Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome to the Kit Kat Club! The Playhouse Theatre is newly transformed, so get ready to step into a theatrical paradise.
Set in early 1930s Berlin, American writer Cliff Bradshaw meets English cabaret singer Sally Bowles, a performer at the Kit Kat Club. But the rise of Nazism threatens this hedonistic Weimar Republic haven. Cabaret’s enduring success is partly down to Kander and Ebb’s indelible score, with songs like “Wilkommen,” “Don’t Tell Mama,” “Meir Herr,” “Money,” and, or course, the great torch song “Maybe This Time.” This production offers an exciting chance to discover, or revisit, Kander and Ebb’s still hugely resonant musical.
The Cabaret London musical won seven Olivier Awards, with original cast members Eddie Redmayne, Jessie Buckley, Liza Sadovy, and Elliot Levey. The show features luxury casting, as well as a transformed theatre to provide optimum watching for one of the most-known musicals of all time. Rebecca Frecknall directs, with Tom Scutt providing set and costume design, and choreography by Julia Cheng.
The celebrated Cabaret musical opened on Broadway in November 1966, directed by Harold Prince, and has been a hit on both stage and screen, with Bob Fosse’s film version, starring Liza Minnelli, winning eight Oscars.
Dame Judi Dench led the original West End version, and, in 1993, Sam Mendes’s Donmar Warehouse production, starring Jane Horrocks and Alan Cumming, was greatly acclaimed. Cumming returned for the 2014 Broadway revival, which starred first Michelle Williams, then Emma Stone, and finally Sienna Miller.