Cast Party at the Town Hall

The irrepressible Jim Caruso hosts a Monday night in-formal at Birdland on W44th St every Monday night. And all the guests at tonight's show have appeared there.  It sprang from informal get togethers at the NY apartment of the headliner of this benefit concert, Liza Minnelli.  People like Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Burton Lane and Jule Styne would sit around and sing informally til the sun came up. Liza suggested to Mr Caruso that there was a life in this concept and so "Cast Party" was born. It had several venues before landing at Birdland.

Tonight's show was a wild mixture of seasoned pros and new talent that had been noticed at another Caruso evening,"Open Mike Night". It's too late for me to go into the entire programme but I will mention that Chita wowed the house with 2 wonderfully energetic Jobim numbers, Christopher Seiber debuted a black piece about a stalker, Aaron Weinstein floored us with his dead pan and stunningly erudite comic introduction to a perfect imitation of Jack Benny followed by virtuoso violin riffing, Marilyn Maye had the best voice of the night, though I'm starting to think "I'm Still Here" has a curse on it with the number of singers who forget the lyrics, Sally Mayes sang a very funny C & W number about Viagara and Liza stopped the show with three songs including her signature NY NY.  Her preparation chorrie was sensational as seen from close up!   I was in the front row!!!!  She graciously stopped the song at the climax for a swig of water saying, " It's not good enough for you guys!"   What an amazing creature.    Here are some pics of the curtain call.

Marilyn Maye

Hinton Battle, Chita, Lisa Mordente (her daughter) and Liza

Sally Mayes

The very weird Caruso discovery and now viral videoqueen, "Miranda Sings" who does terribly terrible terribly well. When she did her second number...  an appallingly weak magic act which involved Jim Caruso sticking a sword through her neck while she sang from "Phantom of the Opera" she revealed a splendid soprano voice.   See, you gotta be good to be bad.

Liza and Lucie Arnaz, who said, " I had an act with my mother too"

The  sexy and hilarious Christopher Sieber and that Minnelli woman again

This one's for Sheldon

The very very funny and charming Jim Caruso mid bow. And mention must be made of the brilliant band led by Billy Stritch who broke a nail during one brilliant solo jam.

Liza is saying "Who was that in the front row? "    I think she might have meant me!!!