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Simply Being Karen Akers  E-mail
Friday, 20 April 2007 08:28
“Simply Styne”

directed by Eric Michael Gillet
starring Karen Akers

Through May 12th
Tuesdays through Thursdays 9 pm, Friday/Saturday 9 pm & 11 pm
at the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel
55 W. 44th Street bet. 5th Ave & Avenue of the Americas

karenakers.com
algonquinhotel.com


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The Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, one of New York's best venues for outstanding cabaret, hosts Karen Akers this April.

In real life, Karen Akers, star of stage, screen and cabaret, liberally peppers her speech with words like "neat" and "groovy." If this seems at odds with her internationally-renowned chanteuse image, the language is appropriate to the young political activist and folk singer that Akers was before becoming a cabaret icon. Akers sang folk songs and played guitar in a show about women’s history called “Bread and Roses" prior to a Tony nomination for her 1982 Broadway debut in “Nine.”

Although her regal bearing bespeaks of European royalty (her father actually had a title, which he renounced upon coming to America, and she has lived in both London and France) she is a native New Yorker and graduate of Manhattanville College.

For the past few seasons, April in New York has meant that the legendary Miss Akers was appearing at the equally legendary Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel. Her earlier Oak Room shows have included evenings of theater songs, love songs and the songs of (John) Kander and (Fred) Ebb, but this time, it’s “Simply Styne.” And it’s simply divine.

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Akers and TimesSquare.com correspondent Leslie (Hoban) Blake.

Working yet again with her long-time musical director Don Rebic and directed for the first time by Eric Michael Gillet, the redoubtable Miss Akers has found an original way into the enormous Jule Styne songbook (writer of such great shows as "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," "Do Re Mi", and "Hallelujah, Baby!"), taking her audience on a journey into the life of a performer trying to balance life, love, and career against the harsh realities of show business. Complementing her new, softer hair-do, is a new, softer side of Karen Akers and by far, her most personal show yet.

“All songs tell a story,” Akers recalled over tea after a rehearsal of the new show. “I was just surprised to find that Jule Styne’s songs could tell my story.”

An incomparable interpreter of a song’s lyrics, she has deftly turned those lyrics—by such notable wordsmiths as Betty Comden and Adolph Green or Stephen Sondheim—into a direct conversation with her audience.  

No matter how many times you’ve heard some of these classics, you ain’t heard nothin’ until you’ve heard Karen Akers singing Styne’s love songs ("Time after Time," "People," "Long Before I Knew You") or a medley from “Gypsy” ("Let Me Entertain You," "You Gotta Have a Gimmick," "Some People"). “Simply Styne” is a master class in the art of cabaret.

Actor-singer-director-teacher, Eric Michael Gillett most recently directed Grammy winner Lari White’s Oak Room debut.  He is currently appearing in “All About Us,” Kander and Ebb’s musical version of Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of our Teeth,” playing through April 28th at the Westport Country Playhouse. www.ericmichaelgillett.com

Tickets can be purchased at (212) 419-9331 or by emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it


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