WILLIAMSBURG — The 68th season of The Williamsburg Players kicks off Sept. 5 with “Cabaret.”
Based on stories by Christopher Isherwood and set in a Berlin nightclub at the end of the 1920s as Germany is slowly yielding to the emerging Third Reich, “Cabaret” centers on Cliff, a young writer who has just arrived in Berlin, who is taken with English singer Sally Bowles. Meanwhile, the proprietor of the boarding house where Cliff and Sally stay begins a romance with a mild-mannered fruit seller who is Jewish.
“It’s a very heavy show, obviously, when you’re dealing with things that happened in Germany in the 1930s and what led up to that,” said Dana Margulies Cauthen, director and choreographer. “We spend at the end of every rehearsal doing de-roling activities that we do together as a group so we can leave the heavy emotions on the stage.”
She cites as an example the romance between the boarding house proprietor and the fruit seller.
“One of the songs that the character Fraulein Schneider sings, she repeatedly asks, ‘what would you do?’ She is engaged to a Jewish fruit vendor, and she realizes that if they get married, that could put her entire livelihood and her life at risk. And when she sings that, what would you do? I feel like that’s pretty much a summation of this whole show,” she explains. “It’s something for people to think about, what would you do if you were in a situation are you going to hide in the nightclub and close your eyes to what’s happening? What is you’re choice?”
She hopes that message is something audiences will take away from the show.
Cast members for the show include:
- Keith Bocklet as Emcee
- Tova Rose as Sally Bowles
- Michael Harris as Cliff Bradshaw
- Marcia Dadds as Fraulein Schneider
- John Cauthen as Herr Schultz
- Megan Sirak as Fraulein Kost
- Christopher Becke as Herr Ernst Ludwig
- Kevin Clauberg as Maximilian von Heune
There are an additional 18 members credited as Kit Kat Dancers/Ensemble.
Dadds played Sally Bowles in a production of “Cabaret” in 1974.
“It’s like coming full circle,” said Dadds about the experience. “That was community theatre in Anderson, Indiana, and here we are in community theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia. In between that was teaching high school drama, speech and English. Go to New York to sing professionally and then come back to community theatre.”
A nine-piece orchestra performs on stage to provide the music, and costumes for the show were curated by Kate Hargrove. Of the 26 actors in the production, 22 of them have more than four costume changes, Hargrove noted.
Other shows that will be featured this season include:
- Rehearsal for Murder: Oct. 31-Nov. 16
- Bad Seed: Jan. 30-Feb. 15
- The Revolutionists: April 3-19
- A mystery patriotic musical: May 29-June 14
In addition, the players will also stage their production of “A Christmas Carol” Dec. 11-14 and Dec. 18-21.
“Cabaret” will run weekends from Sept. 5 to Sept. 21. Saturdays will feature two performances. For more information about the Cabaret production, cast, or tickets, visit the official website.
