Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY

By Anne Fulton, Theatre Instructor

This past winter, The Storm King School Department of Performing Arts presented Cabaret with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The show isn’t a staple of high school drama clubs: Cabaret takes place in Berlin during the fading of the German Weimar Republic (the liberal parliamentary representative democracy established in 1919) and the rise of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party.

When I decided to do the show during the politically charged summer of 2016, I knew that we would face some challenges to make it appropriate for our students. We chose to license the original 1967 version of Cabaret, since it’s more teen-friendly than more recent productions have been.

 

 

Jack Besterman ’18 played the Master of Ceremonies of the Kit Kat Klub, the seedy nightclub which serves as a metaphor for the ominous political developments in 1930’s Berlin. Amelia Douches ’20 was cast as Klub singer Sally Bowles, and Scott Rolon ’18 as Clifford Bradshaw, the American writer who falls in love with her.

 

 

Seniors Olivia deBree and Nicolas George played the middle-age couple, Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, whose relationship is torn apart by the persecution of the Jews in Germany. Stuart Hutzler ’19 portrayed Ernst, a character who is at first charming and endearing and later reveals himself to be a Nazi sympathizer, and Asia Raacke ’19 was Fräulein Kost, Fräulein Schneider’s boarder who is doing her “patriotic duty” by entertaining sailors at all hours of the night.

 

Several of the show’s musical numbers featured the Klub’s dancers, the Kit Kat Girls. The choreography by Jeanette Perk Jacobson and costumes by codirector Karen Eremin went a long way toward making the students comfortable with the material.

The show’s music director was A. Martin Smith, and the orchestra was on stage for the entire show, performing as the Kit Kat Klub band. Liz Connell designed the set and built it with assistance from several students who had taken her Stage Craft class in the fall. Professional sound design was provided by SKS parents Rose and Alan Douches of West West Side Music in New Windsor, NY.

 

While I’m always proud of our theatre program at SKS, this show illustrated the transformative power of theatre in the lives of our students, who handled the difficult subject matter beautifully and gave truly outstanding performances.
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