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| The cast of Cabaret, this year’s joint musical show from students of Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School. Photo: John Charles Taylor (www.jctaylor.co.uk) |
Students from Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School are taking on the grim but compelling play Cabaret for their joint theatre production at Lancaster’s Grand Theatre later this month.
Cabaret is set in 1930s Berlin, as the Nazis rise to power, in the seedy Kit Kat Klub. The musical tells the story of the 19-year-old English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and her relationship with a young American writer and promises to be an extravagant evening’s entertainment, with some standout musical performances of many show-stopping hits, including the MC’s Willkommen, and Sally Bowles’ powerful solo Cabaret.
A sub-plot of the play 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 Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub which serves as a constant metaphor for the tenuous and threatening state of late Weimar Germany throughout the show.
Based on John Van Druten’s 1951 play I Am a Camera, which in turn was adapted from the novel Goodbye To Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, the 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions.
The annual Lancaster Royal Grammar School-Lancaster Girls Grammar School joint musical productions are always very popular and this year’s show promises to be no exception.
Cabaret takes place at the Grand Theatre Lancaster from Wednesday 16th to Saturday 19th March at 7pm.
• Tickets for Cabaret are available for £9 (concessions/children £6) from the Grand Theatre box office (01524 64695) and the school offices at LRGS (01524 580600) and LGGS (01524 32010).