Cabaret

Director: Michael Schuh
Where - Riverside Park pavilion, Neenah
Box Office - (920) 751-4747

Performance dates: July 22 through August 1, 2004

The musical, "Cabaret," is a timeless story of love found and lost within the picturesque city of Berlin, caught within the whirlwind of hedonism and the popularization of the Nazi party. Clifford Bradshaw, an American writer, desires to write the great American novel in Berlin; instead he falls in love with the female ingenue Sally Bowles, the featured Cabaret performer at the Kit Kat Klub. Sally, who is at the peak of her notoriety, faces the prospect of losing her job and being passed over for younger, sexier cabaret dancers. Forced to live with Cliff in his crowded boarding room, the star-crossed lovers find their conflicting dreams may tear them apart.

The suppressive popularity of Nazi politics threatens the remance between Cliff's landlord, Fraulein Schneider, and Herr Schultz, a German Jew. Schneider, fearing Nazi reprisals, is torn between her love for Schultz and her place within the changing German culture. As the Nazi party slowly transforms Berlin, the Emcee of the Kit Kat Klub personifies the emotions of the main characters as the carnival atmosphere of pre World War II Berlin transforms into the suppressive Nazi regime.