The Roundabout/Sam Mendes CABARET

[steven carter]

Posted: 10/21/11 at 3:41pm

I thought that the last revival of CABARET, the Sam Mendes/Rob Marshall Roundabout version, was supposed to be available for licensing for amateur productions, but maybe I was just dreaming that. I don't see it listed with MTI, and Tams Witmark just offers the original and the '87 revivals.

Does anyone know if this the last version (with "I Don't Care Much", and the stunning ending) is available, or is going to be available in the near future?

Was I just dreaming? I could have sworn I heard this was finally an option for amateur theatre groups.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 10/21/11 at 3:57pm

Every production I've ever seen has used the changes from the Mendes production. A few of them will keep a song or scene from the other versions as well, but the main structure/song list/interpritation are the same as the Mendes.

Granted, I know this isn't licensed/legal, per say, but it's happening and out there.

[PattiLover]

Posted: 10/21/11 at 4:24pm

Yah, pretty much every production of Cabaret you'll see locally will be the Mendes version. They really should just release it, since you can't go back to the "old" Cabaret. I think the only licensed version out there it the 80's revival...which is NOT a very good version.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 10/21/11 at 6:12pm

Hasn't "I Don't Care Much" always been with the show?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/21/11 at 6:39pm

The Mendes version definitely isn't available to license, but a lot of productions still use that script anyway. I have a friend who was in a local production and they were given cheap copies of the libretto scanned from the coffee table book. Tams-Witmark doesn't really seem to care or keep tabs on illegal productions like MTI does. Updated On: 10/21/11 at 06:39 PM

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 10/21/11 at 7:08pm

I DON'T CARE MUCH was written for the original but itwas not used.

I think it was suppose to be for Sally.

Posted: 10/21/11 at 9:01pm

Wasn't it actually written back when the musical was meant to open with a series of 'street songs", I believe sung by a prostitute?

At any rate, I think it was first given to the Emcee for the 1987 revival. I also find it kinda shocking that the Mendes revision isn't available for license--although text/script wise is it all that different? The '87 one opened up the con cept of Cliff being bisexual (although having seen it, they definitely made it more explicit with the kiss, etc, in the Mendes), and many of the other small changes. That said, the '87 didn't incorporate the movie songs, and I've yet to see a local production that uses the new song for Cliff, Don't Go which is in the script...

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 10/21/11 at 10:27pm

Eric, I believe you are right about the song. Can't find my copy of COLORED LIGHTS at the moment.

Posted: 10/21/11 at 10:56pm

Ugh, you just reminded me that I need to get that book.

My recollection is from the OBCR album--the remastered edition. I don't have it here, but it has a demo of a few of those songs that were planned to set the mood at the start, and I think the liner notes mentioned that. That said I also have some weird half memory of hearing that it was a song that K&E had written, but not used, before Cabaret.

[charlesjguiteau]

Posted: 10/22/11 at 11:11am

Sorry, Curtain, but "Colored Lights" doesn't offer details on "I Don't Care Much"-- just says it had been cut from the original [1966] production. It seems impossible it could ever have been written for another project though, don't you think? It just reeks of Weimar-era Berlin to me.

[charlesjguiteau]

Posted: 10/22/11 at 12:02pm

Yikes, so now you've all got me rereading "Colored Lights". And lo and behold, fifty pages further in, John Kander mentions that Barbra Streisand recorded "My Coloring Book" and "I DON'T CARE MUCH" on an early album even BEFORE she was in the show "Funny Girl" (which puts it pre-1964). So I humbly stand corrected! (Would love to hear Barbra's version now that I'm so used to Alan Cummings'.)

[Smaxie]

Posted: 10/22/11 at 12:22pm

"I Don't Care Much" remained in the full version of the original Entr'acte. One of those odd things, like how "That Old Piano Roll" and "Can That Boy Foxtrot" are featured in the Follies "Overture," or "Loopin' the Loop" was used for the Chicago Overture. Or "It's Nicer in Nice" ending the Overture for the Broadway version of The Boy Friend though it was cut from the actual production.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 10/22/11 at 1:07pm

Streisand sings it on her second album:
THE SECOND BARBRA STREISAND ALBUM.

You can download it.