CABARET Comes to Theatre Rhinoceros Next Month

Theatre Rhinoceros, in its third year of residence in San Francisco’s historically gay Castro neighborhood as the nation’s longest-running LGBTQ+ theatre, will produce Kander & Ebb’s timeless masterpiece Cabaret … in a retail building-turned-blackbox with a footprint smaller than the average two-bedroom apartment.

Why? 

The parallels between Cabaret’s 1930s Nollendorfplatz, Berlin and present day Castro, San Francisco, are undeniable. Both promise a haven for the queers and weirdos who might have to hide their true colors in their daily life - largely by way of providing a light escape, or a series of semi-engaged distractions, for the marginalized, whether that’s through satirical arts and performance, alcohol, drugs, casual intimate encounters, or music that somehow never seems to stop playing. “So - life is disappointing? Forget it!” demands Cabaret’s bewitching Emcee, embodied here by long standing Rhino player and collaborator Rudy Guerrero. 

Theatre Rhinoceros, then, embodies the fictional, infamous Kit Kat Club - a hole in the wall full of immediately living, queer art and artists hungry for bigger stages, somehow surviving year after year as budgets tighten, institutional leaderships transition, and live theatres continue to disappear from the local landscape. If we are to survive, as queer artists embracing ourselves and our history, how complicit can we be? Must we be?  

Cabaret starts November 21st, is directed by John Fisher with music direction by Armando Fox and choreography by Adin Walker, and stars an ensemble of nine Bay Area actors and three live musicians. This production is made possible by support from honorary producer Lawrence Dillon, as well as the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, Horizons Foundation, The Geller-Sullivan Trust, The Bob Ross Foundation, Tom Horn, Ira Kurlander and Andy Guest, and the donors and supporters of Theatre Rhinoceros. 

Theatre Rhinoceros was founded in 1977, and is the longest running LGBTQ+ theatre in the nation. We develop and produce works of theatre that enlighten, enrich, and explore both the ordinary and the extraordinary aspects of our queer community. Our emphasis is on new works, works about under-represented members of the larger queer community, and revivals of lesser known queer classics. 

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