The return of fan-favorite Joe Iconis & Family to their home-away-from-home at NYC’s 54 Below once again proved to be a cabaret concert like no other. Playing for five performances this week, the show, as always, goes far beyond the usual singing interspersed with direct-address introductions and remarks about the songs that typify the genre, to the heights of laugh-out-loud funny and revealing personal commentary and character-driven numbers, all with music and lyrics by the Tony-nominated Iconis (Be More Chill), that expose the protagonists’ innermost thoughts and feelings, and deliver full-out mini-narratives enacted by a thoroughly captivating and entertaining cast (which changes nightly based on availability) of his self-described “beloved Rogue’s Gallery of showtune punks.”
On the date I attended (August 18), a blockbuster company of musical theater singers and actors – Liz Lark Brown, Michaela DeJoseph, Seth Eliser, John El-Jor, Danielle Gimbal, Morgan Siobhan Green, Lorinda Lisitza, Amirah Joy Lomax, Lauren Marcus, Eric William Morris, Jeremy Morse, Will Roland, Jared Weiss, and Jason SweetTooth Williams, accompanied by Iconis on piano, Ian Kagey on bass, Jaz Koft on synth, Brent Stranathan on drums, Max Wagner on electric guitar, and Morris and Weiss on acoustic guitar – performed a set list of fourteen original songs. They included selections from his familiar stand-alone classics to never-before-heard new work, two inspired by movies, and two from his latest show The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, which played a recent engagement at Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, following a run at California’s LaJolla Playhouse in 2023, and, we hope, will soon be coming to the NYC stage (keeping my fingers crossed and manifesting).
Seated at the piano, Iconis opened with “Wavesong” from that latest hit, incorporating revised lyrics that brought some very timely references to our current socio-political situation in the US, in keeping with Thompson’s famed style of gonzo journalism of the 1970s. He then announced to the packed house, with his signature sense of self-deprecating humor, that he’s been named the first Artist-in-Residence at 54 Below, noting that, when he told his mother, she wondered if that meant he now has “a real job” and inquired about what he does, to which he replied, “no,” and he has “no idea” – though I can attest that the audience was thrilled to hear about it. His subsequent anecdotes, and his autobiographical song “Meditations in an Emergency” (just released as a single at midnight by Joy Machine Records), were largely focused on the good and the bad of what it’s like to be an artist, with hilarious and honest observations about his life in the theater.
In the same vein was Brown’s rendition of “Headshot,” blaming an actress’s failed auditions and faltering career on the bad photo she submitted of herself, with the company then running through the house and tearing up their own headshots. Other songs featured engaging stories from the perspectives of an array of outsiders, outcasts, and misfits, with lead vocals by well-chosen members of the cast embodying the characters with full-out emotion and psychological insight, and engendering both our laughs and compassion, as Iconis and his chosen family remain unsurpassed at doing. Among them were Eliser’s rocking performance of “I Was Born This Morning (The Cicada Song),” Green’s turn as an anxiety-ridden kid in school who hates gym because she’s the last to be chosen by a team for “Dodge Ball,” Marcus lamenting that “Everybody’s at the Bar (Without Me),” then crashing the party of the other cast members at the venue’s actual bar, triggering them to leave, and a jaunty Roland finding himself at home alone and wanting to put “A Party Hat” on his cat (played by Gimbal) and dance with her, despite her initial refusal.
Other storytelling numbers leaned towards the more laughably crazed and creepy side, from Lisitza’s hysterical portrayal of a desperate housewife inhaling the fumes of “Ammonia,” Morris’s mid-century-style rock-n-roll performance of a romance novelist, based on the Stephen King book and horror movie Misery, held captive and tortured by a deranged nurse from whom he can’t escape in “The Nurse and the Addict,” ending with his continuing repetition of the chorus “one more time” and enlisting members of the audience to complete the now familiar lines, and Weiss’s increasingly haunting, obsessive, and startling memories of “Haddonfield, 15 Years Later (For Judith).”
There were also El-Jor’s powerful performance of “The Song of the Brown Buffalo” as the proud and defiant Mexican-American attorney Oscar Acosta from the Hunter S. Thompson Musical, and Williams’ sweet and affecting “52,” a new piece about the passing and legacy of old friends who lived on 52nd Street, the temporal quality of life, and the ever-changing New York, presented here before an audience for the first time.
The spectacular show closed with Williams delivering his poignant rendition of “The Goodbye Song,” which never fails to touch my heart, with the full company joining him for the ebullient uplifting chorus. Each and every number was a highlight, and all of the artists brought their extraordinary talents to the expressive characterizations and vocals of Iconis’s brilliant human stories and musical compositions. You have four more chances through Saturday to be immersed, entertained, and moved by this latest edition of Joe Iconis & Family, with upcoming dates featuring Badia Farha (August 21-23), Lance Rubin (August 23), and Taylor Trensch (August 23), in addition to Minju Michelle Lee and Mike Rosengarten, so be sure to get your tickets now!
Running Time: Approximately 85 minutes, without intermission.
Joe Iconis & Family plays through Saturday, August 23, 2025, at 7 pm (doors open at 5:30), at 54 Below, 254 W 54th Street, cellar, NYC. For tickets (priced at $57-112, including fees, plus a $25 food/beverage minimum per person), go online.
