CABARET

JUNE 09-12, 2022 | Majestic Theatre

Based on John Van Druten's 1951 play, I Am A Camera, which was adapted from Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 semi-autobiographical novel, Goodbye to Berlin, CABARET has music and lyrics by the award-winning composer/lyricist team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, and a book by Joe Masteroff. The original 1966 production ran for 1,165 performances, and was nominated for 11 Tony Awards® in 1967, winning 8, including Best Musical and Best Score, with its original cast recording also winning a Grammy. The 1972 film adaptation directed Bob Fosse, which starred Liza Minelli and Joel Grey, won 8 Academy Awards. The 1998 Broadway Revival, starring Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson, was nominated for 10 Tony Awards®, winning 4, including Best Revival of a Musical, and ran for 2,377 performances, becoming the third longest-running revival in Broadway musical history.

Set in a Berlin nightclub as the 1920's draw to a close, CABARET explores the dark, heady, and tumultuous life of Germany’s natives and expatriates as the Third Reich emerges and the Nazis ascend to power. With “the Emcee” (played by Christopher J. Deaton) guiding the way, CABARET focuses on the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub, and revolves around the relationships between a young American writer (“Clifford Bradshaw” played by Preston Page), an English cabaret performer (“Sally Bowles” played by Catherine Carpenter Cox), a German boarding house proprietor (“Fräulein Schneider” played by Barbara Catrett), and a mild-mannered, Jewish fruit seller (“Herr Schultz” played by David Fenley). With a score featuring songs that have become classics of the American Musical Theater, CABARET is a fierce, daring musical that pushes the boundaries of the form.

CABARET is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Tams-Witmark LLC. www.concordtheatricals.com

THE CAST & CREATIVE TEAM

This entertaining and exuberant, yet dark and moving, fully-staged concert production of the 1998 Version of CABARET boasts an entirely local cast of 22 singer/actors. The company is led by Christopher J. Deaton as the Emcee and Catherine Carpenter Cox as Sally Bowles, with Preston Page as Clifford Bradshaw, Barbara Catrett as Fräulein Schneider, and David Fenley as Herr Schultz. The cast also features Aaron C. White as Ernst Ludwig (US Cliff), Caroline Rivera as Fraulein Kost (US Schneider), and Greg Hullett as Max (US Ludwig & Schultz). Rounding out the world of the famous, and infamous, Kit Kat Klub are Abi Abel as Fritzie, Tychelle Bearden as Helga, D’Mariel Jones as Bobby, Thi Le as Frenchie & the Gorilla, Laura Lites as Lulu (US Kost), Ania Lyons as Rosie, Elise Mendoza as Texas, Anthony J. Ortega as Hans (US Emcee), Sienna Riehle as Herman & Rudy, and André Pernell Williams as Victor. Presley Duyck serves as the Standby/Understudy for Sally Bowles, as well as a Kit Kat Girl, with Grace Moore as the Kit Kat Girl Swing for Rosie, Fritzie, & Frenchie, Alexa Morgan as the Kit Kat Girl Swing for Helga, Lulu, & Texas, and Danny Vanegas as the Understudy for Max & Kit Kat Boy Swing for Bobby, Victor, Hans, & Herman. Allison & Megan Arroyo sing the recorded voice over for the Young German Children’s Voices.

The always live and local Lyric Stage Orchestra features Rachel Bundy on Violin, Hollie Dzierzanowski on Viola, Nini Rubiano on Cello, Brittany Hart on Bass, Kristen Thompson on Reed 1 (Clarinet, Alto Sax), Christy Springer on Reed 2 (Clarinet, Tenor Sax), Catherine Conlin on Reed 3 (Tenor Sax, Clarinet), Emma Cook on Trumpet, Julie Gray on Trombone, Ashley Westgate on Percussion, Vicky Nooe on Synthesizer/Keyboard, and Music Director/Conductor Vonda K. Bowling on Piano.

CABARET in Concert will be directed and choreographed by Broadway veteran Penny Ayn Maas, with Ania Lyons serving as the Assistant Choreographer. The 12-piece, all-female orchestra will be led by Music Director Vonda K. Bowling, with Bruce Greer serving as the Musical Supervisor. Lighting Design is by Scott Guenther, Sound Design & Engineering by Jorge Guerra, Costume Design & Coordination is by Megan A. Liles, with D’Mariel Jones serving as Assistant Costume Coordinator, and Props Coordination is by Christopher J. Deaton & Jenny Dang. Stage Management is by Maddie Collins, Jenny Dang, and Tanvi Sutaria. CABARET in Concert is produced by Lyric Stage Producer Catherine Carpenter Cox and Lyric Stage Executive Artistic Director Christopher J. Deaton. Lyric Stage Founder Steven Jones serves as the Consulting Producer.

