Photos: Inside Opening Night of CABARET at Barrington Stage Company

Just when you think you never need to see another production of CABARET…Surprise Surprise Surprise! 

A mesmerizing CABARET with a first-rate cast at Barrington Stage Co.

Attending the opening performance of Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret at the award winning Barrington Stage Company Sunday took on an added degree of darkness for me because of the current political situation in our country.  Like the Kat Kat Club in Cabaret, which was an oasis of tolerance in the world of far right propaganda and demonization in pre-war Berlin, I currently find myself attending cabarets and concerts to escape the tempestuous conversations on Cable News and Social Media.

Revisiting the show via this new spectacular production mounted by BSC (which is the first directorial outing for it’s new artistic director Alan Paul) was a contemporary juxtaposition and the Berkshire audience seemed to leave their political troubles outside as they were willkommened  to the decadent and debaucherous world of Cabaret in the sexy and seedy Kit Kat Klub. A place where outcasts and artists gather and life was indeed beautiful on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage at Barrington Stage Company.

Barrington Stage’s production is utilizing the 1998 script used for the Roundabout revival. The show has had numerous Broadway and London revivals and is the winner of multiple Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score for John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb’s (lyrics) compelling musical numbers which include, “Willkommen,” “Money Makes the World Go Around,” “Tomorrow Belongs To Me,” “Maybe This Time” and “Cabaret.”

Cabaret stars Krysta Rodriguez (NBC’s “Smash,” Broadway’s Into the Woods revival, The Collaboration, Deaf West Theatre’s Spring Awakening) as Sally Bowles, Nik Alexander (Broadway: Ain’t No Mo’, Motown the Musical; Hamilton 2nd National Tour) as the Emcee, Dan Amboyer (“Younger,” “Uncoupled,” “William & Katherine: A Royal Romance”) as Cliff Bradshaw, Candy Buckley (Broadway: Roundabout’s 1998 Cabaret revival, Thoroughly Modern Millie) as Fraulein Schneider, Richard Kline (“Three’s Company,” Don’t Think Twice, Broadway’s Waitress, Wicked First National Tour) as Herr Schultz, BSC Associate Artist Alysha Umphress (BSC’s Who Could Ask for Anything More?, Mr. Saturday Night, Broadway’s On the Town, American Idiot) as Fraulein Kost, and Tom Story (Berkshire Theatre Group: Arsenic and Old Lace, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You and The Actor's Nightmare) as Ernst Ludwig. The ensemble cast features Max Antonio Gonzalez, Julia Harnett, Kim Hudman, Lina Lee, Charles Mayhew Miller, Ryland Marbutt, Fredric Odgaard, James Rose and Tiffany Topol.

Cabaret features scenic design by Wilson Chin, costume design by Rodrigo Muñoz, lighting design by Philip Rosenberg, sound design by Ken Travis, and wig design by Mary Schilling-Martin. The Production Stage Manager is Jason Brouillard. BSC casting is by McCorkle Casting (Pat McCorkle, CSA; Rebecca Weiss, CSA).

Cabaret is based on John Van Druten's 1951 play I Am a Camera which was adapted from Goodbye to Berlin (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood. Producer/Director Harold Prince scored a triumph with his staging of Cabaret when it opened in November 1966 at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre. Winner of eight 1967 Tony Awards, Cabaret ran 1,165 performances. Joel Grey was catapulted to fame with his performance as the Emcee, winning the Tony for his legendary role which he repeated on the screen in the Academy Award-winning film opposite Liza Minnelli in 1972. The Roundabout Theatre Company revived Cabaret to critical acclaim in 1998 with Natasha Richardson and made a star of Alan Cumming. Cumming revived his performance, again for the Roundabout in 2014.

Photo Credit: Stephen Sorokoff

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