A NOTE FROM THE CHAIR

Welcome to our final mainstage production of the 2022/2023 season!

We opened our season in September with a rollicking musical adventure on the high seas: The Old Man and The Old Moon. The journey continued in Studio 115 with Somewhere: A Primer for the End of Days, a timely fable about our impact on the environment and its impact on us. Our fall musical, In Pieces, explored the trials and triumphs of people seeking connection in modern-day New York. In February, The Sweet Science of Bruising told a tale of pugilism, politics, and personal identity in Victorian England. We returned to Studio 115 in March with a genre-defying, gender-inclusive production of Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Tonight we are thrilled to present one of musical theatre's most powerful and enduring works. Cabaret has been revived and adapted many times; in fact, it's one of the few musicals with multiple versions available for licensing. The version we're using is based on the last major revision, when Roundabout Theatre Company brought Sam Mendes' critically acclaimed 1993 London production across the pond in 1998. Mendes expanded and adapted his concept for the Broadway stage, modifying the song list and taking advantage of the new space: a theatre that previously had been operating as a nightclub since the late 1970s.

The resulting production was ferocious and immersive, meticulously recreating a Weimar-era cabaret. With performers often only inches away, audiences were stripped of the customary space separating them from the story. The immediacy of the staging was simultaneously thrilling and deeply uncomfortable, encouraging audiences to reflect on the distance between their circumstances and those depicted onstage. Then, as now, the distance may be far smaller than we care to admit.

Thank you once again for joining us. We are truly proud to present this remarkable season of plays and musicals, and we hope you share our enthusiasm. Next season promises even more excitement with the opening of the new Meldrum Theatre at the Einar Nielsen Fieldhouse!

Meanwhile, please visit us online at our website, theatre.utah.edu, or email us at info@theatre.utah.edu with any feedback or questions. We’ll see you at the theatre!

Sydney Cheek-O’Donnell, PhD Chair, Department of Theatre