Willkommen, bienvenue, Broadway!
“Cabaret,” the famous (and spectacular) musical set in a Berlin nightclub on the eve of the Nazis’ rise to power, returns to Broadway this spring in a new production that’s already winning raves in London.
The producing team on Tuesday morning announced plans to move the show to Broadway, and said it will open at the August Wilson Theater, where a revival of “Funny Girl” is set to close on Sept. 3.
The producers of “Cabaret” have not announced any other details, but it is widely expected that Eddie Redmayne, the movie star who played the nightclub’s Master of Ceremonies when this revival opened in London, will will play again on Broadway. The show’s other major role, Sally Bowles, the nightclub’s star singer, was first played in London by Jessie Buckley; that role has never been cast in New York.
“Cabaret,” with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Joe Masteroff, originally opened on Broadway in 1966, and that production, directed by Hal Prince and starring Joel Grey, has won eight Tony Awards, including for best. musical, and ran for three years. Gray went on to star in a 1972 film adaptation that won eight Academy Awards, including one for Gray and one for his co-star, Liza Minnelli.
The musical was revived on Broadway in 1987, again with Prince directing and Gray as Emcee. Then in 1998, a new production directed by Sam Mendes and starring Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson, came to Broadway through the Roundabout Theater Company; that production closed in 2004 and then returned in 2014 for another year, opening with Michelle Williams opposite Cumming.
This latest revival, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, opened in London in 2021, and won seven Olivier Awards, including one for best musical revival. It continues to run. Critic Matt Wolf, writing in The New York Times, called the production “nerve-wracking,” and said, “Frecknall pulls us into a hedonistic atmosphere, only to send us nearly three hours later reminding of the horrors of life.”
The leading producers are the Ambassador Theater Group, a British company that owns and operates theaters throughout Europe and the United States and has been more active in Broadway productions, and Underbelly, a British company closely associated with Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
“Cabaret” will join several Broadway shows this season that deal with antisemitism, among them “Just for Us,” a one-man show from comedian Alex Edelman, which is running now, as well “Harmony,” a musical by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman opening in the fall and “Prayer for the French Republic,” a play by Joshua Harmon, opening in the winter. Last season’s Tony-winning best play, “Leopoldstadt,” which closed earlier this month, and the Tony winner for best musical revival, “Parade,” which runs through Aug. 6, are also about antisemitism.
