“Beyond Blue Moon

(And Before the Broken Hart)”

Blue Moon is the tart, sad screen tale of a famous musical divorce and the broken Hart behind it. Lyricist Lorenz (Larry) Hart was the short, sharp, closeted, conflicted creator – with composer Richard Rodgers -- of more than 500 songs, many beloved mainstays of American popular music: Falling In Love With Love, Isn’t It Romantic? My Funny Valentine, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. Yet only bits of the title tune are heard in the movie. New York cabaret veterans Eric Yves Garcia and Maria Abous fill the gap with a night of Rodgers and Hart treasures. And, yes, one by Oscar Hammerstein. Plus lyric sheets for the audience to sing along with. For better and verse.

ERIC YVES GARCIA

Is one of the most popular and award-winning singer/pianists in NYC, also playing around the U.S., London, and Paris. Recipient of the Margaret Whiting Award and a Bistro Award for Singer-Instrumentalist, he most recently won the Donald F. Smith Award of the Mabel Mercer Foundation during its annual Cabaret Convention at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Mentored by the famed French-American songstress Josephine Baker’s adopted son, Jean-Claude, Eric was a longtime favorite at JC’s theater district haunt, Chez Josephine, later enjoyed a two-year residency at the renowned Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue, and sings afloat for the Silver Seas Line. He also brings music to young children and elders with memory loss at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and is a narrator/voice actor for Audible and other publishers. https://ericyvesgarcia.squarespace.com/

MARIA ABOUS

A “cross-over soprano” whose voice “begs for lush orchestration”  (Rolling Stone UK), has performed on iconic NYC stages including Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 54 Below, The Triad, and Birdland. Celebrated as “the embodiment of a leading lady -- her presence charming, her interpretations sympathetic, and her vocals gorgeous” (Woman Around Town), Maria holds a B.A. in Music from Columbia University and a Master’s in Voice Performance from the Longy School of Bard College. Her first album, Crescendo, re-imagines classic jazz and theater standards as love songs from mother to child. A mom of three herself, she is a passionate advocate for the support of new mothers. Her second CD, Merry Little Christmas, “brings an ethereal twist to Christmas classics with the timeless allure of Grace Kelly, the vocal warmth of Frank Sinatra, and a heart all her own.” (Daily Front Row) Find her at mariaabous.com.

DAVID ALPERN

Of Sag Harbor comes to cabaret as the son of a “girl singer” on the road around the U.S. and on the radio in New York circa 1939. Starting in 1963, Alpern was a New York correspondent for United Press International, then reporter, writer, and senior editor at Newsweek magazine, and for more than 30 years hosted Newsweek On Air, an hour-long, domestic and overseas radio broadcast (later independent and nonprofit as For Your Ears Only). It featured conversations with newsmakers, policy experts, and top entertainers, including Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Graham, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Walter Cronkite, Robert Caro, John le Carre, Nora Ephron, Rosemary Clooney, and Barbara Cook—some 10,000 interviews, most still posted at non-profit https://archive.org/details/foryourearsonly.