Kim David Smith's "Mostly Marlene & Friends"
A Mothering Day event
(Featuring extra special guest performers -- to be announced)
Described by Broadway World as the "David Bowie of cabaret," "slyly subversive" by The Wall Street Journal, and labeled the "male Marlene Dietrich" by The New York Times, Australian cabaret performer Kim David Smith conjures the glitter, doom, and decadence of 1920’s Berlin and beyond in his intimate celebration of Dietrich’s musical and cultural legacy: Mostly Marlene.
Debuting at Club Cumming in March 2020, “Mostly Marlene” (littered with more than a modest modicum of Minogue, Madonna, Minnelli, and more!) enjoyed a sold-out Australian premiere at Alan Cumming’s 2021 Adelaide Cabaret Festival in June, more sold-out antics at Club Cumming on the Coast (Kennebunkport, Maine, August 2021), a celebrated return to NYC’s Club Cumming in September and October of 2022, and performances at Joe’s Pub (2022), and Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie (2022, 2023). Queer mega-muses collide with Marlene’s reimagined repertoire in Smith’s luxurious musical rearrangements, stravaging from Weimar Berlin, to Hollywood, through to the battlefields of Europe and into the stratosphere with Dietrich’s immortal "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss.” Musical direction is by award-winning accompanist Tracy Stark, with costumes by Miodrag Guberinic (Gaga, Minaj, Madonna, etc.).
"Smith doesn't impersonate Dietrich in any strict sense. Rather he channels her essence. Donning her trademark hat and tails, Smith, in fact, goes Dietrich one better as a man playing a woman playing a man. This sort of androgyny is straight out of the Dietrich playbook...The wonderful, magical part is that Kim David Smith plays none of it for camp. He winks at the audience, to be sure, but the evening is an honest and loving tribute to Marlene. He captures her signature style: the languid delivery, the fluid gestures, the almost predatory sexuality, and those breathtaking moments when she became so still and internal it was a little spooky. None of it feels natural, and that's precisely the point. Marlene Dietrich always let the audience in on the fact that they weren't watching reality, they were watching an inspired creation. Kim David Smith is inspired, indeed.” - Ricky Pope, Broadway World
Australian KIM DAVID SMITH is a Helpmann Award nominated singer and cabaret performer, known for his Weimar-era inspired works that juxtapose authentic musical material with stylistic takes on current popular tunes. His debut live album “Kim David Smith Live at Joe’s Pub” was released in July 2020 (for which he received a 2022 Bistro Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Recording”). His cabaret programmes, “Mostly Marlene, “A Wery Weimar Christmas,” “Morphium Kabarett” and “Kim Sings Kylie” have performed regularly in New York City at Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre, Club Cumming, and Pangea. In Australia, Smith has been presented at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, the inaugural Sydney Cabaret Festival, The Festival of Voices, The Brisbane Cabaret Festival, The Ballarat Cabaret Festival, Chapel Off Chapel, the National Gallery of Victoria, and Smith’s cabaret birthplace, Melbourne’s Butterfly Club. 2009 saw Smith presented with the Bistro Award for Special Achievement (honored alongside Liza Minnelli and Charles Aznavour). He was also nominated for 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2017, and 2022 Manhattan Association of Cabaret (MAC) Awards in the Outstanding Male Vocalist category. Smith is a recipient of the American Australian Association’s Dame Joan Sutherland Award for aspiring artists (2008), and is a member of the Kabarett Kollektif, a troupe of New York-based artists dedicated to preserving the European cabaret tradition. Mr. Smith studied at the Ballarat Arts Academy in Australia (BA, Music Theatre), and is based in New York City.
“Smith needs to be seen, and now” – The Village Voice
"Kim David Smith is addictive, a genius with a mighty future. A performer who understands hiscraft and uses every nuance, gesture and lascivious lyric to keep the crowd involved.
His musical choices are always arresting." – Adelaide Sunday Mail
"Not to mince words, Kim David Smith is mesmerizing." -- Cabaret Scenes Magazine
"Moving as if through treacle, his kohl-lined eyes sparkle with a direct stare - sometimes menacing, sometimes filthy but always charming. There's a flirting fox in the hen house."
-- The Age, Australia
www.kimdavidsmith.com
@kimdavidsmith Instagram / Twitter
9:00pm Doors / 9:30pm Show
$25 / $30 ADV / DOS
Ages 21+