There are memorials that look backward, and then there are those that keep an artist’s work alive by putting it back where it belongs—onstage.

Jeff Harnar returns to Birdland this November 9th for a special encore performance of his acclaimed I Know Things Now: My Life in Sondheim’s Words, presented in memory of the legendary Sondra Lee, who directed the show and championed it from its inception. Lee, who died in February at 97 and was subsequently honored when Broadway dimmed its marquee lights in her memory, made the deeply personal Sondheim evening one of her final directing projects.

For Harnar, bringing it back isn’t simply a revival. “The best way to keep Sondra Lee’s brilliance alive is to keep putting her work forward,” he has said. There could hardly be a more fitting tribute to a woman who spent a lifetime making theatre.

Lee’s extraordinary career stretched from Broadway to film, directing and teaching. She originated Tiger Lily opposite Mary Martin in Peter Pan and Minnie Fay opposite Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!, appeared in more than 70 films and eventually chronicled her remarkable life in the wonderfully titled memoir I Slept With Everybody. What she brought to Harnar’s Sondheim evening was not nostalgia, but a director’s eye for discovering the story hiding inside familiar material. And I Know Things Now has quite a story to tell.

Working with Lee and brilliant jazz pianist and music director Jon Weber, Harnar takes Stephen Sondheim’s words out of their original theatrical settings and uses them to construct something entirely new: a musical self-portrait of an openly gay New Yorker. Songs written for different characters, different situations and, frequently, women become pieces of Harnar’s own emotional history. Material from Follies, Into the Woods, A Little Night Music, Road Show, Dick Tracy, Passion, Company and elsewhere is rearranged and recontextualized until Sondheim’s characters begin speaking in Harnar’s voice.

That gender fluidity is not a gimmick; it is part of what makes the evening so revealing. A great lyric does not stop belonging to us because the character who first sang it had a different gender, age or history. Strip away the original costume and circumstance and Sondheim’s observations about desire, disappointment, fear, longing and survival become startlingly universal.

Sondheim himself apparently appreciated what Harnar and Weber were doing. Upon hearing Weber’s jazz reinventions of his songs, he responded, “I liked the changes. I wished there were more!” That invitation encouraged the pair to push further, liberating songs from the theatrical circumstances for which they were written and allowing them to acquire new meanings through Harnar’s own life. The resulting show received Sondheim’s endorsement and has been licensed for theatrical production by Music Theatre International.

The critics responded with similar enthusiasm. Longtime New York Times music and film critic Stephen Holden called it “the greatest cabaret show I have ever attended,” while its London engagement earned a five-star review from Musical Theatre Review. The show was subsequently recorded for PS Classics, produced by Tommy Krasker with Ron Thomas as executive producer, and the album received the 2023 MAC Award for Major Recording.

For the Birdland encore, Harnar and Weber will be joined by Steve Doyle on bass and Ray Marchica on drums, returning the material to the intimacy of a nightclub, where Sondheim’s words can land without the protective distance of a proscenium.

Harnar is particularly suited to that intimacy. A multiple MAC, Bistro and BroadwayWorld Cabaret Award winner and recipient of the Noël Coward Foundation Cabaret Award, he has appeared at Carnegie Hall in both the Cole Porter and Noël Coward Centennial Galas and on PBS in Jeff Harnar Sings the 1959 Broadway Songbook, as well as two specials with KT Sullivan. His career has been built around the belief that interpretation is not imitation—that the American Songbook remains alive only when a singer discovers something within it that belongs to the present.

Michael Feinstein once said of Harnar, “I discover something new in a lyric every time I hear Jeff Harnar sing.”

That may also explain why I Know Things Now feels like such an appropriate way to remember Sondra Lee. A director leaves behind something different from a painting, a novel or a recording. Her art exists in choices, discoveries, performances and the artists whose work she helped shape. When the curtain comes down, much of it can disappear unless somebody chooses to carry it forward.

Jeff Harnar is doing exactly that.

He isn’t simply dedicating an evening to Sondra Lee. He is putting her work back onstage.

And for a director, there may be no lovelier memorial.

