The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
New troupe offers ‘Cabaret’ at Lyric Hall
NEW HAVEN — There’s a new theater company in town, The Harpers, and its inaugural season began Friday with a production of “Cabaret.” The Kander and Ebb classic musical will continue for two more weekends through July 15 at Lyric Hall on Whalley Avenue.
The company, led by co-artistic directors Sam Plattus and Jay Eddy, put together a 2014 production of “Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy” at Lyric Hall.
Many recall the 1972 film “Cabaret,” when Joel Grey won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor over the “Godfather” trinity of James Caan, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino. The stage version of “Cabaret” is a 1966 musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and book by Joe Masteroff, based on a 1951 play called “I Am a Camera,” which was adapted from a short novel by Christopher Isherwood.
Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, the show focuses on the nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub, and revolves around young American writer Cliff Bradshaw and his relationship with cabaret performer Sally Bowles.
A Harpers’ release says viewers will “revel with Cliff and Sally in Weimar Berlin’s short-lived utopia of artistic and technological invention, democracy and sexual freedom, and witness the swift and terrifying rise of fascism that destroyed it.”
The show will run Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets are $30 and available at harperstheater.org/cabaret.
This production will feature new musical arrangements from The Harpers’ own award-winning writer/composer Eddy. Talia Masselli is stage manager and Lillian Prentice is designing the production.
The cast includes a mix of talent from New York City and Connecticut. Manhattan native Sammi Katz takes on the iconic
role of the Emcee; fellow New York actors and Harpers regulars Nate Houran and Elena Adcock star as Cliff and Fräulein Schneider, respectively; and New Haven favorite Raphael Massie (Elm Shakespeare) plays Herr Schultz. Local actors Brianna Bagley (Stafford Springs), Gabrielle Filloux (Oxford), Zachary Fontanez (Meriden), and Jeremy Funke (New Haven) round out the ensemble.
Eddy headlines The Kit Kat Klub as Sally Bowles, singing lead on such beloved songs as “Don’t Tell Mama,” “Perfectly Marvelous,” “Maybe This Time” and “Cabaret.”