The Olivier Award-winning revival of Cabaret is headed to Broadway.
A new production of the musical, which originated on the West End in November 2021, will play Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre in spring 2024.
Few other details have been announced, including the Broadway casting. Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley starred in the lead roles of the Emcee and Sally Bowles at the start of the run in London and both won Olivier Awards for their portrayals. Cabaret won the 2022 Olivier for best musical revival, with Rebecca Frecknall winning for best director.
The musical, which features a score by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Joe Masteroff, centers on a seedy night club in pre-World War II Berlin, overseen by the mysterious, all-knowing Emcee. American writer Cliff Bradshaw sweeps in, meets performer Sally and tries to create a stable, happy life, even as the threat of fascism is on the rise.
The musical originally opened on Broadway in 1966 and spawned a film adaptation, starring Joel Grey and Liza Minelli, as well as several other revivals. The 1998 and 2014 revivals both featured Alan Cumming as the Emcee, alongside a slate of starry Sallys, including Natasha Richardson, Michelle Williams, Sienna Miller and Emma Stone.
The London production is still running at the Playhouse Theatre with Maude Apatow as Sally and Mason Park as the Emcee and is booking tickets through June 2024. It features several pre-show elements, in which the audience is led through an operating Kit Kat Club and then to the lobby, where multiple platforms are filled with actors and dancers in character. The New York production will also feature a “prologue,” according to a spokesperson for the production, but the entertainment will be “bespoke to the August Wilson Theatre.” The production has not yet announced whether the theater will be remodeled for the show.
The revival, which was praised by critics and described by The New York Times as being pulled into a “hedonistic milieu, only to send us out nearly three hours later reminded of life’s horrors,” features club, set and costume design by Tom Scutt and choreography by Julia Cheng.
Ambassador Theatre Group Productions and Underbelly, Gavin Kalin Productions, Hunter Arnold, Smith & Brant Theatricals and Wessex Grove are producing the show on Broadway.
The revival of Funny Girl, starring Lea Michele, is currently running at the August Wilson Theatre. That run, which began in March 2022, is set to end on Sept. 3.
