Broadway in Amherst: Mullins Cabaret

Kit Kat Klub musical numbers sure to please On May 9, at 2 p.m., the Mullins Center will play host to "Broadway in Amherst: Cabaret." "Wilkommen!, Bienvenue!, Welcome!," sings the Emcee of the Kit Kat Club through painted lips, as the people of 1929 Berlin join him. Whatever your troubles, you will forget them at the Cabaret. Sally Bowles, a middle-class lass from Chelsea, London, is working as a singer at Berlin's Kit Kat Club. She's also trying her best to live the thrillingly decadent life which the city is supposed to offer. Into her orbit comes Cliff Bradshaw, a young American writer, and Sally soon moves in to join him in his room in the boarding house run by Fraulein Schneider. Their fellow lodgers include the cheerful whore, Fraulein Kost, and the gentle, graying fruiterer, Herr Schultz. As the clouds gather, Sally, now pregnant by Cliff, is still determined to show the world what a good time she is having and she will not or cannot hear the noises of Nazism around her. But the others can. Cabaret is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions. It is 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. Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it focuses on nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around the 19-year-old English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and her relationship with young American writer Cliff Bradshaw. A sub-plot involves the doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fr ulein 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. Tickets are on sale now at the following price points: $40, $50, $55. There is a $5 discount for children, seniors, and UMass faculty, staff and students. For more information about "Broadway in Amherst - Cabaret" including the seating chart, please visit their Web site at www.mullinscenter.com. Doors open at 1 p.m. for the afternoon show.