ROMEO AND JULIET - Stratford Festival

CABARET
Book by Joe Masteroff
Based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood
Music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb
Director – Amanda Dehnert
Avon Theatre
Music Director – Rick Fox May 13 to October 25
Choreographer – Kelly Devine Opens May 29, 2008
Set Designer – Douglas Paraschuk
Costume Designer – David Boechler
Lighting Designer – Kevin Fraser
Sound Designer – Jim Neil
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ABOUT THE PLAY
OVERVIEW
Cabaret began life as the play I Am a Camera. First produced by Harold Prince in 1966,
Cabaret ran on Broadway for 1,166 performances and won the Tony for best musical. It
has had numerous revivals in both London and in the United States. A film version,
starring some of the original Broadway cast, won numerous Oscars.
SYNOPSIS
Berlin in the 1920s and ’30s was a city in extraordinary ferment. Communists and
socialists fought in the streets, while film, art, music, architecture and kabarett mirrored
the fragmented society that eventually gave rise to the Nazis and the Third Reich.
Based on the British novelist Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, Cabaret is the story
of a young American, Cliff Bradshaw, who travels to Germany seeking inspiration for his
new novel. En route he is befriended by Ernst Ludwig who is smuggling what he refers to
as “baubles from Paris” into Germany. On New Year’s Eve, Cliff’s first night in Berlin,
the penniless writer visits the Kit Kat Klub, where a mysterious and knowing Master of
Ceremonies presides over the decadence. There he meets Sally Bowles.
The next morning Sally charms her way into Cliff’s room in Fraulein Schneider’s
colourful boarding house, where he has already begun teaching English. Cliff is attracted
by Sally’s eccentricity and vivacity, and before long she moves in.
Fraulein Schneider is also being wooed by one of her boarders, a Jewish fruit merchant,
Herr Schultz. He proposes and they make plans to marry. Sally becomes pregnant; she
and Cliff also decide to marry. To earn more money Cliff joins Ernst in his smuggling
game, unaware that he is supporting the Nazi party.
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