Marissa Mulder - Tom Waits: The Songs. The Life.

Marissa Mulder brings her Tom Waits tribute, The Songs. The Life., to Blue Strawberry on Friday, October 16, at 7:30 PM. There's a second show the next night, Saturday, October 17, also at 7:30 PM.

It's billed as a cabaret theater show, and the way it works is pretty specific: Mulder treats Waits's songbook like a dramatic script. She performs as both singer and actor, pulling at the emotional and psychological nuance of the lyrics to get inside the primal, lyrical spaces the songs live in. It's less a standard cover set and more of a theatrical exploration of the material.

Mulder has taken this show through some of New York's most storied rooms—The Carlyle, Lincoln Center, Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, 54 Below, Birdland, and Joe's Pub. The critics have been kind along the way: Stephen Holden called it "far and away the season's best cabaret show" in The New York Times, and Will Friedwald praised her as an ascending major song interpreter in The Wall Street Journal.

Blue Strawberry is an all-ages venue in the Central West End that serves dinner and drinks before and during the performance, with a $15 per-guest minimum. Tickets are $35, $30, or $25 depending on where you sit. The run is sponsored by Jean and Hal Gentry.