Cabaret

Backing Track: Money, Money
Music John Kander
Lyrics Fred Ebb
Book Joe Masteroff
Based upon John Van Druten's play
I Am a Camera
Productions 1966 Broadway

The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned an acclaimed 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions.

Originally entitled Welcome to Berlin, it is based on John Van Druten's play I Am a Camera, which in turn was adapted from the novel Mr. Norris Changes Trains and a collection of short stories, Goodbye to Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood. Set in 1929-1930 Berlin on the eve of the Nazis' rise to power, it focuses on nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and mostly revolves around the English 19-year-old cabaret performer Sally Bowles and her relationship with young American writer, Cliff Bradshaw. A sub-plot involves the doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider and her elderly suitor Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor. Overseeing the action is the Emcee, who presides as master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub and serves as a constant metaphor for the current state of society in Weimar Germany throughout the show.