October is proving that New York’s cabaret and concert scene has no intention of quietly settling into fall. A brand-new room, The Pocket, is opening its doors, adding another intimate venue to the city’s ever-evolving nightlife landscape, while 54 Below celebrates one of musical theatre’s most distinctive contemporary voices, Jason Robert Brown. Uptown, the 92nd Street Y brings star power with Michael Douglas and Patti LuPone, while Carnegie Hall has assembled an October that practically reads like a love letter to musical theatre and film: A Celebration of Rodgers & Hart, the October 18 Falsettos 10th Anniversary Concert, and, on October 23, The New York Pops going gloriously cinematic with 007: James Bond Forever. From a new club finding its voice to Broadway royalty and one of the world’s grandest concert halls revisiting some of the music that helped define American entertainment, this is one of those months when staying home seems like an exceptionally bad idea.

54 Below: 254 West 54 St. 10/5: The New York Pops Underground with Deborah Cox; 10/6: Ali Ewoldt: When You Wish Upon a Star, feat. Jose Llana & more!; 10/7: Bells Are Ringing 70th Anniversary Concert; 10/19: BSC>NYC honoring Jason Robert Brown; 10/20 – 21 and 23 – 25: John Lloyd Young: Songs from the Road; 10/22: Jenn Colella;  and 10/27 – 31: Christine Ebersole with Billy Stritch

Jason Robert Brown

92 Street Y: 1395 Lexington Ave. 10/1: Patti LuPone: A Life in Notes; 10/1: Bill Ritter, David Hyde Pierce, Dr. Scott Small, and Allison Gilbert on Alzheimer’s, Caregiving, and the Power of Community; 10/6: Michael Douglas in Conversation: One Helluva Ride; 10/8: Shark Tank Stars and Showrunner in Conversation: Season 18 Highlights Screening and Talkback; and 10/26: An Evening with Tituss Burgess

Patti LuPone

Birdland Jazz: 315 West 44 St. Every Monday Jim Caruso’s Cast party; Every Monday and Tuesday: Vince Giordano leads The Nighthawks; Every Sunday Gabrielle Stravelli Trio;  10/5: Amanda Green and Fantastic Friends; 10/12: Julie Halston and Jackie Hoffman Live Stream: 10/16 – 18: Carole J. Bufford; 10/19: Julie Benko Goes To The Movies and 10/26: Phillip Officer Sings Mabel Mercer Broadway Portfolio.

Julie Halston and Jackie Hoffman

Carnegie Hall: 881 7th Ave at 57th St. 10/5: Celebration of Rodgers and Hart; 10/18: Falsettos 10 Year Anniversary Concert and 10/23: The New York Pops 007: James Bond Forever

Chelsea Table & Stage: Hilton Fashion District Hotel, 152 W 26th St. 10/26: All the Things You Are: Love, Laughter, and Music of Jerome Kern.

.Dizzys Club Coca Cola: Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street. 10/2: Catherine Russell and Friends with Special Guest; 10/4: Songbook Sundays: Kander & Ebb with Karen Ziemba; 10/13: “Once In a Blue Moon” – A Tribute to Mabel Mercer presented by The Mabel Mercer Foundation; 10/14: “Sammy: All the Way & Then Some!” – The Songs of Sammy Davis, Jr.   presented by the Mabel Mercer Foundation and 10/15: “With a Song in My Heart” – A Cornucopia of Entertainment presented by The Mabel Mercer Foundation

Karen Ziemba

Don’t Tell Mama: 343 W. 46 St. 10/10 and 25: Lucille Carr-Kaffashan: Breathe;  10/27: Steven Carl McCasland: Everybody Rise! and 10/29 Tanya Moberly: Repertoire With Mark Janas

Laurie Beechman Theatre: at the West Bank Café: 407 West 42 St. 10/ 5 -6: Jackie Hoffman; 10/9: Lorna Luft; 10/10: Andrea McArdle’s Broadway On Demand; 10/15: Lauren Marcus; 10/16: Lillias White Live At The Beechman and 10/30 -31: The Joe Iconis Haunted Halloween Special

Madame George: 45 West 45th: Broadway Night Mondays.

The Café Carlyle: 35 East 76 St. at Madison Ave.  9/29 – 10/3: Ariana DeBose; 10/20 -24: Patty Smyth at Café Carlyle and 27 – 29: St. Vincent at Café Carlyle.

