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.

Few singers have the sheer macho swagger of Lea DeLaria, who rose to fame as a butcher-than-thou stand-up comic and Broadway star, and more recently earned new fans as Big Boo on Orange Is the New Black. As a jazz vocalist, she has tough-guy sell and a penchant for scat. In her monthly brunch set at 54 Below, she tackles Great American Songbook standards and showtunes by such upper-echelon writers as Stephen Sondheim, Michael John LaChiusa and Kander and Ebb. (In a laudable effort to make cabaret more accessible, 54 Below is offering subsidized $15 tickets to the March edition, with no minimum, for those of limited economic means.)

The Wickedly talented two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Catch Me If You Can) leaped to musical-theater stardom based on his unlikely but winning combination of everyday guyness and star magnetism. He's one of the rare bona fide male stars of the modern Broadway musical, but he also really knows how to command a smaller stage. His latest nightclub run at 54 Below surveys all the girls he's loved before, as captured through songs by Elivis Costello, Loretta Lynn, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and many more. 

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 performance artist, countertenor, choreographer and professional oddity John Kelly returns to Joe's Pub with a clutch of 20th-century cabaret art songs, including German standards by Weimar Liedermeisters Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht and Hans Eisler. Musical director Mila Henry is at the keys.

Eli Scarpati and Fig Regan—who together make up the indie-rock duo Um, Jennifer?—celebrate the release of their single "Delancey" with an all-trans variety show at Joe's Pub, hosted by Anania (the charming host of TikTok's Gaydar) and featuring comedy sets by Jes Tom and Esther Fallick. 

The Iraqi-British drag queen Glamrou turns glamour inside out in a show that finds her quarreling with her more traditional Muslim mother over stories from their shared past. The writer-performer—who wrote the 2020 memoir Life As A Unicorn and directed the 2024 film Layla under their nonstage name Amrou Al-Kadhi—shares comedic stories, emotional truths and songs by pop girlies like Katy Perry and Charli XCX.   

The prolific Aussie-American songwriter Greta Gertler Gold has attracted all kinds of attention with her unusually appealing ’70s-style singer-songwriter approach. She's also got multiple musical-theater irons in the fire, including an adaptation of the 1975 Australian New Wave classic Picnic at Hanging Rock and the original musical Anna Hit, a collaboration with Stew (Passing Strange). In this Joe's Pub set, directed by Tank girl Meghan Finn, she revisits her 2023 Lincoln Center show, Characters, and shares songs from her many ongoing projects.

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 March edition features Andrew Montgomery Coleman, Nicholas Cooper, Timothy H. Lee, Sydney Parra, Khadijah Rolle, Hannah Solow, Olivia Valli, Tryphena Wade and Hailee Kaleem Wright. Eugene Gwozdz is the musical director and accompanist.