This weekend's Spotlight NY features a look back at 20 years at Joe's Pub. Host Vivian Lee spoke with the people behind the programming at the legendary performance space that's synonymous with "the next big thing" - and intimacy.

One of the most delightful memories I have of being at Joe's Pub was when I went to see the earthy Jane Siberry there, there on the only stage I've ever seen confidently decorated with soundproofing foam. Siberry's songwriting and singing evokes landscapes for me: soaring harmonies studded with poetry - great music for road trips. 

That night, though, as we ate and drank and she performed (I remember a satisfying pesto pasta followed by a roasted pear dessert), I felt like I was at a dinner party, and that Siberry just happened to be one of the guests who suddenly announced she was our host - and had curated us to be the samplers of her feast for the senses. 

The folks who decide who will perform night after night at Joe's Pub have this uncanny ability to summon this feeling, time and again, for audiences. It's a feeling that the performer has chosen us to entertain; it's not we who bought tickets after deciding to be entertained by them. That’s how special this space is to thousands who have reached for their own stars and grabbed them.

"It's really the only place that I feel good about taking chances," says Bridgett Everett, who says she's performed hundreds of times at the cabaret club that's is a cornerstone of the performance mission of the Public Theater. "They know me here, and they want me to take chances." 

(Photo courtesy Kevin Yatarola Photography)

Indeed, the thousands of performances over the last two decades have been daring. They were either a legend already, or a legend in the making. From Patty Smith to Nona Hendryx, Adelle to Leonard Cohen, Ryan Raftery to Audra MacDonald, performers were chosen because they brought all of themselves, and then a little sumpin'-sumpin'. 

"Amy Winehouse was another," says Alex Knowlton, Artistic Director for Joe's Pub. "I think when the show was booked, it was kind of like, 'Sure, this singer-songwriter from the UK sounds great!' And then in the months in between, magic had kind of happened. And she was a huge, huge star."

I'm sitting with Knowlton and his predecessor, Shanta Thake, who is now Senior Director for Artistic Programs at Joe’s Pub, on the stage. The glaring light of day peers through the ornate windows. All the lights are on and, while not cozy as during a show, it's not uninviting. The booths look bigger, the aisles wider, and your eye is drawn to the ampitheater-like feeling with the different levels of seating, mostly arranged around tables. It's a good spot to talk about historical moments. 

"There's been so many times I've sat in this room and I'm like, 'that's the one, that's the next big thing,'" says Thake.

"And it really feels like it could be possible for anyone on this stage, at any given point, to be everywhere." 

For me, it was always that salon-like intimacy that set Joe's Pub apart from the myriad other nightclubs on the city scene. Maybe it was that desire to focus on serially amazing performances for just 184 people that made it shine on a crowded landscape for so long. You know what you're getting when you get a ticket to Joe's: you know that when the house lights go down and the stage lights come up, that pattern of shadows cast by the soundproofing foam appears as if to say, "No fancy set design or light show needed here," and you are about to make a nugget of a memory with the person or people who will emerge stage right. For performers who come back again and again, it's like building a relationship, with Joe's Pub as home base. That impulse to give audiences a home, a feeling that relationships with performers are being nurtured, has always been their curatorial compass. 

One thing that has changed, that even some long-time Joe's Pub staffers lament, is the new entrance. 

To get to Joe's Pub now, you have to enter through the Public Theater. So, those who remember the days of lining up for a Joe's Pub show just north of the Theater entrance next to a high, black iron gate that looked like it fenced off an alley - get ready. I wasn't. Funny how such a simple re-orientation like that affected me, but then I found out I wasn't the only one. 

The day I was there, the staff opened the gate so we could shoot some video. Some passersby started taking selfies after peering through the open gate. "Is this part now back open?" they asked hopefully. No, I said - we're just filming here. 

They were slightly crestfallen as they walked away. I too was a little wistful. But home is home. Doesn't matter where the door is, just who welcomes you inside.

Watch "Spotlight NY" on Spectrum News NY1, every Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.