By all accounts, 2016 has been quite the rollercoaster ride. Fortunately for DFW audiences, the local theatre community and many of the touring productions delivered nothing short of a stellar year, setting quite a high bar for upcoming performances. As we say goodbye to another December, we'd like to look back on a handful of memories that stood out among the long list of Playbills we've gathered. And like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, these live theatre moments will be remembered as a few of our favorite things.
We present this list in no particular order, and without awards or titles bestowed upon those listed. To everyone who contributed to the DFW theatre community in 2016, we thank you for sharing your time and talents with us.
Roundabout Theatre Company announced casting for the Fort Lauderdale premiere of the national tour of Sam Mendes (Spectre, American Beauty) and Rob Marshall's (Into the Woods and Chicago, the films) Tony Award®-winning production of CABARET. CABARET is coming to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts for a limited two week run, January 10 - 22, 2017.
CABARET is a classic musical with a cast of characters that can only be explained by seeing the show firsthand. Originally based on the story by the Christopher Isherwood novel, Goodbye to Berlin, CABARET'S music is written by the multi-talented team of John Kander and Fred Ebb. As part of the 50th Anniversary Season, the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of CABARET is traveling North America. Andrea Goss currently plays the role of Sally Bowles and she shared with BWW her life experiences and how she prepared to play the role.
BWW Interview with Andrea Goss, the lead of Roundabout Theatre's national tour of CABARET, says this production brings a real understanding and grittiness to the experience of Berlin in early 1930s Germany that still resonates with today's world.
This week, we go around our Broadway World to feature stories in South Bend, Austin, Sacramento and more. Check out our top 10 stories around our Broadway World below, which include THE TEMPEST at The Shakespeare Festival at Notre Dame, the regional premiere of HAND TO GOD in Austin, and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME in Sacramento, just to name a few.
CABARET's Tony Award-winning 1998 Broadway revival co-directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, still stands, arguably, as the show's definitive stage iteration. That same vibrant Roundabout Theatre Company production rightly serves as the basis for the newer 2014 revival that is now in the midst of a brand new North American national tour---currently performing at Orange County's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa through August 21. Whether you're a fan of that amazing '98 revival or, better still, the iconic 1972 film adaptation, this brazenly confident new CABARET---a rousing combo-platter of the best elements of the show through its entire history---will surely entertain and, yes, even move you.
Perhaps Kander and Ebb's best musical, apart from Chicago, Cabaret has it all: a fine book, deliciously diverse characters, dynamite music and a subtext that will not quit. The subtext being: either compromise or get out if you value your life, the latter, to be sure, the wiser. This is Berlin, circa 1929/30, before Hitler, just as Nazi pressure hits the fan. Now a national tour based on Roundabout Theatre's 2014 revival docks at Segestrom for a mere 2 weeks with a glorious cast headed by Randy Harrison in a big, broad and devilishly fun performance as the Emcee.
Perhaps Kander and Ebb's best musical, apart from Chicago, Cabaret has it all: a fine book, deliciously diverse characters, dynamite music and a subtext that will not quit. The subtext being: either compromise or get out if you value your life, the latter, to be sure, the wiser. This is Berlin, circa 1929/30, before Hitler, just as Nazi pressure hits the fan. Now a national tour based on Roundabout Theatre's 2013 revival docks at the Pantages for a mere 3 weeks with a glorious cast headed by Randy Harrison in a big, broad and devilishly fun performance as the Emcee.
San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre plays host to the provocative and still darkly daring, Cabaret now through July 17. Set in 1931 Berlin, on the cusp of all that was to come with the rise of the Nazis, the Kander and Ebb musical revolves around the Kit Kat Club and its cast of characters who are determined to ignore the outside world. 'We have no troubles here! Here, life is beautiful,' shouts the garishly made-up emcee. He and the club's performers do their best to convince us that indeed, 'life is a cabaret' and, for a moment in time, it seems to be true. Yet they set aside the warning signs at their own peril. Coming directly from Broadway and originally directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, SHNSF's Cabaret is a spectacular sleight of hand, giving us sinfully sexy performances even as the real depravity lies in wait like spider outside the doors of the Kit Kat Club.