The Cutting Room: 44 East 32nd St.

The DJango: 2 Avenue of the Americas. 10/16: Jason Tiemann Quinetet and 10/24 Lee Taylor.

The Iridium: 1650 Broadway. 8/29: Papa Chubby

The Pierre Hotel, Two E Bar & Lounge: 2 E 61st St.

The Pocket:130 West 36th St. Every Monday mingus big band; Every Tuesday arturo o’farrill & the afro latin jazz orchestra

Sony Hall: 235 W 46th St. 10/11: Morgan James

The Triad: 158 W. 72 St. Street.

The Town Hall: 123 W. 43 St. 10/30: The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Original Cast Spooktacular Tour

Yesterday, T2C published Linda Amiel Burns’ account of what happened at the American Popular Song Society, an organization she helped lead for more than four decades. Burns told T2C unequivocally that she did not retire and challenged the circumstances under which Michael Lavine became the organization’s new president.

I promised Lavine the same opportunity to tell his side.

He responded with considerably more than a statement. He provided correspondence among board members dating back months, documentation concerning the July 30 board meeting, material concerning compensation discussed during the proposed transition, and supporting organizational records.

After reviewing those materials, and after speaking at length with both Lavine and Burns, I no longer see this simply as a story about someone being pushed out of an organization she spent decades building. The documentary record tells a more complicated—and in several respects different—story.

For months before the disputed July meeting, Burns and longtime treasurer Glen Charlow had themselves been raising the possibility of leaving. On March 2, Burns told board members that she and Charlow were “trying to decide if this is our last year or not and whether to continue.” She added that they did not see anyone replacing them.

On March 28, she went further. Burns wrote that Charlow “expressed a desire to retire,” asked whether anyone knew somebody who “would like to take over,” and said APSS might otherwise reduce itself to one annual event or disband altogether.

That does not constitute a formal resignation from Burns, but neither can those statements reasonably be ignored when examining what happened next.

They asked who would take over. Michael Lavine and Tom Toce answered. And that appears to be where expectations diverged.

Lavine and Toce did not simply offer to help maintain the existing arrangement. They proposed becoming the organization’s new leadership and changing its direction. Lavine was remarkably candid about that in a July 9 email to the board. He said APSS needed to move further into the 21st century and include more contemporary composers, lyricists and performers alongside the Great American Songbook. He wrote that he had approached Toce about stepping into leadership and that, after seeing membership registration had been closed, he thought they should “try and take it over” and introduce new programming.

Those words sound dramatic when isolated. In context,Lavine immediately acknowledged Burns’ and Charlow’s decades of service and said he was not attempting to push them out without recognition. He proposed a board meeting where everyone could discuss the organization’s future and vote.

There is another important correction to the record. Burns’ statement said discussions culminated in a board meeting that “did not include” her and Charlow and described it as a meeting to which not every board member was invited. The correspondence Lavine supplied shows that Burns was invited. Lavine’s July 9 email specifically told Burns and Charlow that if they did not want to attend the meeting at his apartment, they could participate by Zoom. The July 29 meeting notice was also sent to Burns and explicitly listed the election of officers on the agenda.

Whatever disagreement remains about the validity of the meeting or the election, I cannot characterize Burns as having been excluded from a meeting when the correspondence provided to T2C shows that she was invited to attend.

Money was also part of the proposed transition. Those financial discussion matters because it changes the context of what followed. This was not simply a binary choice between Burns remaining president and Burns being thrown out. There were discussions about succession, discussions about Burns and Charlow remaining during a transition, discussions about compensation, and eventually a board election.

I have known Michael Lavine for years. When Linda first told me what had happened, I found her account deeply troubling precisely because I had difficulty reconciling it with the Michael I knew. But friendship is not evidence, in either direction. That is why I asked him for his side and why I asked for documentation. He provided it.

That does not mean every question has disappeared. There is an important distinction between contemplating retirement and formally resigning an office. There is also an important distinction between being removed without an opportunity to participate and choosing not to participate in a meeting to which one was invited. After speaking with both Burns and Lavine, I believe much of this dispute grew out of that uncomfortable territory between succession as an idea and succession when it actually happens.

