Download Brandon's Press Kit (PDF)
Two Time MAC AWARD Winner
Winner of the BACKSTAGE BISTRO AWARD for Outstanding Male Vocalist
Nervy. Frisky. Powerful. A better instrument than Clay Aiken's. Mr. Cutrell hits the bull's-eye. He gets it right.
>> Stephen Holden, The New York Times
Laugh-out-loud funny. His vibrant vocals and excellent acting steal the show. Cutrell's stock will be definitely going up.
>> Wayman Wong, Playbill
Cutrell is animated, bright and entertaining. His truthfullness with a lyric, his beautiful tenor, and that killer smile will get him the attention he deserves.
>> John Hoglund, Backstage
... a remarkably poised, quicksilver actor. His talent as an interpreter of lyrics is... dazzling.
>> Barbara and Scott Siegel, TheaterMania
Cutrell delivered a haunting, almost unbearably controlled "It Must Be So" — a quiet dazzler of a performance.
>> Robert Fuller, EDGE New York (Broadway By The Year: 1956)
An entertainer who positively beams while he's up there, but not nearly as much as the audience beams while it's watching this impressive new talent.
>> Peter Filichia, Star-Ledger
Rather than 'styling' the music, he inhabits the world of each song, making it very real and finding the truth in each of the lyrics.
>> Christopher Byrne, Gay City News
Confidence, style and a desire to go boldly where other singers fear to tread.
>> David Hurst, Show Business Weekly
[Brandon Cutrell] is the kind of singer who knows how to make his audience come to him.
>> Charles Staff, The Indianapolis Star
The unwritten rule book for male cabaret singers with aspirations to popular appeal holds that they must retain an air of calculated coolness and tactful emotional restraint. But Brandon Cutrell, one of the most sheerly engaging young singers on the nightclub scene, has never been good with rules: He sings his heart out, and he's got a lot of heart to sing. The irrepressible son of a Methodist minister in Indiana, Cutrell studied opera before switching to musical theater. On Fridays, he now presides as host of the Duplex's open-mike show-tune night, Mostly Sondheim, where he often seems like a creature of pure bounce: boyishly ebullient, mischievously campy, gleefully profane.
Cutrell, 29, will surely be on his best behavior when he makes his uptown debut in a specially priced show at the swank Feinstein's. ("I'll be in a suit and I won't curse too much," he promises.) Accompanied by the beaming and proficient pianist Ray Fellman, Cutrell performs a handful of standards, but when he really gets cooking, he leans toward new American: pop tunes from the likes of Alanis Morissette and Kelly Clarkson, as well as underexposed songs by rising local composers. "Will I ever be famous? Maybe not," Cutrell concedes in a song by Tim DiPasqua, whose lyrics perfectly limn this talented singer's upstream career path in cabaret. "Would it ever really matter? No. I'm gonna do it for you."
Adam Feldman
Time Out New York
Top Live Show
Issue 557: June 1st, 2006
Brandon made the TOP TEN. TheatreScene.net named Brandon's show, No Reservations, as one of the TOP TEN CABARET ACTS OF 2005.
Read the entire list
Brandon appeared in the 2nd Annual Broadway Unplugged at The Town Hall.
Read more and view pictures from the evening
Nick Crews mentioned Brandon in The Indianapolis Star on July 22, 2005.
Read the article
Cabaret Scenes Magazine's Peter Haas recently did a feature story on Brandon. Here is an excerpt:
... commented Andrea Marcovicci for Cabaret Scenes...
"His voice is an extraordinary instrument, a joy to listen to. He has an inner fire, and intensity of feeling that goes a long way. And he has a remarkable repertoire... His voice goes without saying; it's a really fabulous instrument- but in addition, he's got a great gift of interpretive skills."
Karen Mason... contributes an earlier reflection of Brandon.
"I first met him a couple of years ago. He was going to do the song, HELLO, TOM, which Brian Lasser had written for me, about a girl asking a fellow to the prom. I wondered if it would work, turned around and sung by a man. But when Brandon sang it, it just blew me away. I think his voice is very thrilling- but then, a lot of people have great voices. I think what makes Brandon very special is that he is very intelligent, and very eager to share Brandon, to share who he is. I find that very attractive."
Order a copy of the magazine to read the entire article
Brandon was featured in TIME OUT NEW YORK's recent cover story about New York's cabaret scene. In the October 13-19, 2005 edition of TONY, Adam Feldman wrote:
"The Duplex's second-floor showroom is home on Friday nights to MOSTLY SONDHEIM, an event popular with young musical-theater and cabaret talents. (The title is a misnomer: Almost nobody sings Sondheim.) Host Brandon Cutrell keeps a list of those who want to perform with pianist Ray Fellman. He lubricates the evening with off-color patter, but people here take their solos seriously- sometimes to dire effect. A clean-cut young man gets up to sing 'Anthem' (from CHESS), holds his big note too long, gets dizzy, loses his breath and nearly faints. After everyone figures out that he is not faking this drama, he's assisted offstage."
The newcomers struck a high average. One of the standouts was Brandon Cutrell, a boyish blond cutie, born of a Methodist preacher in Indiana, who sang with the irrepressible gusto of a small-town kid who couldn't contain his joy at having escaped to New York. In his quieter moments, one envisioned him in his room in the old family house, dreaming of better things to come.
>> INTIMATE NIGHTS: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret
by James Gavin
Published by Back Stage Books
pg. 412