Bryant Park, 12:30pm, free and open to the public; information can be found here.

Richard Ridge, host of Broadway Beat for 20 years, spoke at Bradshaw Smith's memorial.

Speaking at yesterday's memorial for the award-winning cabaret singer, producer and videographer Bradshaw Smith, actor and ventriloquist Todd Stockman announced to the somber crowd, “I have a surprise for you.” Bending down, he pulled a fire-haired puppet from a small black bag, a puppet he hasn’t performed with for 15 years. “Are Bradshaw and John in heaven?” the puppet asked Mr. Stockman, referring to Mr. Smith’s partner John Scoullar, who passed in March 2011. “Because I can smell the marijuana all the way down here.”

Mr. Smith, who died in January from a sudden stroke, began his career as a cabaret artist, winning the 1987 MAC Award for Best Male Vocalist and the 1985 Backstage Bistro Award. In 1885, Mr. Smith went behind the camera and began the cable television show, Cabaret Beat, which eventually morphed into Broadway Beat. The show featured over 1,000 Broadway and cabaret performances, interviews with artists, opening and award ceremonies and other theatre events.

Though a memorial, Monday night’s performances at the Pershing Square Signature Center were not all filled with tears and painful goodbyes. “Bradshaw always told me, ‘Don’t sing sad songs, life is sad enough,’" Mr. Stockman said. Thus, the group of cabaret singers, Broadway actors and lifelong friends of the deceased performer tried their best to remember Mr. Smith with smiles.

Jamie deRoy, a singer and comedian, laughed and shook her head as she recalled the time Mr. Smith recorded one of her performances over a porno tape. “Bradshaw, I will miss you so,” she exclaimed, blowing a kiss upward.

She credited Mr. Smith for the success of her own cable television show, Jamie deRoy and Friends, her solo venture after co-hosting Cabaret Beat with Sydney Myer, who also spoke at the memorial.

“When we did my cable TV show, we would sit in his room and edit. Those were some of my favorite moments. The tape is rolling, and we’re just bearing our souls,” she told The Observer after the ceremony. “Sometimes it was him bitching about something, but he was a softie, really.”

Cabaret singer Linda Harris listed the things she would miss sharing with Mr. Smith: dinners at the Westway, DVDs of True Blood and his famous tuna pasta salad. Other speakers fondly remembered his cat, Butch, who relaxed on the equipment while Mr. Smith and his guests edited videos. Nearly everyone who performed commented on his generosity, crediting Mr. Smith for their careers.

“He was like the best friend who told you what nobody else would tell you,” singer and songwriter Meg Flather told The Observer. Cabaret performer Karen Mason said he would give her the best beauty advice. “He was always very conscious, if I was in one of those gala lines, making sure I looked good,” she told The Observer, laughing. “It’s really good, to have somebody in your face who’s lovingly saying, ‘Karen, put on a little lipstick.’”

Other friends remembered Mr. Smith with clever musical numbers. Theatre star Lee Roy Reams donned a red feather boa to perform the suggestive “La Cage Aux Folles” from the musical with the same name. “It takes a man to wear a boa like this!” he bellowed as his performance began, claiming the song was one of Mr. Smith’s favorites. Comedian Mario Cantone performed a parody of the theme song from Twilight of the Golds, singing, “His head could be shaped like a perfect balloon. But what if he’s gay in the womb?” Dan Daly, who lived near Mr. Smith and his partner at their Grove Manor home in Fire Island, sang a hand-written song about a broken-hearted man and his prince. “I hope I can make it through this,” he said somberly before the performance.

Susie Mosher, one of Mr. Smith’s neighbors, also performed at the memorial. “His spirit was so generous. It’s almost shocking. It’s almost archaic. I mean, who’s like that anymore?” Ms. Mosher told The Observer after the memorial, recalling late nights spent talking in Mr. Smith’s apartment. “He made me feel so taken care of. He was such a daddy.”

She was home the night Mr. Smith has his stroke. “My partner, Hope, was over at his apartment, editing with him, editing a brand new beginning for Broadway Beat. We’d finally convinced him, after 20 years, to put ‘Bradshaw Smith Presents Broadway Beat,’” Ms. Mosher said.

Mr. Myer, who co-hosted Cabaret Beat, remembered meeting Mr. Smith at the cabaret club Panache in 1981. “He was wonderful, larger than life,” he told the crowd. “He was to cabaret like what MTV was to rock-and roll… Bradshaw’s visionary videography has made it possible for many cabaret performers to live forever.”

The evening also featured presentations from Steven Skeels, Jerad Bortz, Jeff Harnar, Julie Halston and Richard Ridge and two slideshows depicting Mr. Smith’s life in pictures and in clips from his videography and cabaret careers.

Looking around the memorial, Ms. Flather smiled, commenting, “This is elegant and perfectly Bradshaw.”

Roosevelt Credit, Rita Harvey, Brigid Brady and Natalie Toro perform "Seasons of Love" from Rent with students from the Computer School.

