Life is a Cabaret in Meredith

Come To The Cabaret In Meredith
By Janine Leffler

The Kander and Ebb classic Cabaret will hit the Interlakes Summer Theatre Stage this August. This musical is set in 1930’s Berlin during the rise of the Third Reich. In the play, an American writer, Clifford Bradshaw, travels to Berlin to write a novel. It is there that he meets and eventually falls in love with, Sally Bowles, a British cabaret singer at the seedy Kit Kat Club. This show is a wonderful mixture of powerful songs and entertaining dance numbers.

The role of Sally Bowles will be played by Dara Hartman. In terms of developing her character, Hartman finds research important. She has been reading Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories for the past month, gaining insight into her character, Sally Bowels. What stands out to Hartman about the character is, “Her air of not caring what people think, her attempts to shock and stimulate. It's going to be a lot of fun!” She looks most forward to singing the finale song Cabaret, which she says, “… is at an integral point of the character's emotional journey.”
Sue Boland makes her Interlakes Theatre debut as Fraulein Schneider, the owner of the boarding house where Clifford Bradshaw stays. She looks forward to playing this role. “I’ve been lucky enough to see several fine actresses tackle the role in both the original and revised version, but I’ve always wanted to see more realism, more understanding of what was behind Schneider’s (song) So What!”. When it comes to developing her character Boland explained “I’ve been reading the “Berlin Stories” and have basically learned three different versions of the script. Each version has given a slightly different emphasis to the story, so I’ve been lucky enough to have already been presented with several different sides to Fraulein Schneider.” She continued by saying “I’ve played with numerous ways to get a particular thought across to the audience, thought about how I might look, what age I’ll be, etc and then I try to erase everything and allow my director and the relationships I have with my fellow actors to shape, in this case, the Fraulein Schneider that you will see and get to know better.”
The show will also feature Matthew Rickard as the Emcee, the role made famous by Joel Grey in the film and Broadway stage production. Rickard is well known for playing Richie Valens in The Buddy Holly Story and will reprise that role later this summer.

Cabaret will be performed at Interlakes Summer Theatre at 1 Laker Lane in Meredith August 2nd-14th. Come out and enjoy a love story like you’ve never seen before. Featuring such show stopping numbers as Cabaret, The Money Song and Two Ladies. Other popular songs include Willkommen and Maybe This Time.