San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre plays host to the provocative and still darkly daring, Cabaret now through July 17. Set in 1931 Berlin, on the cusp of all that was to come with the rise of the Nazis, the Kander and Ebb musical revolves around the Kit Kat Club and its cast of characters who are determined to ignore the outside world. 'We have no troubles here! Here, life is beautiful,' shouts the garishly made-up emcee. He and the club's performers do their best to convince us that indeed, 'life is a cabaret' and, for a moment in time, it seems to be true. Yet they set aside the warning signs at their own peril. Coming directly from Broadway and originally directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, SHNSF's Cabaret is a spectacular sleight of hand, giving us sinfully sexy performances even as the real depravity lies in wait like spider outside the doors of the Kit Kat Club.
I can't be the only theatregoer who found the tour of CABARET chilling. During an election year where fear mongering and racial intolerance are sitting center ring, the story of pre-Holocaust Germany seems especially relevant and cautionary. But that doesn't mean the musical, which just arrived at the Winspear Opear House, isn't equally thrilling and heartfelt.
Anytime you see a tour of a Broadway show, the talent happening right before your eyes is just the tip of the Broadway iceberg. Lurking behind the scenes is a whole crew of insanely gifted folks who also contribute to the spectacle on stage. One of those people is Paula Gilbert, who works here in Austin as a dresser for tours that come to Austin. They are called quick changes for a reason. At most touring shows, there's a crew of dressers running around backstage with a needle and thread in their pockets for last-minute repairs and safety pins clipped to their sleeves. There are ensemble dressers, who attend to a large group of people, holding up pants while chorus members step into them and swiftly shoving shoes onto feet. Then there are star dressers, who only focus on a leading player.
We talked to Paula to find out what she does, why she loves it and how she keeps calm and collected when things go seriously wrong.
This Sally (Andrea Goss) is definitely British, definitely a waif and of limited talent, and has her eyes wide open to the hell her generation of revelers is headed toward in a handcart. Her biggest number, Cabaret, is delivered as nearly a de profundis, a wail of a trauma victim.
Based on John Van Druten's play I Am a Camera which was adapted from Christopher Isherwood's short story Goodbye to Berlin, Cabaret is based in the nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub as the Nazis were rising to power in Berlin back in 1931. The action is overseen by a Master of Ceremonies with the club serving as a metaphor for some of the ominous political developments in late Weimar Germany. The story revolves around 19-year-old English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and her relationship with the young American writer Clifford Bradshaw. A sub-plot involves a doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fraulein Schneider and her suitor Herr Schultz.
CABARET, the musical masterpiece comes direct from Broadway to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, tonight, April 12, through April 17, 2016. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the cast in action below!
Based on Christopher Isherwood's novella Goodbye to Berlin (1939) and the subsequent 1951 play by John Van Druten entitled I Am a Camera, CABARET is a musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb with a book by Joe Masteroff that opened on Broadway in 1966. The production was a hit that was subsequently made into the 1972 film by Bob Fosse. In 1993, Sam Mendes re-imagined the material for a new production in London's West End. Mendes' conception was very different from any previous revival. This production was the basis for Roundabout Theatre Company's 1998 and subsequent 2014 revivals, the latter of which is the version currently on tour and being presented at Bass Concert Hall by Lexus Broadway In Austin.
The tour Broadway Across America has brought into Houston is outstanding in how it handles expectations and shatters them in new and original ways. This is a great production of a thought-provoking show, and it brings the Roundabout Theatre Company experience out of New York City.
CABARET, the musical masterpiece comes direct from Broadway to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, April 12 - 17, 2016. As part of their 50th Anniversary Season, Roundabout Theatre Company is proud to announce casting for the national tour of Sam Mendes (Spectre, American Beauty) and Rob Marshall's (Into the Woods and Chicago, the films) Tony Award-winning production of CABARET. Currently celebrating its 10th Anniversary Season, the Arsht Center, along with Broadway Across America and presenting sponsor Bank of America, are proud to close the 2015-2016 Broadway in Miami season with the hit musical. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the cast in action below!
