Broadway’s Cabaret Revival Will Close Earlier Than Expected; Billy Porter Out for Remainder With Illness

Broadway News

Broadway’s Cabaret Revival Will Close Earlier Than Expected; Billy Porter Out for Remainder With Illness

The immersive staging of the Kander and Ebb musical will end a month sooner than announced.

Broadway’s immersive revival of John Kander and Fred Ebb‘s Cabaret has moved up its final performance at the Kit Kat Club, née August Wilson Theatre, by about a month, to September 21. The revival had announced in June that it would close October 19. As of the final performance, the production will have played 18 previews and 592 regular performances.

The abrupt re-scheduled closing is a surprise finish for a staging that has been by all accounts a massive success in London’s West End, where it continues to run in its fourth year. The Broadway iteration has struggled to sell the amount of tickets needed to recoup the show’s large running costs, plus the reportedly high sum that went into transforming the Wilson into a seedy Weimar-era Berlin nightclub. The revival will not, however, be the shortest-running revival of Cabaret; both the 1987 (which re-mounted Hal Prince’s original staging) and 2014 (which re-mounted Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall’s 1998 version) revivals had briefer runs.

The production has also lost one of what was intended to be its final stars. Billy Porter, who brought his Emcee stateside beginning last month after playing the role in London, has withdrawn from the revival to recover from a case of sepsis. Producers share the Tony winner is expected to make a full recovery. Marty Lauter (aka Marcia Marcia Marcia of RuPaul’s Drag Race fame) and David Merino, both alternates in the role, will star for the musical’s final performances, alongside Marisha Wallace, who joined alongside Porter last month, also reprising her West End performance.

The revival also stars Calvin Leon Smith as Clifford Bradshaw, Steven Skybell as Herr Schultz, Ellen Harvey as Fraulein Schneider, Henry Gottfried as Ernst Ludwig, and Michelle Aravena as Fritzie/Kost.

“It is with a heavy heart that we have made the painful decision to end our Broadway run on September 21,” says producer Adam Speers in a statement. “On behalf of all the producers, we’re so honored to have been able to bring this version of John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff’s important masterpiece, Cabaret, to New York and to have opened the doors to our own Kit Kat Club for the year and a half we have been here.

“Billy was an extraordinary Emcee, bringing his signature passion and remarkable talent,” Speers continues. “We wish Billy a speedy recovery and I look forward to working with him again in the very near future. I personally invite audiences to return to the Kit Kat Club one last time to see the incandescent Marisha Wallace as Sally Bowles, alongside the remarkably talented Marty and David, two actors who have been giving soul-stirring performances as Emcee since we first opened last April.”

READ: In Cabaret, Set and Costume Designer Tom Scutt Wanted to Celebrate Queer Individuality

As in the production’s West End run, the theatre has been transformed into an in-the-round Kit Kat Club. Ticket holders receive a “club entry time” before their show date so that everyone’s able to take in the pre-show, which can even include a full dinner at some ticket levels. The prologue company, a group of 12 dancers and musicians, welcome theatregoers with a pre-show performance beginning approximately 75 minutes prior to curtain time.

Based on Christopher Isherwood‘s Goodbye to Berlin and John Van Druten‘s dramatization of it, I Am a Camera, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Cabaret is set in Weimar-era Berlin as American writer Clifford Bradshaw arrives to work on his novel and soak up the debaucherous nightlife. He meets English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and a complex relationship develops, all as the Nazis ascend to power and the spectre of World War II and all its horrors loom on the horizon.

The creative team also includes choreographer Julia Cheng; club, set, and costume designer Tom Scutt; lighting designer Isabella Byrd; sound designer Nick Lidster (for Autograph); and music supervisor and director Jennifer Whyte. Hair and wig design are by Sam Cox, and Guy Common is handling makeup design. Prologue composition and music direction are by Angus MacRae, with Jordan Fein serving as prologue director. Casting is by Bernard Telsey and Kristian Charbonier, and Thomas Recktenwald serves as production stage manager.