THE JUSTICE THEATER PROJECT FINISHES ITS 2023-24 SEASON “EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, EVERYONE Issues Of Our Time” WITH THE LONG-AWAITED FINALE, CABARET,” Directed by Nancy Rich and Music Directed by Katherine Anderson June 7-23, 2024.
“Life is a cabaret, ol’ chum, so come to the Cabaret.” In a nightclub set in 1929-1930 Berlin, during the twilight of the Jazz Age, as the Nazis rose to power, the musical focuses on the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub that revolves around American Writer Clifford Bfradshaw’s relations with English cabaret performer Sally Bolles. Drawing to a close, a garish Master of Ceremonies welcomes the audience and assures them they will forget all their troubles at the Cabaret. Employing the Emcee’s bawdy songs as wry commentary, this musical classic explores the dark, heady, and tumultuous life of Sally Bowles and Berlin’s natives and expatriates as Germany slowly yields to the emerging Third Reich. The musical numbers performed by the Emcee revel in the decadence that serves s a metaphor for the political decline of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party, which in a few years, would be closing down establishments like the Kit Kat Klub and burning “Un-German books in the streets of Berlin.
Addressing the issues in the characters’ lives in the late 1920s parallels what we deal with today – racial profiling, inclusiveness, politics, survival, sorrow, and fear because of others in our own lives. CABARET plays with culturally and politically reactionary forces and often follows episodes of significant social change, especially in a progressive direction. Spawning numerous reimagined Broadway revivals, CABARET is among the American theatre’s most enduring musicals. Audience – PG-13.
Content warning:
Cabaret contains depictions of the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s through costumes, scenery, hand gestures and choreography, racial caricatures, and language. It explores mature themes, including anti-Semitism, racism, sexual content, abortion, alcohol, and physical violence. There are depictions of smoking, but no real or fabricated smoke. Please note that this show features a live band, sudden sound effects, and brief sequences of flashing lights.