Many of the musical performances were presented as acts in the cabaret while still advancing the plot. Audiences entered to a spare open stage and faced themselves in a large warped mirror. When it premiered on Broadway there was no overture and no traditional curtain raising. This didn’t stop Prince from stretching the form. Their original concept was a drama bookended by music, but it soon evolved to a more traditional musical theatre form. Prince brought in previous collaborators playwright Joe Masteroff from She Loves Meand composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb from Flora the Red Menaceto work on his new project. The play was adapted to film in 1955 with Harris as Sally, Laurence Harvey as Isherwood, and Shelley Winters as Landauer.Ī musical adaption was originally developed by Sandy Wilson, the British composer of The Boyfriend, but his producer’s options on the source material lapsed and were acquired by Tony-winning producer-director Hal Prince, whose credits to that point included West Side Story(1957) and Fiddler on the Roof(1964).
The production also earned a Tony for Marian Winters as Natalia Landauer, a character from “The Landauers” in the original Isherwood novel, who would return many years later in the Cabaretstory. John Van Druten, author of I Remember Mama, adapted the first novel into the 1951 play I Am a Camerathat starred a twenty-five-year-old Julie Harris as Sally Bowles, in the first of her five Tony Award-winning roles, and William Prince as a character based on author Isherwood. The novel was also published as part of a collection published in 1945 as The Berlin Stories. The stories focused on Jews, gays, and others who would soon be oppressed by the rising Nazi regime.
The novel Goodbye to Berlinby British author Christopher Isherwood – actually a series of six short stories and novellas including one titled “Sally Bowles” – was first published in 1939. The arc of Cabaretas a force on the cultural landscape reaches back eight decades.
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