Cabaret On Stage At Muhlenberg College
October 28 – November 6, Baker Theatre Tickets 484-664-3333 / www.muhlenberg.edu/ticketsThursday, October 20, 2005 01:59 PM
The Muhlenberg Theatre Association presents Cabaret, considered one of the most notorious stage musicals of the 20 th century, in the Baker Theatre, Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance of Muhlenberg College from October 28 - November 6, 2005. Opening week performances are Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. The show continues Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Inspired by characters in Christopher Isherwood’s stories and novels, Cabaret is an extraordinary musical that continues to entertain and provoke audiences. An Anglo-American novelist and playwright, Isherwood lived in Berlin between 1929 and 1933, gaining an outsider's view of the simultaneous decay of the struggling Weimar Republic and the frightening rise to power of Adolf Hitler.
Isherwood captured both the glittering and grotesque in Berlin’s cabarets, casting his photographic eye on the sexual exploits, political intrigues, and prevalent vices that exploded in this tumultuous era. For the price of a few drinks, audiences enjoyed an intimate and adventurous evening. Particularly in Germany, where the Weimar government essentially ended all forms of censorship and opened the doors to a frenzied sexual liberation, the glittering night life of the cabarets thrived on political, social and sexual satire. The hardships of inflation, depression and unemployment prevalent in Germany were willingly left outside the door in favor of irreverent and erotic entertainment.
New York director Harold Prince, who had been stationed in Germany in 1951 and experienced the strangely hedonistic club scene, spent three years working on a musical based on the Isherwood stories with collaborators Joe Masteroff, John Kander and Fred Ebb. As they worked on bringing Sally Bowles and other Isherwood characters to the stage, the cabaret became the biting metaphor for the incredible vitality, glaring sexuality and moral decadence of Berlin and the disturbing political transformation of Germany.
Prince’s original production of Cabaret opened on Broadway to great acclaim in 1966, was adapted into film in 1972, and was successfully revived on Broadway in 1987.
The show begins with Cliff, a young American novelist, on the train to Berlin. Ernst, a German businessman, places his briefcase among Cliff’s luggage at the German border and then uses the opportunity to make Cliff’s acquaintance. That simple act will be the catalyst for the friends Cliff will make, the place he will live, and the woman he will love in Berlin – Sally Bowles.
Sally Bowles is a wild and sensual performer at the Kit Kat Club. Far from the increasingly hostile streets of Berlin, the Kit Kat Club offers the delusion that all women are beautiful and life is whatever anyone wants it to be. Cliff and Sally begin a briefly wonderful but ultimately heartbreaking relationship, doomed by the world collapsing around them.
Cabaret juxtaposes the cabaret songs in the Kit Kat Club (“Willkommen”) with the complex narratives of Cliff and Ernst in an increasingly dangerous city (“What Would You Do?”). Neighbors Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz also find it possible to love each other, but the reverberation of the rising Nazi party shakes all of them out of their innocence. As the show continues, the cabaret act becomes more political and the behavior more undesirable. By the end of the musical, the anthem of young Germans (“Tomorrow Belongs to Me”) anticipates the rise of Hitler and the shocking political turmoil on the horizon.
Directing is Charles Richter, Director of Theatre at Muhlenberg College. Designing the Muhlenberg stage production is Timothy Averill; costumes are designed by Constance Case, choreography by Karen Dearborn, and musical direction by Ken Butler – each faculty and/or staff at Muhlenberg College.
The cast features guest artists Francine Roussel as Fraulein Schneider and P. Brendan Mulvey as Herr Schultz. Roussel is on the theatre faculty of Muhlenberg College and continues her professional acting career; she most recently performed in Sidney Pollack’s most recent film entitled The Interpreter. Mulvey is based in the Philadelphia area and has enjoyed a 25-year career in acting - one of his favorite roles playing Herr Schultz in the National Broadway Tour of Cabaret.Kennedy Kanagawa’08 is the Emcee. His Broadway and New York credits include A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden, Falsettoland , and Tribute to William Finn. Courtney Romano’06 is Sally Bowles; she has performed in the Muhlenberg productions of Summerfolk, Pippin, Into the Woods, A Chorus Line and Annie Get Your Gun. Theo Rutherford ‘08 is Clifford Bradshaw; he previously appeared in the MTA’s Pippin and The Pirates of Penzance and is a member of the St. Mark’s Players where he has played Jack in Lord of the Flies and Thomas Jefferson in 1776.
BOX OFFICE INFORMATION
Call 484-664-3333, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for ticket reservations. Tickets must be purchased at time of reservation. You may purchase tickets online by visiting www.muhlenberg.edu/tickets. For more information about the theatre program at Muhlenberg College, visit: www.muhlenberg.edu/depts/theatre.
ARTIST PROFILES
Charles Richter (Director)is Head of the Department of Theatre & Dance at Muhlenberg College, where he has taught and directed for 27 years. His productions of The Good Woman of Setzuan, The School for Scandal, and Spring Awakening were selected for presentation at American College Theatre Festival regional festivals; he has also directed, among others, Wonderful Town, The Mikado, West Side Story, Cabaret, A Chorus Line, Hamlet and Oklahoma!. Most recently he directed The Pirates of Penzance and co-directed Chekhov's The Seagull with Tim Averill. He is a founding artistic director of the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, former artistic director of the Pennsylvania Stage Company, and a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.