For years, Burns and Charlow were APSS. They kept it going. They did the work. They worried about who would replace them. They publicly contemplated retirement and asked who might take over. Then somebody did. That moment can look very different depending upon which side of the table you are sitting on.

To the people who spent decades building something, succession can feel very different when it stops being hypothetical. To the people being asked to ensure that the organization survives, repeated discussions of retirement and requests for successors can reasonably be understood as an invitation to prepare for new leadership.

I don’t believe the evidence I’ve now seen supports reducing this story to villains and victims. I believe it shows something much more human.

There was also a practical reality behind these conversations that should not be overlooked. Neither Burns nor Charlow live any longer in New York City. Burns had moved to Connecticut, while Charlow was coming in from the Baltimore area. Burns herself acknowledged the difficulty in her March 28 email, writing that Charlow “does not want to come in from Baltimore anymore” while discussing his desire to retire.

That matters. APSS is a New York-based organization whose programming requires meetings, planning, performances and considerable hands-on involvement. Running it from outside the city means travel, time and expense, and after decades of doing the work, neither Burns nor Charlow are at a stage of life where those demands were insignificant. Their discussions about retirement did not happen in a vacuum. There were real logistical reasons for questioning whether the existing arrangement could continue.

Money appears to have become part of the proposed solution. Rather than simply walking away, Burns and Charlow discussed remaining through another season as part of a transition, with Lavine saying they requested $500 per month each for nine months. A contemporaneous June 26 email from Toce refers specifically to “the $500 a month request,” so there is documentary evidence that compensation was being discussed. The cost involved is in total $9,000. A June 26 email from Toce discusses concerns about paying it when APSS publicly described itself as an organization “run entirely by volunteers.” Toce instead discussed an annual award honoring Burns with a $1,000 honorarium.

Seen in that context, the dispute begins to look less like a sudden overthrow and more like a succession process that nobody successfully defined. Burns and Charlow were openly questioning whether they could continue, looking for people to take over and confronting the practical burden of running a New York organization from outside New York. Lavine and Toce heard those discussions and stepped forward. Where the relationship appears to have fractured was over what “taking over” actually meant, when it would happen, what role Burns and Charlow would retain, and whether they would be compensated during the transition.

Two people who devoted decades to an organization began talking about leaving it. Other people listened. They stepped forward. And when the theoretical future became the actual present, the transition became painful and feelings were hurt.

That doesn’t erase what Linda Amiel Burns and Glen Charlow gave APSS. Quite the opposite. Without them, there might not have been an organization for anyone to inherit, but preserving someone’s legacy and preserving someone’s position are not necessarily the same thing.

After reviewing the correspondence, speaking to both sides and looking again at what happened, I believe the American Popular Song Society reached the succession that its longtime leadership had been warning for months was coming. The real failure was that nobody involved seems to have understood how painful that succession would become once it actually arrived.

It was a night of shock, awe, surprise, and enormous talent as Randy Roberts brought a star-studded Laurie Beechman Theatre to its feet several times with a brilliant display of singing, comedy, acting, and female impersonation.

The biggest surprise of all? Randy began the evening as a spot-on Bette Midler, then transformed into a remarkable Liza Minnelli and Cher. But by the end of the night, there was no mistaking who the real star was: the incredibly talented Randy Roberts himself.

Eda and I were at the Copa back in the day when Bette Midler first entered the room to begin her performance. The excitement was electric, and I can honestly say that the wall-to-wall audience reaction when Randy entered the Laurie Beechman Theatre as Bette last night was every bit as thrilling to experience. The audience erupted. For a moment, it was as if Bette herself had walked through the door.

What a performer. What a night. And what a thrill to watch Randy Roberts remind a room filled with sophisticated cabaret and theatre connoisseurs that, while his impersonations are extraordinary, the real revelation is the immensely talented artist that is Randy Roberts himself. As usual, no spoilers here! Not with the buzz racing along 42nd Street that the D’Angora’s may have plans to keep Randy on that Laurie Beechman stage for many more nights for the kind of dazzling show business that left this audience begging for more.

No spoilers—except this one: Randy’s rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s “The Ladies Who Lunch” from Company left the entire company we were with last night completely spellbound. And speaking of that company, check out my photos from last night’s show.

