairspray nice kid and Boy from Oz heel, has matured into a comedian and muscle-daddy Instathot; his résumé includes a long and fruitful collaboration with Bravo macher Andy Cohen, first as a producer of Watch What Happens: Live! and now as Cohen's daily radio cohost on SiriusXM. He also knows how to put an entertaining club act together (as he has often helped do for Natalie Joy Johnson). In his latest visit to the Green Room 42, he shares acid-edged dispatches about gay dating, sober living and reality TV, studded with sometimes naughty original comedic songs.

Understudies, alternates and standbys get their momeents in the sun in Stephen DeAngelis's longevous cabaret series, which began in 2003 and has so far shone a spotlight on more than 1,200 performers. The February edition features Reese Britts, Francisco J. Gonzalez, Gianna Harris, Cameron Anika Hill, Marcus M. Martin, Juliette Ojeda, Sydney Parra, Sean Stack and Olivia Valli (a recent National Tour Elpheba in Wicked and, yes, Frankie's granddaughter). Rachel Dean is the musical director and accompanist.

Talented singers from the Broadway and cabaret worlds sing side by side in this monthly dive into the fathomless depths of the late musical-theater deity Stephen Sondheim. Guests at the February 23 episode include Ramona Mallory and Lucia Spina, who have appeared in Broadway revivals of Sondheim shows, as well as LaDonna Burns, Michael Di Liberto, Michelle Dowdy, Jon-Michael Reese, Lisa Sabin, Eric Ulloa and Jordan Wolfe. The saucy Rob Maitner plays host, and music director John Fischer is at the piano. 

The superb Brazilian operatic baritone Paulo Szot, who made Lincoln Center audiences swoon in his Tony-winning turn as Emile De Becque in South Pacific, returns to 54 Below with a set of music drawn from musical theater traditions around the world, including Broadway and the Spanish zarzuela. Luke Frazier serves as musical director, joined by members of the American Pops Orchestra.

The shameless drag legend and nightlife pioneer Lady Bunny hops back to the Green Room with another smart and delightfully offensive solo show packed with raunchy song parodies, topical comedy and savagely hilarious takedowns of other drag queens. Bunny knows her mind and isn't afraid to say what's on it.

The deliciously deranged postmodern diva Meow Meow, who has bewitched and bewildered audiences the world over, drags cabaret kicking and screaming into the 21st century. From the moment she enters—a vision of frazzled glamour, faintly annoyed—she is on the offensive: badgering the audience into applause, vamping the crowd with her magnetic jadedness. Meow's parody of glitz is part of a package that also includes physical comedy, social commentary and a brilliantly eclectic polyglot repertoire, with a special affinity for the songs of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.