Cabaret (Concord)

Don’t expect the glitz and glamor of Liza Minnelli, who performed in the 1972 movie version. This is the modern stage version of the 1987 revival musical. It’s got plenty of great dance routines and unforgettable musical numbers by composer John Kander and lyricist Fred. Ebb, but it also conveys the grit and grime of life in pre-WWII Berlin just prior to the rise of the Nazi regime.

The cast features 22 talented community theater actors from eastern Massachusetts. Jim Fitzpatrick of Attleboro plays The Emcee, a mysterious central character who leads the audience into the Kit Kat Klub and through the plot twists and turns. Kimberly McClure of Framingham plays the jaded but still hopeful nightclub performer Sally Bowles. Kevin Cirone of Watertown is her complicated love interest, writer Clifford Bradshaw. Concord’s own John Small plays Herr Schultz, the Jewish fruit dealer who woos landlady Fraulein Schneider (Vicki Mandell of Saugus.) Ebullient Ernst Ludwig (Bill Stambaugh of Holbrook) introduces Cliff to the murky underside of life in Berlin…