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did-you-knowCabaret

Did You Know?

  • Combined, the original Broadway production Cabaret and its two revivals have won 15 Tony Awards and garnered numerous nominations.
  • Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film, as well as numerous subsequent productions.
  • Cabaret is based on John Van Druten's 1951 play I Am a Camera, which in turn was adapted from the novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.
  • The show was initially a dramatic play preceded by a prologue of songs describing the Berlin atmosphere from various points of view. The composers eventually replaced some of the songs with tunes more relevant to the plot, and the characters changed, as well.
  • Cabaret is ultimately two separate stories in one: the first a revue centered on the decadence of the seedy Kit Kat Club, and the second about the real world in which the club exists.
  • After seeing one of the last rehearsals before the initial show headed to Boston for the pre-Broadway run, Jerome Robbins suggested the musical sequences outside the cabaret be eliminated. The director ignored his advice.
  • Directed by Harold Prince, the original Broadway production opened on November 20, 1966, and went on to complete a 1,165-performance run. The opening night cast included Jill Haworth as Sally, Bert Convy as Cliff, Lotte Lenya as Fraulein Schneider, Jack Gilford as Herr Schultz, and Joel Grey as the Emcee.
  • The song "Don't Go" was added for Cliff's character during the first Broadway revival in 1987.
  • The second Broadway revival in 1998 was based on the 1993 Sam Mendes-directed Donmar Warehouse production from London. Co-directed by Mendes and Rob Marshall and choreographed by Marshall, it garnered a 2377-performance run, becoming the third longest-running revival in Broadway musical history.
  • In addition to Alan Cumming as the Emcee, the original cast of the 1998 revival of Cabaret included Natasha Richardson as Sally, John Benjamin Hickey as Cliff, Ron Rifkin as Herr Schultz and Mary Louise Wilson as Fraulein Schneider.
  • The 1998 revival production featured a number of notable replacements later in the run: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Susan Egan, Joely Fisher, Gina Gershon, Deborah Gibson, Teri Hatcher, Melina Kanakaredes, Jane Leeves, Molly Ringwald, Brooke Shields, and Lea Thompson as Sally; Michael C. Hall, Raul Esparza, Neil Patrick Harris, Adam Pascal, Jon Secada, Norbert Leo Butz and John Stamos as the Emcee; Boyd Gaines and Michael Hayden as Cliff; Tom Bosley, Dick Latessa, Hal Linden, Laurence Luckinbill, and Tony Roberts as Herr Schultz; and Blair Brown, Polly Bergen, Mariette Hartley and Carole Shelley as Fraulein Schneider.
  • The Maltz Jupiter Theatre is producing the second Broadway revival version, with direction from BT McNicholl, one of the few directors given permission to direct this particular revival of Cabaret.