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REVIEW

ONSTAGENTX BY MARTHA HEIMBERG

Lyric Stage brings a high-kicking, menacing in-concert production of Cabaret to the Majestic Theater—and, boy, are we ever relieved to hear once again that “life is a cabaret!”

Until it isn’t.

John Kander and Fred Ebb’s 1966 musical still thrills, chills and horrifies, as we move from the permissive ribaldry of Berlin in the late ‘20s to the rise of the Third Reich and the specter of Nazi death camps in the future. Quite a trip for a single night, as knowing director/choreographer Penny Ayn Maas drives all 20 cast members full-throttle, and our city’s go-to music conductor Vonda K. Bowling puts the pedal to the metal with her rousing 11-member all-female band. Talk about over-the-top girl power on that red velvet bandstand.

Lyric Stage “in concert” means minimal set design, but full costumes, choreography, lighting, and orchestration. The grandeur of the historic Majestic Theater with its stuffed red velvet seats is already a pretty terrific set for a Weimar-era nightclub. At intermission, couples of various gender mixes were taking selfies in the huge, gilded mirrors lining the lobby. Theater is Pride Week 4-ever.

Our guide from start to finish is the Emcee of the Kit Kat Club, Lyric Stage executive artistic director Christopher J. Deaton—a muscled, alluring hunk of whatever-gender-you-prefer as he “Willkommen’s” us to leave our hang-ups on the curb, and to stomp and whistle at the beautiful people on the stage. The night I saw the show, the audience hollered and cheered as directed, especially for the curvy Kit Kat Klub girls in black bustiers and thigh-high gartered stockings. And for those leggy boys, too, sometimes wearing the same outfit. With every shape, size, and color, this chorus line is athletic, suggestive, bold, vulgar…whatever the song demands.

Costume designer Megan A. Liles makes “everybody beautiful” as advertised. Her sequined, deeply fringed dresses for Sally and the Emcee would make a tree stump look sexy.

Deaton, more often the handsome romantic tenor in Lyric productions, reveals the breadth of his acting skills as the Emcee. Pared down to I-can-do-that dancing weight, his head shaved and shining, and wearing a muscle shirt split to the navel to reveal an enviable six-pack, he preens and flirts like an androgynous peacock. He’s hilarious and bawdy singing “Two Ladies,” and sports the longest legs in the chorus line singing “Money,” that cynical anthem to capitalism.

Later, he’s downright sinister dancing with a costumed ape in “If You Could See Her,” with its chilling anti-semitic finish line. From his mincing, ebullient start to the show’s sagging, dark finish, Deaton delivers the feel and the fate of a self-deluded society teetering on collapse. Hard not to note that today’s news is filled with the Congressional hearings of the January 6th insurrection attempt.

As Sally Bowles, Catherine Carpenter Cox also transforms, from the saucy, tough-girl delivery of “Mein Herr” and “Don’t Tell Mama” at the outset, to her wistful, moving rendition of “Maybe This Time,” a song revealing her shiveringly deep longing for the “home” of love. Great song. She also sings a charming duet with a quietly sturdy Preston Page, as the hapless bi-sexual writer Sally fancies. “Perfectly Marvelous” is a special kind of love song, and anyone who’s ever been in a lop-sided relationship must chuckle while hearing.

Barbara Catrett’s frank and forthright Fraulein Schneider, the German boarding house owner, and David Fenley’s gentle, textured Herr Schultz, the Jewish fruit store owner, bring the swelling heartbeats of surprised aging lovers to the show. You need a hand to squeeze when they sing about pineapples as a courting gift, and for their charming duet “Married,” with its sunny certainty about the future.

Special “Brava!’ here to Bowling and her badass band, whipping it up when we need to get there, and slowing it down to hear an exquisite line or lilting half-sob. The band’s last gasp of cacophony and discord, in which all harmony or narrative breaks down, is just wrenching. And so right. It’s a musical, and it crashed!

How lucky are we to have Lyric Stage and these beautiful people right here in downtown Dallas. Okay, it’s just for four days, but still.

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