Willkommen, bienvenue, Broadway!
“Cabaret,” the ever-popular (and ominous) musical set in a Berlin nightclub on the eve of the Nazi takeover, returns to Broadway this spring in a new production that has already won raves in London.
The producing team announced a plan Tuesday morning to move the show to Broadway, saying it would open at the August Wilson Theater, where a “Funny Girl” revival is slated to close on Sept. 3.
The producers of “Cabaret” didn’t reveal any other details, but Eddie Redmayne, the movie star who played the nightclub’s Master of Ceremonies when this revival opened in London, is widely expected to reprise the role on Broadway. The show’s other major role, Sally Bowles, the star nightclub singer, was initially played in London by Jessie Buckley; that role has not yet been cast in New York.
“Cabaret,” with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Joe Masteroff, originally opened on Broadway in 1966, and that production, directed by Hal Prince and starring Joel Gray, won eight Tony Awards, including that for best musical, and ran for three years. Gray next starred in a 1972 film adaptation that won eight Academy Awards, including one for Gray and one for his co-star, Liza Minnelli.
The musical was revived on Broadway in 1987, again with Prince as director and Gray as Emcee. Then in 1998 came a new production directed by Sam Mendes and starring Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson; that production shut down in 2004, then returned in 2014 for another year, opening with Michelle Williams opposite Cumming.
This latest revival, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, premiered in London in 2021 and won seven Olivier Awards, including one for Best Musical Revival. His run continues. The critic Matt Wolf, writing in DailyExpertNews, called the production “unnerving” and said: “Freccknall pulls us into a hedonistic milieu, only to send us back on the road nearly three hours later, reminded of life’s horrors. .”
The lead producers are Ambassador Theater Group, a UK company that owns and operates theaters across Europe and the United States and has become increasingly active in producing on Broadway, and Underbelly, a UK company closely associated with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
“Cabaret” will join several Broadway shows this season that deal with anti-Semitism, including “Just for Us,” a one-man show by comedian Alex Edelman, which is now running, as well as “Harmony,” a musical by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman that premieres in the fall and “Prayer for the French Republic,” a play by Joshua Harmon, premieres in the winter. Last season’s Tony-winning Best Play, “Leopoldstadt,” which concluded earlier this month, and the Tony winner for Best Musical Revival, “Parade,” which runs until August 6, are also about anti-Semitism.
