New production explores menace of ‘Cabaret’ through lens of current events

LAWRENCE — When leaders of the University of Kansas Department of Theatre & Dance chose to stage the musical “Cabaret” this season, they had several goals in mind.

Set in decadent Berlin between the world wars, “Cabaret” follows the denizens of the Kit Kat Club and portrays the threat posed to them by Hitler’s rising Nazi Party. It runs April 20-30 at the Crafton-Preyer Theatre Stage Too! in Murphy Hall. Visit here for ticket information.

“We want the students in the cast to take heed of the dangers and not be complacent and know that our freedom, our democracy, is something that, as we have all learned recently, you have to fight for continually. Getting our students to come to the world of the story from that perspective is one of my goals for the production — for them to not take for granted what we have,” said Markus Potter, director and assistant professor.

“We think of this as a historical piece,” he said, “but when does history have a tendency to repeat itself? And what type of danger zone are we in right now? The Anti-Defamation League said that in the 40 years that it has been recording data about hate against Jewish people, it hit its peak in 2021.”

Potter said that because the KU theatre and dance units are in one department, leaders thought about how the production could lean into theatre and dance coming together.

In addition to Potter’s direction, the show will feature original choreography from Michelle Heffner Hayes, professor of dance. Hayes said it is the fourth musical theatre show she will have choreographed from scratch, and she has been dealing with the long shadow of the show’s 1966 Broadway choreographer, Bob Fosse.

“It's such an iconic work in the history of Broadway musicals,” she said. “So it's terrifying, and I didn't want just rip off his choreography, even though it is brilliant. I wanted to find something new in the old.”

Heffner Hayes said that going back to first principles has helped in this endeavor.

“I think, along with all the themes that Markus has been talking about — nationalism and anti-Semitism and the rise of this ultra-right — there's also an opportunity to look at the dance forms that emerged during that period, and those are coming from the Harlem Renaissance and the Cotton Club. It's a chance to work with the students and give them a sense of how this history influenced people in other cultures.”

“I got to study with the last generation of people who were learning or dancing in that era, and they've now passed,” Heffner Hayes said. Thus she is anxious to pass on some of that knowledge to a new generation of dancers.

“I'm very much a postmodern choreographer coming into a musical theatre environment,” Heffner Hayes said. “I look at one text, which is the original choreography, I explore the layers of historical context, including the contemporary moment, and then also account for the bodies in the room and their capabilities.”

Some of the production's standards will remain the same, though: “We will have a kick line. It’s in the script.”

Henry Bial, professor and chair of the theatre & dance department, plays Herr Schultz in this production of “Cabaret,” while Laura Kirk, associate teaching professor, portrays Fraulein Schneider.

“This story happens to be structured in a way where only these two characters are the elderly generation, and then everyone else can really be the younger generation, so it works perfectly,” Potter said. “You don’t have this weird visual dynamic of looking to gray hair on a younger actor.”

Dramaturg, associate director and doctoral student Jonah Greene is producing a seven-part podcast about the new production of “Cabaret.” Click here to listen.

Beyond the challenges of staging the show itself, Potter said he is anxious to “get our students to move away from apathy and lean into what power they have.”

“We can be apathetic, and I find myself asking, ‘What can I do? What power do I have in a situation like the Russian invasion of Ukraine?’ Do we sit back and do nothing? Or is there one action, is there one thing, is using your voice in one way beneficial to the betterment of our world?”

Image: Markus Potter (right) directs a rehearsal for "Cabaret." Associate Director Jonah Greene is seated at left. Credit: Rick Hellman, KU News Service.