Christopher Isherwood News

Tammy Faye (nee Tammy Lang) is a luminary on the downtown NYC performance art scene. Long before I met her, I'd heard her name spoken with reverence by many artists and musicians I met when I first came to the city in 1999. Recently I saw the performer in her current show, HOLY WAR 2016: THE NEW REGIME at Pangea, in which she returns to her well-known original character Tammy Faye Starlite, a twisted conflation of Tammy Faye Bakker, Tammy Wynette, and then some. Tammy Faye Starlite brings a perverse, amoral, politically adjacent evening of song and signature improvised unhinged patter, which arises out of such an 'unacceptable' yet earnest point of view that the minds of the audience members are set free to wander in a vast desert of uncertainty, outrageousness, and catharsis of an unknown nature. It was an exhilarating and delightfully uncomfortably confounding place to be. I wanted to talk with this extraordinary performer to learn about her particular vision and creative process. Seeking to reconcile the performer Tammy Faye with the woman Tammy, I discovered a humble, down-to-earth, curious woman immersed in an ongoing critical examination of our culture---both pop and high---as well as the media and the political landscape we are mucking around in these days. Tammy also comes across as a serious, ambitious artist, pushing to present her work and be a part of the cultural conversation. We met at a cozy macaron shop in Chelsea on the day of the train crash in Hoboken. Tammy, coming from her home in Hoboken, was able to take an alternate route via bus into the city and keep our appointment, a decidedly un-diva-like move, which I found endearingly respectful. She and I spent over an hour talking about her work over the years, this shit show of an election, and the underlying question about the place of femininity and women in our culture at present.

Set in Berlin in 1931, this landmark musical is about the dark and sexually charged haven of decadence that was Weimar Germany before the rise of fascism. 

'What good is sitting alone in your room, come hear the music play!"

The Broward Center for the Performing Arts announced today that individual tickets for the Fort Lauderdale engagement of Roundabout Theatre Company's CABARET will go on sale Friday, November 4, 2016 at 10:00 a.m.

Broadway actors Nicolette Hart (Rent, Legally Blonde, The Wedding Singer, Million Dollar Quartet, Bette Midler World Tour), Joey Calveri (Trip of Love, Rock of Ages, Wonderland), and Tesha Buss (Cats, Gypsy) headline the Pentangle Arts production of CABARET as Sally Bowles, Emcee, and Fraulein Kost, respectively.

Pentangle Arts invites you to leave your troubles outside and come to our production of CABARET based on the 1998 production directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall. The show opens October 21, 2016, and closes with a special Halloween Performance on October 31, 2016.

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.

Defunkt is thrilled to bring one of the most celebrated and exciting plays of the past ten years to Portland.  As Christopher Isherwood of the New York Times writes "Perhaps no play this year inspired a greater sense of awe than Taylor Mac's audacious dive into the dysfunctional-family playpen of American theater.…in his depiction of a semi-mad housewife with a transgender son, another son reeling from three years in combat in Afghanistan, and a husband whose disabling stroke has rendered him nearly speechless…."  Defunkt's own Andrew Klaus -Vineyard directs this Portland Premiere from a unique, exhilarating voice in American theater.

Winner of 12 Tony Awards, 8 Academy Awards and 7 BAFTA Awards, CABARET wows audiences and critics alike time and time again sky-rocketing the careers its starts.  Fifty years ago in 1966 the original Broadway production made a household name of Joel Grey who shook audiences as The Emcee.  Two years later an unassuming Judi Dench stole the show as Sally Bowles on London's West End.  Arguably the most iconic movie musical of all time made a star of Liza Minnelli when she brought Sally Bowles to the silver screen directed by Bob Fosse.

The Kit Kat Club is returning to Sydney in all its decadence for a new Australian revival of CABARET at Hayes Theatre Co. from 9 January 2017 starring Paul Capsis as The Emcee.  CABARET will then play the Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne from 27 April 2017.

Pentangle Arts invites you to leave your troubles outside and come to our production of CABARET based on the 1998 production directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall. The show opens October 21, 2016, and closes with a special Halloween Performance on October 31, 2016.

Defunkt is thrilled to bring one of the most celebrated and exciting plays of the past ten years to Portland.  As Christopher Isherwood of the New York Times writes "Perhaps no play this year inspired a greater sense of awe than Taylor Mac's audacious dive into the dysfunctional-family playpen of American theater.…in his depiction of a semi-mad housewife with a transgender son, another son reeling from three years in combat in Afghanistan, and a husband whose disabling stroke has rendered him nearly speechless…."  Defunkt's own Andrew Klaus -Vineyard directs this Portland Premiere from a unique, exhilarating voice in American theater.

Broadway actors Nicolette Hart (Rent, Legally Blonde, The Wedding Singer, Million Dollar Quartet, Bette Midler World Tour), Joey Calveri (Trip of Love, Rock of Ages, Wonderland), and Tesha Buss (Cats, Gypsy) headline the Pentangle Arts production of CABARET as Sally Bowles, Emcee, and Fraulein Kost, respectively.

'What good is sitting alone in your room. Come hear the music play' when the Washington Crossing Open Air Theatre features the musical Cabaret as the next production. Set to begin Friday, August 26, the musical continues through Sunday, September 4 with performances on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 pm.

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.

This is the wonder of Kander and Ebb's masterpiece that is Cabaret, now brought to the Cape Playhouse in what can only be described, in the words of Fraulein Bowles, as 'perfectly marvelous,' although even that would be an understatement for such a show as this beautiful theater in the heart of Dennis Village now presents to a Cape Cod audience.

Chestnut Street Playhouse presents CABARET by Joe Masteroff,; opening August 11.

CABARET, the musical masterpiece, returns direct from Broadway!

Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Atlanta announced today that individual tickets for the Atlanta engagement of Roundabout Theatre Company's CABARET will go on sale Sunday, August 28 at 10 a.m.