'Cabaret: The Musical'

The final show of the 2016-17 season for the Whitefish Theatre Co., John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Tony Award-winning “Cabaret: The Musical,” opens the first weekend of June at the O’Shaughnessy Center in Whitefish.

Performances are scheduled for June 2-4 and 8-11 at 7:30 p.m. A special sneak-preview show is Thursday, June 1, also at 7:30.

Tickets are $25 for reserved table or mezzanine seating, with food and wine available for purchase. Tickets for the sneak preview are $10 and available only at the door.

‘CABARET: THE Musical’ takes audiences deep into the seedy nightlife of the Kit Kat Klub on the eve of Hitler’s rise to power in Weimar, Germany. Based on Christopher Isherwood’s “Berlin Stories,” “Cabaret” follows the interlocking stories of Sally Bowles, a beguiling, self-destructive cabaret singer, Cliff Bradshaw, a young American journalist, and the citizens of Berlin as they are caught up in the swirling maelstrom of a changing society. Led by the enigmatic Emcee, “Cabaret” features well-known classics of the musical stage like “Money,” “Tomorrow Belongs To Me,” “Willkommen,” “Maybe This Time,” and, of course, “Cabaret.” Filled with powerful music and dance, the Associated Press said “Cabaret is as thrilling as ever, a marvel of staging that hasn’t lost its punch.”

“Berlin in the early 1930s was a place of decadence, extravagance and sexual freedom,” Director Rebecca Schaffer said in a press release. “‘Cabaret’ encompasses the most seductive parts of this scene with the Kit Kat Klub itself becoming a metaphor for Weimar as the world falls down around the revelry. It is a spectacular and wildly entertaining production, while also being one of the most important pieces of theatre ever written.

“At the same time, one of the functions of art is to help us face things that are beyond us,” Schaffer continued. “While the song and dance numbers are breathtaking, an underlying story line of ‘Cabaret’ has always been a devastating critique of apathy in the face of injustice and atrocity. Sally Bowles even scoffs in the play, ‘Politics? But what has that got to do with us?’ as the Nazi Party rises around her.

“To direct ‘Cabaret’ has been one of the greatest privileges of my career to date because it reminds us about the darkness that has pervaded our past, about the darkness that still remains in our present, and about the carelessness and danger of looking away.”

“Cabaret: The Musical” premiered on Broadway in 1966 and won eight Tony awards, including Best Musical, in addition to the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, the Outer Critics’ Circle Award, the Variety Poll of New York Critics, and London’s Evening Standard Award. The show was then adapted into the Oscar-winning musical film “Cabaret” in 1972, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey. “Cabaret: The Musical” returned to Broadway in 1998 starring Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson, winning four Tonys, including Best Revival of a Musical, and returned again in 2014 with Cumming reprising his Tony-winning role as the Emcee and featuring Michelle Williams, Emma Stone and Sienna Miller in the role of Sally Bowles.

THE WHITEFISH production features 28 local actors and musicians from around the Flathead Valley. The show features Kendra Timm as Sally Bowles, David Blair as Clifford Bradshaw, Erin Grayce as Fraulein Schneider, Becky Rygg as Fraulein Fritzie Kost, Dave Von Kleist as Herr Schultz, and Mikey Winn as the Emcee. Tickets to see the show can be purchased at the Box Office, One Central Ave., Whitefish, or by calling 406-862-5371. Box office hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, and one hour before performance times. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.whitefishtheatreco.org.