Cabaret & Concert NewsOriginal Nine Star Karen Akers Returns to Birdland With About Time April 24
Expect songs by Jason Robert Brown, Cyndi Lauper, Lerner and Loewe, Maltby and Shire, Joni Mitchell, and more.
By
Andrew Gans
April 24, 2023
Karen Akers
Tony nominee Karen Akers, who made her solo Birdland last spring with Water Under the Bridge, returns to the famed New York jazz club April 24 at 7 PM.
The new show, entitled About Time, features direction by Sara Louise Lazarus and musical direction by Alex Rybeck. Akers is accompanied by Rybeck on piano and Tom Hubbard on bass.
The stage and screen star will interpret songs by Jason Robert Brown, Noël Coward, Jim Croce, Cyndi Lauper, Lerner and Loewe, Maltby and Shire, Joni Mitchell, and Randy Newman.
Akers received a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut as Luisa Contini in the original Tommy Tune-directed production of Nine and returned to Broadway in another Tune musical, Grand Hotel. Her film roles include Mike Nichols’ Heartburn, opposite Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep; Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo; and Vibes, while her TV credits include Cheers, Hart to Hart, Presenting Karen Akers, and On Stage at Wolf Trap.
It's been the concert and cabaret stage where Akers has been most acclaimed. Her numerous solo recordings include Like It Was, Presenting Karen Akers, In a Very Unusual Way, Simply Styne, and If We Only Have Love. Akers is the recipient of the 2005 New York Nightlife Award for Outstanding Female Cabaret Vocalist in a Major Engagement and the 2009 Nightlife Legend Award.
Next year, Carnegie Hall's house band will perform Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony, unfinished works by Schubert, and the final concert of Conductor Bernard Labadie.