Ken Butler (Musical Director) is Executive Assistant to the President of Muhlenberg College. He has worked on twenty MTA and SMT productions, including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, West Side Story, The Mikado, Blood Brothers, Godspell, Little Shop of Horrors, and Into the Woods; he also provided arrangements for Cloud Nine and Our Town, musical direction and orchestrations for Schoolhouse Rock Live! and The Frog Prince, and wrote a new book and lyrics for Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.
Constance Case (Costume Designer) has designed the MTA productions The Beggar’s Opera, Pentecost, Brigadoon, Dido and Aeneas, The Country Wife and the SMT productions Once Upon a Time in New Jersey, Into the Woods, and South Pacific, among others. She earned her M.F.A. from Wayne State University in Detroit, where she worked for the Harmonie Park Playhouse, The Hillberry Theatre, the Museum of African American History, and Michigan Opera Theatre. Her work has also been seen at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Archives, Wolftrap and the Woolly Mammoth.
Timothy Averill (Scenic Designer) is associate professor of scenography in the Muhlenberg College Department of Theatre & Dance. He has been scenographer for MTA productions of Into the Woods, Juliet and her Romeo, Pentecost, and Dido and Aeneas, among others. His professional experience includes work for Glimmerglass Opera, Yale Repertory Theatre, Powerhouse Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Syracuse Opera, Arena Theatre of Buffalo, Theatre of the First Amendment, and MacHaydn Theatre.
John Kander and Fred Ebb worked together for almost five decades to become the longest-running composer-lyricist team in Broadway musical history. In 1965, Kander and Ebb wrote the score for Flora, the Red Menace, with Liza Minnelli making her Broadway debut as Flora. Just a year later in 1966, Kander and Ebb had their first smash with Cabaret, winning the Tony Award for Best Musical. More shows followed, including Chicago which premiered on Broadway in 1975, but had its greatest success in its revival in 1996 when it garnered six Tony Awards, including Best Musical Revival.
Other Kander and Ebb musicals/scores include: The Act (1978), The Rink (1984), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), Steel Pier (1997), The Skin of Our Teeth, Woman of the Year (1981), and Funny Lady (1975). They are perhaps best remembered for the title song of the 1977 film musical New York, New York. In December 1998, John Kander and Fred Ebb were honored with lifetime achievement awards at the 21st Kennedy Center honors.
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
Christopher Isherwood's best-known fictional work, popularly entitled “The Berlin Stories,” is in actuality a pair of loosely structured novels: Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939), considered one of the most significant political novels of the 20 th Century. “The Berlin Stories” inspired the play I Am a Camera (1951; film 1955) and the Broadway musical Cabaret (1966; film 1972). Isherwood's novels were based largely on his own life. Many of his famous literary friends appeared in his books under different names, including W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Virginia Woolf. In 1938 Isherwood started with Auden a journey to China, and recorded in Journey to a War (1939) his experiences in the country ravaged by civil war and a Japanese invasion. During 1941-42, he worked at a Quaker hostel in Pennsylvania with refugees from Europe. With Auden, he emigrated to the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1946. Isherwood settled in in southern California, where he worked as a teacher and wrote for Hollywood films. In 1975 he won the Brandeis Medal for Fiction.
THE LEADING PLAYERS
Kennedy Kanagawa (Emcee), a sophomore at Muhlenberg, is thrilled to be playing the role of Emcee in Cabaret. Broadway and New York credits include A Christmas Carol (Young Scrooge, Jonathon) at Madison Square Garden, Falsettoland (Jason), Tribute to William Finn (vocal soloist). At the Kennedy Center, Kennedy originated the role of Mark Brayne in Welcome to Tourettaville and has performed there as a vocal soloist for several other productions, including Sondheim: A Celebration and the Olender Foundation Tribute to Christopher Reeve. Courtney Romano (Sally Bowles) has performed in the MTA’s Summerfolk, Pippin, New Voices 2004, Into the Woods, the SMT’s A Chorus Line and Annie Get Your Gun as well as the studio productions of Three Tables and EnsembleOther credits include a staged reading of ClitNotes at The Theatre Outlet and a performance of the dance piece “Search Party: reports from the field” at A.P.E. Performance Space. Theo Rutherford (Clifford Bradshaw) previously appeared in the MTA’s Pippin and The Pirates of Penzance as well as several Poetry Slam productions with Chris Shepard. Theo has also been a member of the St. Mark’s Players since the age of four and has played such roles as Jack in Lord of the Flies and Thomas Jefferson in 1776. With The Priory Players, he was in Guys & Dolls and Damn Yankees and directed a production of Noises OFF!Francine Roussel (Fraulein Schneider), a native of Paris, has studied mime and theatre at L’Ecole Jacques Lecoq (Antoine Vitez, Philipe Avron, Pierre Byland), interpretation at L’Ecole Tania Balachova (Michael Lonsdale) and received an M.A. from the Sorbonne. Ms. Roussel played the art manager of Mikhail Baryshnikov in the last season of Sex and the City and performed opposite Nicole Kidman in Sidney Pollack’s most recent film entitled The Interpreter. P. Brendan Mulvey (Herr Schultz) has played many roles over the past 25 years. One of his favorites is Herr Schultz in the National Broadway Tour of Cabaret. Among his other favorites are Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady , Scrooge in Scrooge the Musical, and Mr. Maraczek in She Loves Me.
For further information on interviews, reviews or photos, please call 484-664-3693 or email [email protected] at Muhlenberg College.