MICHAEL D’ANGORA, RANDY ROBERTS, TOM D’ANGORA

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

RANDY ROBERTS

MICHAEL D’ANGORA, RANDY ROBERTS, TOM D’ANGORA

TOM D’ANGORA, FRAN DRESCHER, MICHAEL D’ANGORA

PETER MARC JACOBSON, RANDY ROBERTS & FRAN DRESCHER

TOM D’ANGORA & MICHELE LEE

EDA SOROKOFF, MELISSA ERRICO, LORAN DALLAS, MICHELE LEE

LEE ROY REAMS & LORNA DALLAS

MICHELE LEE & FRAN DRESCHER

RICHARD SKIPPER & MICHELE LEE

EDA SOROKOFF, MICHELE LEE, MARDIE MILLIT

SUSIE MOSHER, IIENE GRAFF, RICHARD SKIPPER

RANDY ROBERTS & LORNA DALLAS

MELISSA ERRICO

RANDY ROBERTS & MELISSA ERRICO

GABRIELLA STRAVELLI, RANDY ROBERTS, SUSIE MOSHER

MARK SENDROFF, FRAN DRESCHER, STEPHEN SOROKOFF

LAURIE BEECHMAN THEATRE

WEST BANK CAFE

For 42 years, Linda Amiel Burns helped lead the organization that began as the New York Sheet Music Society and evolved into the American Popular Song Society. Now Burns says she did not retire. After APSS announced “New Directions” under new leadership, Burns gave T2C permission to publish, in full, her account of what she says happened following the successful June 15 benefit gala honoring Sidney Myer.

September 22, 2026 Dear friends, fans, and members of the American Popular Song Society; I know that many of you have recently received a notice of APSS meetings for this season, became confused, and some of you have even contacted me. I realize that you are all owed a truthful explanation of what has transpired with APSS over the summer. On June 15th, Glen Charlow and I produced a very successful Benefit Gala at The Cutting Room, honoring Sidney Myer. When two current Board Members realized that we finally had raised some significant funds, they instituted a series of online discussions culminating in a “board meeting” that did not include, Glen and me. I have been President for 42 years, first as the NY Sheet Music Society and the more recent 15 years as the American Popular Song Society. Glen has been Treasurer, Webmaster, Membership Chair and a host of other positions for 27 years. At the end of every fiscal year in June, according to our bylaws, I have always called a Zoom Board Meeting to report on the past year, discuss the upcoming season, hear the Treasurer’s Report, and any other pertinent matters. Everytime I tried to schedule a meeting, Michael Lavine and Tom Toce would reject my offered dates and forcefully suggest an alternate meeting at Michael’s home, using an outdated bylaw as their reason. They finally did schedule a rogue meeting, to which not every Board Member was invited. They took an illegal vote,and then made themselves President and Vice President.The next day, their friend, Lisa Mathias, whom they appointed Treasurer and had never been a part of APSS, sent Glen a message demanding the funds in our bank, and became quite angry when they could not be transferred immediately. I consulted an attorney who said that I could sue and win, but decided that it was not worth the time and money. If Tom and Michael wanted to take over, they had every opportunity to conduct this in the correct manner, It is most unfortunate that they did not choose to do so. Considering the circumstances of this takeover and momentous change, I have very little hope for the future of APSS and the quality of the programs that they will be offering. As for me, I am done and will never support Tom and Michael or be a part of their version of APSS ever again. I want to thank so many of you who joined, became valued members, performed in shows, the great musicians who shared their gifts with us, the wonderful venues that welcomed us so generously, and everyone who was a part of this remarkable organization which promoted and educated people about the popular American song that we will each continue to treasure in our own way. It has been a joy to have been part of this incredible organization, booked over 400 superb programs over the course of four decades, and to have worked with so many talented and dedicated people, many who became dear friends. Happy Fall and see you in the clubs! Linda Linda Amiel Burns

Editor’s Note: The assertions concerning the board meeting, vote, bylaws and transfer of funds above are those of Linda Amiel Burns. Michael Lavine has provided T2C with a response that differs substantially from Burns’ account. T2C will publish Lavine’s response tomorrow night.