“I think they heard him in New Jersey,” joked Stacia Teele, the emcee at Monday’s fifth annual “Night of Stars.” Broadway actor Roosevelt Credit’s impossibly loud voice had just reverberating through the halls of the Upper West Side's Computer School, a small public school with a curricular focus on technology, during a star-studded musical event to benefit their music programs.

After a “jazz mocktail hour,” during which the school’s small band played numbers by Count Basie and the Beatles, Mr. Credit and five other Broadway stars took the stage to perform a series of solos and duets.

Rita Harvey, who has starred in Broadway renditions of Fiddler on the Roof and Phantom of the Opera, wowed with performances of “Think of Me” and “For Good,” the latter in a duet with Dee Roscioli, who is the longest-performing Elphaba in North America. Ms. Harvey also performed at last year’s event, and said she initially got involved because she is close with some parents of children that attend the school. “We all feel strongly that we should keep music a part of our schools,” she said.

Ms. Roscioli, who later belted another tune from Wicked, “The Wizard and I,” traveled all the way from Pennsylvania, where she is in final rehearsals for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s upcoming rendition of Sweeney Todd. She is not the only actor to go out of the way to perform at the event. Juliette Trafton had to rush away after flawlessly performing “Imagine My Surprise,” “Bill” and “On My Own” to star as Luisa in the Fantasticks.

Brigid Brady and Natalie Toro also performed at the event. Ms. Toro’s performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” was probably one of the most arresting moments of the night, and she inspired fits of giggles from the audience as she sang lines complaining about Britney Spears in her version of Spamalot’s “Diva’s Lament (Whatever Happened to My Part?).”

Mr. Credit performed only one night after winning a Tony for Best Revival of a Musical as a cast member of Porgy and Bess, an award he said the cast was not expecting to win. “It looked very serious, like we weren’t going to get it, because of the way things were falling,” he said.

But fate favored the talented cast Sunday night. “Oh my gosh, it was amazing,” he said. His cheerful demeanor carried over to his performance last night. Between booming laughs, Mr. Credit enticed the school’s principal, Henry Zymeck, onto the stage and proceeded to sing “Your Feet’s Too Big” from Ain’t Misbehavin’ much to the audience’s delight. Later in the night, Mr. Zymeck took the stage of his own volition to perform “Let It Be.”

While many of the children in the audience may have not recognized the names of each of the performers, they certainly appreciated their impeccable talent. The exuberant audience awarded many of the acts with standing ovations, including the final number, where the Broadway beloveds performed Rent’s “Seasons of Love” alongside a group of middle schoolers who hope to join the school’s chorus when it officially forms next year.

These young performers, along with those in the small jazz band, were the real stars of the evening. The music program began around 6 years ago with only 10 or so participants, said Sara Sloves, the music program administrator. Now, the after-school program hosts between 30 and 40 young musicians.

“We want to encourage them to grow as artists,” Ms. Teele said during the event. “Someday, they’re going to be playing in amazing theatres all over the world.”

Rigolo balances an elaborate sculpture.

Empire is the latest weird and wonderful creation brought to you by director Wayne Harrison and the producers of Absinthe, and it has settled in Times Square for a summer-only engagement. Headlined by some of the sexiest and most daring performers you’ll ever see, the 90-minute show produces laughter and applause--and cringes.

The antique Spiegeltent, located on West 45th Street, contains mirrored walls, velvet booths and a stage so intimate you could reach out and touch the performers. Acts range from an extensive balancing performance by Rigolo, to an extremely talented (and scantily dressed) trio of acrobatic girls (Anastasiia Gavrylenko, Anastasiia Permiakova and Olena Lomaga). Though at times a little uncomfortable on the back--the show's earnings clearly not being spent on seating more luxurious than wooden deck chairs--it can't be argued that the evening's ringmasters, husband and wife duo Oscar and Anne Goldmann, don't know how to put on a show.

A word of warning to parents thinking this is the kind of circus performance your kids would enjoy: reconsider! The show is rated "mature audiences" for a reason; during the "Quick-Change" act, we saw a lot more of Mr. Goldmann than we would have liked. Think Cirque du Soleil with a twist of Rocky Horror, blended nicely with last year's Halloween costumes. At one point, Ms. Goldmann made an unsuspecting audience member part of the show (note to self: never, ever sit in the front row at one of these things) and proceeded to humiliate him graciously as we sat back in our deck chairs and laughed.

Still, despite the brief nudity and some off-color jokes, Empire doesn’t push as many boundaries as it may like to think it does. Whilst it may not be the most ideal show to sit through with your grandmother, it is definitely a must see for those tired of the typically safe Broadway show.

Mikhail Baryshnikov, Liza Minnelli and Tony Danza. (Jonathon Ziegler/PatrickMcMullan.com)

The Observer stood in front of a less-than-generous red carpet on Monday—more of a red doormat, really—flanked by photographers and awaiting the arrival of fashionably late Broadway dancers, choreographers and filmmakers.

