The best cabaret shows in NYC this month

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.

The depths of Stephen Sondheim's musical-theater catalogue have hardly gone unplumbed in recent decades, either onstage or in concert. But in their ever-evolving tribute to St. Steve, Bligh Voth and Joel DeCandio bring freshness to the catalog with a smarly calibrated mix of familiar favorites (such as "Johanna," "The Miller's Son" and "Unworthy of Your Love") and relative obscurities, including several that Sondheim wrote for film and television. The performers' complementary styles—she's a versatile dynamo with an expressive range as wide as her vocal one; he's a smooth crooner with a gentle air—bring out exroverted and introverted sides of the Master's compositional voice. Music director Nolan Bonvoulir provides spirited and inventive accompaniment. 

Have the time of your life at this queer cabaret-variety show by naughty-cuddly Broadway studmuffin Colin Cunliffe (Cabaret), featuring James Rushin at the keys and guest vocalists Natalie Joy Johnson, Emma Sophia, Stephanie Gibson, Corrine Munsch and Ińes Nassara. The theme is the soundtrack from the Catskills classic Dirty Dancing.