Theatre Ensemble presents 'Cabaret'

The award-winning Albany High School Theatre Ensemble will present the Broadway hit Cabaret, with shows Thursday, March 12 through Sunday, March 15.

Performances will be at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, with a matinee at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for students and seniors.

Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis rise to power, Cabaret follows two relationships: one between an American writer and a British nightclub singer, the other between a German boardinghouse owner and her Jewish beau. At its core, the show addresses political fanaticism and the price of remaining silent while the government ignores the rights of citizens.

The Albany High production is co-directed by Ward Dales and Gregory Theodore Marsh.

“As we examined the rhetoric present in Cabaret, we recognized that many of the ideas present in a musical about pre-World War II Germany are still relevant to our current social climate,” Dales said.

The Theatre Ensemble’s production will look markedly different from the original, with a different time frame and physical environment, as well as a departure from traditional casting. 

“How does our audience experience the play’s message when it’s delivered by an emcee who that is not a white man, but a black woman? In such desperate and volatile times, we really need to re-examine all of our entrenched ideas before the tsunami of fascism sweeps away things we’ve taken for granted these many decades,” Marsh said.

The show will challenge audience members to consider their own complicity in creating the social environment in 2020.

Cast members include

• Emcee -- Danielle Williams
• Sally Bowles -- Esmerelda Jones 
• Cliff Bradshaw -- Emmanuel James
• Herr Schultz -- Malicke Ellis
• Fraulein Schneider -- Maura Mullholland
• Ernst Ludwig -- Matthew Keegan