I hope no one minds my shilling for a friend, but just wanted to put in a plug for Dear Friend Milla's encore performance of her truly wonderful cabaret show. Skip called it one of the best cabaret shows he's ever seen. This is her press release - the press release a little suggestive (and has a few arguably "single-entendres"
) but it's really a wonderful show.
CABARET COURTESAN SEDUCES IN ONE-NIGHT STAND
NIGHTLIFE AWARD FINALIST MILLA ILIEVA
BRINGS HER CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED NEW SHOW
"SO MANY NIGHTS, SO MANY MEN" TO DANNY'S ON VALENTINE'S DAY
Jazz/cabaret sensation Milla Ilieva, a 2006 Nightlife Award finalist (for best female vocalist), brings her critically acclaimed new show "So Many Nights, So Many Men" to Danny's Skylight Room Cabaret, 346 West 46th Street, for a special one-night stand on Valentine's Day, Tuesday February 14 at 7pm. A style-spanning romantic round robin of songs about love -- many rarely heard and some that will knock your clothes off -- "So Many Nights, So Many Men" mixes Broadway ballads, rediscovered theatre comic curios, and a bon bon sampler from the American popular songbook.
"So Many Nights, So Many Men," featuring musical director Paul Trueblood on piano, and directed by Margery Beddow, was called "a saucy new show… a particularly well-crafted act" by the Siegels of TheaterMania.com when it premiered at The Encore in October. Piling on were Peter Filichia (also of TheaterMania.com) who wrote "those planning cabaret acts should be given a conference with Milla Ilieva." Writing in America Oggi, Mario Fratti oozed that "the sexy Milla Ilieva delights us with impassioned and sometimes erotic songs." David Finkle, writing in Backstage.com, claimed that Ilieva "wins hands-down… with effortless effort."
A multifaceted vocalist, Ilieva is as comfortable performing standards as she is singing opera and country western. A five-time bride-to-be (and proud of it!), Ilieva's colorful upbringing includes her formative years as a country girl in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, stints learning the trade at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins and the Académie Ravel in France, followed by more years of servitude in New York where she was further groomed at The Juilliard School's Professional Studies Program. She is proud of her Russian heritage, and counts among her ancestors a general in the Czar's Imperial Guards (who was not, in the interest of accuracy, a Cossack.)
In "So Many Nights, So Many Men" Ilieva lampoons her apparently insatiable appetite for love as she jumps from songs by composers as varied as Rimsky-Korsakov, Vernon Duke, Jule Styne, Ray Jessel, Harold Arlen, Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, Jacques Urbont, Lionel Bart and Arthur Schwartz. Singing of love's heartbreak, loss, excess, quixotic optimism, and out-and-out-decadence, she wraps the whole affair in dazzling packages that show off her vocal mastery, emotional range and urbane wit. Among the show's juicier musical morsels are songs from the cult classics "All in Love," "Lock Up Your Daughters," and "The Act."
Come to Mama on Valentine's Day -- Tuesday February 14 at 7pm, at Danny's Skylight Room Cabaret, 346 West 46th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues). The music charge is $20, with a $12 food and drink minimum. A special prix fixe Valentine's Day menu is available for dinner before or after the show. All major credit cards accepted. For reservations call (212) 265-8133.
