Featuring new performers with every show, the weekly, award-winning Piano Bar Live! (PBL!) streams this Tuesday, April 13 at 7:15 PM ET, with host Scott Barbarino, celebrating San Francisco and The Bay Area. Guests are Casey Borghesi, Leanne Borghesi, Russell Deason, Jef Labes, Sharon McNight, Suzanne Beignet Ramsey, Bryan Seet, Joe Wicht, plus Mystery Guests and MORE!
PBL! is proud to continue the long-established tradition of the piano bar—that special place where we can gather, entertain, support and create, as we connect with live music. Best of all, PBL! is the the unique chance to see veteran performers pass the torch to the next generation of blossoming young talent. The line-up always features a mix of veteran and rising star performers from the world of piano bars, cabaret and Broadway.
Join us this TUESDAY, April 13 at 7:15 PM ET at www.facebook.com/PianoBarLive, on BroadwayOnDemand.com or on YouTube @PianoBarLive
Casey Borghesi recently graduated with honors from Wright State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting, Musical Theatre Concentration. Dhe is thrilled to be making her Piano Bar Live debut! Favorite WSU credits include The Witch in Into the Woods, Mother Courage in Mother Courage and Her Children and Princess Puffer in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Borghesi enjoys performing in professional cabarets, concerts and charity events, and thanks the creative team at PBL! for including her in this wonderful show.
Leanne Borghesi is a vibrant, bi-coastal entertainer, vocalist and theatre artist (SF/NY), specializing in performance with big bands, jazz ensembles and comedic “theatrical cabarets.” She has been entertaining audiences coast to coast for over two decades, making her recent raucous New York debut of her one-woman comedic hit, Mood Swings (2019 MAC Award-nominee). Borghesi also made her New York Carnegie Hall and Jazz at Lincoln Center debuts with the Mabel Mercer Foundation.
Russell Deason is an award-winning pianist and accompanist, vocal artist, arranger/composer and producer based in San Francisco. Deason is a staff pianist at Martuni’s Piano Bar and a semi-regular at The Alley Piano Bar in Oakland. He is one half of the cabaret duo Pepé and Cheap and regularly accompanies numerous singers at various venues. He is also the founder and Executive Director of Crushed Velvet Productions, which produces The Velvet Variety Cabaret (founding Creative Director), 2+2=Cabaret, Tough as Nails and many more. During the pandemic, Deason maintained an online presence with the Martuni’s Monday Happy Hour Open Mic, Bridge Bang (in partnership with The Alley Piano Bar), Quirky Qabaret and his own solo performances.
Sharon McNight made her Broadway debut in 1989 in Starmites, creating the role of Diva. She received a Tony award nomination as Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance, and is the recipient of the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut. The singer/comedienne’s regional credits include Amanda McBroom’s Heartbeats at the Pasadena Playhouse, and an award winning Dolly in Hello, Dolly! at the Peninsula Civic Light Opera. McNight was Sister Hubert in Nunsense in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where she received the Bay Area Critics Circle award for Best Performance in a Musical. Well-known to cabaret audiences, McNight has been a master teacher at the Eugene O’Neill Center and on the faculty of the Cabaret Conference at Yale University. She was chosen as one of the 50 most influential people in cabaret for 2010. Additionally, she has won six San Francisco Cabaret Gold awards, three Cable Car awards, a MAC award, a Bistro award, and received a Nightlife award from New York’s critics for her Best Musical Comedy show, Ladies, Compose Yourselves!
Suzanne Ramsey (Kitten on the Keys) has been performing stateside and internationally everywhere from dive bars to the award-winning French film Tournee at the Cannes Film Festival. She’s toured Europe as the musical mistress of ceremonies with Cabaret New Burlesque, sings and plays accordion with the horn heavy Pachuco Cadaver—a Captain Beefheart Tribute Ensemble—and she has musical residencies in a variety of venues in San Francisco including Martuni’s, where she plays toe-tapping Tin Pan Alley faves, double entendre delights and retro/modern covers. www.kittenonthekeys.com
Bryan Seet and Jef Labes are pianists at The Alley Piano Bar & Restaurant in Oakland California.
Joe Wicht has been a house pianist at Martuni’s for over 12 years, hosting Piano Bar 101. He has served as musical director for the New Conservatory Theatre Center, for the concert musical series at Feinstein’s at the Hotel Nikko, and for a myriad of SF cabaret shows over the past 25 years. As a composer, Wicht works with lyricist Scott Hayes writing cabaret material, and works independently as a composer of art songs. With drag performer Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Wicht hosted Broadway Bingo at Feinstein’s for nearly 2 years, and co-produced the Cabaret Showcase Showdown, a cabaret contest, for six seasons. He is also a beer snob and a long-term cruciverbalist.
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