We were at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts for the 30th annual Fred and Adele Astaire Awards, which recognizes outstanding achievement in dance on Broadway and film each season—the only award show of its kind, so they advertise.

If you’ve never heard of them that comes as no surprise, considering all past coverage has been done by Backstage, Playbill and the like. The award show evening seemed so nonchalant that even some of the nominees decided it wasn’t worth their while, leaving before the awards show even began—cough cough, the cast of Evita, cough—though they could be forgiven, as several had performances that evening. Some managed to stay long enough to strike a pose on the red carpet, but the cast of Newsies, for example, with six dancers nominated, didn’t make it. (Guess they were on strike.)

The red carpet might have been a complete bust had it not been for Matt Sandy, entrepreneur extraordinaire, and his bottle of Dutch vodka with a programmable LED display stealing the limelight, literally, as the name “Matthew” scrolled around the bottle. Fitting, considering the relative no-name somehow managed to sneak his way into photos with Matthew Broderick (and no, he didn’t bring Sarah Jessica Parker).

During his brief conversation with The Observer, Mr. Broderick was less than candid, letting his Nice Work If You Can Get It co-stars Kelli O’Hara and Robert Hartwell do most of the talking. Instead, Mr. Broderick seemed considerably more interested in the light-up bottle than his nomination for best male dancer. He insisted he’s not very good at it, anyway. Oh, nonsense, The Observer said. Tell us about your moves?

“It’s a pretty long dance we have, where we have to dance around on the furniture and on some chairs and a couch, tango up some stairs, slide down a banister,” Mr. Broderick said.

Sounds dangerous, we noted.

But Mr. Broderick was quick to retort no one had been injured—yet.

And as entertaining as it was learning Mr. Broderick didn’t consider himself a dancer, The Observer was distracted. Liza Minnelli, the woman of the night (she was to receive the Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award), was nowhere to be seen. An impatient socialite yelled, “Where’s Liza Minnelli!” to no avail.

Instead The Observer was stuck waiting near the doormat with hard-to-recognize Broadway stars and a passing glimpse of the ever-impressive Chita Rivera, known as the original Velma Kelly, and Rob Ashford, the choreographer for Evita, who couldn’t stop doting over Ms. Minnelli and how quickly she picked up dance steps, her ability to watch him dance and effortlessly emulate the movement.

As time began to get away from The Observer, it was a relief to see the theater finally open, knowing we were inching closer to seeing Ms. Minnelli. But first we had to sit through a few awards and some better-than-advertised dance numbers.

After over two hours of anticipation and an introduction from Mikhail Baryshnikov and Tony Danza, Ms. Minnelli walked across the stage triumphantly to a deserved standing ovation after a career (still in the works, we might note) that contains four Tony Awards, an Oscar, a special "Legends" Grammy, two Golden Globe Awards, an Emmy, and now, she can add, the Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award. Once the applause subsided momentarily, Ms. Minnelli took the time to graciously smile, bow before her adoring fans and gather herself for a few words.

“I am so surprised,” she said, very unexpected first words from an award recipient who knew in advance she would be receiving the award. “No, really, they told me to show up and I was going to get an award, but I had no idea that everyone that has made my life and who I’ve admired and loved and learned from and have worshiped would be here.”

Nice recovery.

Upstairs at the VIP reception, where you either had to be on Broadway or own it, The Observer got in a few words with Ms. Minnelli as she finished up her dinner. When asked what her favorite moment of the evening was, she pulled us in close and with a gentle motherly grip, she clasping our hands and retorted inquisitively, “What do you think it was?”

After a tense moment, she smiled and confirmed that it was winning the Lifetime Achievement Award. Because, she insisted (though it was hard to believe), she was clueless that her dearest friends and mentors would be speaking about her contributions to dance. She went on to argue she was a gypsy, more alive onstage than anywhere else.

A gypsy? OK, if she insists. But certainly a gypsy deserving of a lifetime achievement award.

Broadway heavyweights Beau Bridges and Kenny Leon gossiping.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), a national organization that promotes and supports American theater (as well as serves as the United State’s largest independent publisher of dramatic literature) rung in 50 years of success with a glitzy gala Monday night at Espace in Midtown Manhattan.

Theater legends Beau Bridges, Ben Vereen, William Ivey Long and Tonya Pinkins joined emcees Sally Struthers and Jennifer Cody for the memorable charitable evening.

"Many of the wonderful experiences that I’ve had onstage are directly related to the funding and care that TCG has put in to supporting their 500 member theaters,” said Ms. Struthers to the audience.

Teresa Eyring with honorees Vicki Reiss of the Shubert Foundation, Kenny Leon and Judith O. Rubin.

In addition to raising funds for the many grants, productions and events the TCG helps to sustain, attendees came to honor executive committee member and Playwrights Horizons Board chairman Judy Rubin, the venerable Shubert Foundation and Tony-nominated director Kenny Leon.

Another treat from the evening was a medley of previews for upcoming productions Super Fly, Hands on a Hardbody (a La Jolla Playhouse production) and the Dallas theaters' upcoming spectacle, Giant.