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Jewish actors Bebe Neuwirth and Steven Skybell to join ‘Cabaret’ revival on Broadway
(New York Jewish Week) – The forthcoming Broadway revival of the iconic musical “Cabaret” has added two Jewish actors to its star-studded cast.
Steven Skybell will join the highly anticipated production as Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor who courts a younger German woman in 1929 and 1930. Bebe Neuwirth will play that character, boardinghouse owner Fräulein Schneider.
Skybell and Neuwirth, whose casting was announced on Thursday morning, will join previously announced cast members Eddie Redmayne, who will play the Master of Ceremonies, Gayle Rankin as Sally Bowles and Ato Blankson-Wood as Clifford Bradshaw. Previews for the revival, which is titled “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club,” are set to begin April 1, 2024, at the August Wilson Theater on West 52nd Street.
Both Skybell and Neuwirth are known for Jewish roles. Skybell may be best known for playing Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish” as well as Lazar Wolf in the 2016 Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Neuwirth, meanwhile, is famous for her role as Lilith Sternin, the highly educated, on-again, off-again romantic partner of Frasier Crane in the sitcoms “Cheers” and “Frasier.”
Skybell and Neuwirth last performed together in 2012 for an Off-Broadway production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“In these times of increased antisemitism, I am proud and privileged to play the Jewish role of ‘Herr Schultz’ in ‘Cabaret,’” Skybell, who stars in “Amid Falling Walls,” a musical from the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene that opens in New York on Nov. 20, told Deadline. “It’s important to tell stories like ‘Cabaret,’ which is, of course, massively entertaining, but also sheds a light on this moment in history, when fascism and intolerance nearly overcame the Jewish people and the world at large.”
The original production of “Cabaret,” about the hedonistic antics at a Berlin nightclub during the Nazis’ rise to power, opened in 1966 at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre, with music and lyrics created by Jewish duo John Kander and Fred Ebb. The show won eight Tony Awards in 1967, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Direction of a Musical and Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for Joel Grey, who originated the role of the Master of Ceremonies — decades later, Grey would direct Skybell in the Yiddish version of “Fiddler.”
The revival, “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club,” is based on a West End production which has been playing in London since 2021. The new production emphasizes a Jewish subplot — the love story between Herr Schultz in Fräulein Schneider — which was nominally present in many productions of the stage musical and entirely absent from the 1972 film. The London Jewish Chronicle called the relationship between the Jewish fruit seller and the non-Jewish boarding house owner “the emotional heart of the story, and its moral core” in a 2022 review of the show.
The 2024 Broadway production will be directed by Rebecca Frecknall, who also directed the West End version.
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The post Jewish actors Bebe Neuwirth and Steven Skybell to join ‘Cabaret’ revival on Broadway appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7
Michelle Shalmiev was born in a village in the Caucasian mountains and immigrated to Israel and settled on a kibbutz when she was 14. Her series “Putting Your Stamp on History” […]
The post Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News
Printable obituaries of eight Canadian victims and more of our original coverage.
The post Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen addressing supporters, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Reuters.
JNS.org – This Oct. 7 will not only be an anniversary of tears, of pure contrition, even if the memory is burning as the people of Israel live. As to how, it wasn’t at all obvious. Our whole history is made of miracles—from the splitting of the sea to escape from the Egyptians to the Inquisition to the pogroms to the thousand other genocidal attacks to which the Jews have been subjected. In every case, the results are always incredible and surprising, especially for how we have emerged active, faithful to our Torah tradition and committed to the return to Jerusalem until we made it happen.
The War of Independence in 1948 was fought by concentration-camp veterans, yet we defeated all the Arab armies, united in hatred, who marched against us. Later, in 1967, 1973 wars were won by a hair’s breadth with miraculous strokes of imagination and leaders who gave birth to ideas that people would have expected. No one would have ever bet a euro, penny or shekel on the idea that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his entire hierarchy could be eliminated, petrifying Iran, especially since we have already reduced its other favorite proxy, Hamas, to pieces. And now we have bombed Iran’s other proxy, the Houthis, some 2,000 kilometers away, destroying the airport from which they receive their weapons and aid from the ayatollahs. The Islamic Republic’s leader, Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding underground, the Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ites are waiting to see if they are next, and cities controlled by Tehran are shaking.
As President Joe Biden said, it is a measure of justice, but one that Israel has undertaken in an impossible fashion, defending its citizens amid a thousand prohibitions with determination and without fear. Only in this way can a 76-year-old young state, which has been attacked from all sides, defend itself. The country’s existence is the latest chapter in the history of a people born many millennia ago in the Land of Israel, who are finally back home and defending their state.
The war is certainly not over, as Hezbollah reportedly had 100,000 fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he must see this fight through to the end, despite the international pressure to which Israel has been subjected for nearly a year. Israel’s leadership understands that its very existence is at definitive risk if there is no “new Middle East” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
While previous generations and Israeli leaders hoped that peace agreements would establish peace in the region, today’s leaders know that there is also a need for battle to stop those who, dominated by absurd fanatical and religious beliefs, wish to kill you. (After all, what do the Houthi rebels in Yemen have to do with the Jews and Israel?)
This is the lesson of our time—not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for everyone. The Jewish people are writing a new page in history, one in which the free world must write and fight alongside them, as it is a battle for the survival of Western ideals. Israel has eliminated the two most dangerous terrorist groups in the world—Hamas and Hezbollah—with operations that will set a precedent for decades. And it challenges Iran. I would like to hear the applause, please.
The post The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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