Macalester College Theatre and Dance and Music Departments Present “Cabaret” November 5-6 and November 11-13

St. Paul, Minn.—The exciting 1960s musical “Cabaret” will be performed Nov. 5–6 and Nov. 11–13 by Macalester College’s Theatre and Dance and Music Departments in the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, Main Stage Theater, 1600 Grand Ave., St. Paul, Minn. Tickets are $10 for general admission, $7 for seniors, and $5 for students. Performances are at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Nov. 5–6 and Thursday–Saturday, Nov. 11–13. “Cabaret”is directed by Macalester theatre professor Harry Waters, Jr. For ticket information, call 651-696-6359.

“Cabaret” is one of the most challenging musicals Macalester has ever presented. The story, adapted from John Van Druten’s play I Am a Camera and inspired by Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, has music by the well-known songwriting duo Kander and Ebb. The show invites us to look at pre-World War II Nazi Germany through the eyes of an American writer and a troubled showgirl named Sally Bowles, who performs at the seedy Kit Kat Club. This “cabaret” shows how, if we intentionally avoid paying attention to the outside world and are consumed by our material desires, we allow decadence to contain and control our options and political awareness of living and loving. The singing and dancing are diverting, entertaining, even embarrassing. However, the story gets under our skin and makes us aware.

Director Harry Waters Jr., who created the role of “Belize” in the world premiere production of Angels in America and portrayed the character “Marvin Berry” in the movie Back to the Future (1985), has acted in and directed numerous productions around the country. Locally he has appeared at the Guthrie Theater, Penumbra Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, Ten Thousand Things Theater, and Pangea World Theater. At Macalester, Waters teaches acting, directing, African American theater, and community-based theater, and has directed productions of Runaways, Proof, Angels in America Part I: Millennium Approaches, The Colored Museum, and Tartuffe.

Macalester College, founded in 1874, is a national liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,958 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its long-standing commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and civic engagement.