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[0:14] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, I'm Robert W. Schneider, and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals: The Podcast, a companion piece to the Routledge Press publication Fifty Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's show description.

[0:30] Robert W. Schneider: Today's episode focuses on chapter 20, Cabaret. And with us today is the author of that chapter, Bruce Kimmel.

[0:37] Robert W. Schneider: Bruce is a legendary Grammy-nominated producer of theatre music on CD, having produced over 180 albums, including Broadway and Off-Broadway cast albums, singers, and concept recordings. He is also an award-winning songwriter and the author of 21 books. He wrote, directed, and starred in the cult movie hit, The First Nudie Musical, and co-created the story for the hit film The Faculty, directed by Robert Rodriguez. As an actor, Mr. Kimmel guest-starred on most of the long-running television shows of the 1970s. So please make sure you keep an eye out for Bruce the next time you're looking at TV land. Bruce, we are so honored that you're with us today.

[1:14] Bruce Kimmel: Well, good. I'm honored to be here.

[1:16] Robert W. Schneider: So, Bruce, my first question for you is what makes Cabaret a key musical?

[1:24] Bruce Kimmel: It just pushed so many envelopes that hadn't been really pushed in quite the same way. I mean, it was groundbreaking. I had never seen anything like it. I saw the national tour of it. I can't remember if it was '67 or '68 here at the Amundsen. I think it was the third show that ever played the Amundsen. And it was just, you can't, I can't even explain it to people, you know. And there, and most people only know the Sam Mendes revival, which is a very, very different show and which takes a sledgehammer approach to what was controversial in 1966.

[2:09] Robert W. Schneider: So let's go back to when you saw this on tour for the first time. Can you talk a little bit about the other types of musicals you might have been seeing during this era and what made, is it, what'd you say?

[2:21] Bruce Kimmel: Little Abner?

[2:23] Robert W. Schneider: Little Abner.

[2:23] Bruce Kimmel: I was gonna say, you were very close. So going from Little Abner to Cabaret, what exactly was it? Was it the staging? Was it the music? Was it the performances? What exactly felt revolutionary to you?

[2:37] Bruce Kimmel: It was really everything about it. I had never quite heard a score like that. You know, and of course I didn't know Kurt Weill at the time, but I had never heard a score like that, you know, with incredible impact in the dramatic numbers and stuff like "So What" and "What Would You Do" and all those incredible songs. But it was the staging, it was Hal Prince's, you know, so unique, you know, with people lurking on staircases watching the dramatic scenes. I had never seen—very Brechtian, but I didn't know from Brecht at the time. But it was just the, I guess it was the amalgamation of things maybe that had been done in the past, but not together. And so it was the staging and it was the way the Emcee was used and the way those Emcee's numbers were used to comment on things.

And you know, it's been so copied ever since that nobody thinks it's that original, but boy, there had never been a show like it that I had seen. I mean, I had come from the world of seeing a lot of shows in LA, but The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Stop the World I Wanna Get Off, and you know, High Spirits and the God, you know, whatever they are, South Pacific. And, you know, while those—South Pacific, of course, pushed a lot of buttons and envelopes, this one was, I—it was just incredible. I can't tell you.

[4:15] Robert W. Schneider: After you saw it, did you think to yourself this is the way musical theater is going to go from this point out? Or did you just think of it as a very special anomaly to the rest of the musicals you were seeing and that musical theater was going to continue on in the same traditional fashion?

[4:32] Bruce Kimmel: I did think it was a game changer, if that's what you're asking. I did, because once you have something like that and it's a smash hit like it was, there's no going back. And it did take a few years, I would say, from Cabaret to Company, which is I think the next one of its ilk. But I knew it was going that way, and it continued to go that way, and it was all because of Hal Prince, I think. I mean, he was the man. And I saw Zorba on Broadway, which Hal directed with all the same kinds of devices, but it wasn't the same kind of show, so it didn't quite work.

[5:12] Robert W. Schneider: So, no, no, that's a tough one. That's Orbit's a tough one. So for our listeners who might not be that familiar, can you tell us a little bit about who was Hal Prince and who was he right at the moment of Cabaret?

[5:28] Bruce Kimmel: He was ready for Cabaret. I'll tell you, he started as a producer, as you know it, with The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, I think, and a lot of '50s shows—West Side Story, of course. And so he was a very savvy young guy. I mean, he was a punk, you know, he was 22 or something. And I think in the musical Say Darling, Robert Morse basically played him as a cocky young theater producer, but boy, did he learn and know his stuff. I can't remember if he was a stage manager as well back in the past.

[6:03] Bruce Kimmel: He was, yeah. And then in the '60s, I guess it was, he took over. People think—I can't remember what people think his first directorial show was, but it was A Family Affair, which Lore Lore or Lori, I can't remember, figure out his name, Noto was the director, the guy who did The Fantasticks, was the director, and out of town they replaced him with Hal Prince. But that was a very traditional Jewish theater ladies, you know, matinee crowd musical that didn't do well. And then after that, what was it? Was it—I'm trying to remember what was after that? Was it She Loves Me?

[6:47] Robert W. Schneider: Did he go to the show?

[6:48] Bruce Kimmel: Yeah, She Loves Me comes in, and then Baker Street, I think also comes in. Superman, and all you can see him, even when She Loves Me, starting to conceptualize the looks of the shows and the feels of the shows, even though those shows were very, very different. But if you look at Superman, for example, it's very—it's concept-oriented, which is really interesting.

[7:20] Robert W. Schneider: Bruce, if you can for our listeners who might not be familiar with the word concept, which I know is a word that I think Hal Prince was not a huge fan of, but it is what it is. What exactly does that mean to have a concept as a director?

[7:34] Bruce Kimmel: Don't all directors have concepts in some? It's like if I'm asked in advance of directing a show what my concept is, which I am frequently asked, like that's a thing that's going to get me the job. My standard answer is always to do a good production is my concept. But concept means that you have in mind, I think, a very specific look, a very specific feel, a very specific pace and flow. And so where all of the design elements work in tandem with each other. That's what I think a concept musical is, I guess. I don't know.

[8:18] Robert W. Schneider: And for something like Superman, what exactly was that concept?

[8:26] Bruce Kimmel: I think to do a comic book on stage. To do a live-action comic book, yeah, because that's—if you look at one of the numbers, I can't remember if it's the title song or what, but the whole set comes in made up of panels, comic book panels with people in the panels. And of course, one of the titles of the songs is "Pow Bam Zonk."

[8:49] Robert W. Schneider: Oh great, okay.

[8:50] Bruce Kimmel: So it's very much a literal comic book with characters, and well, which comic books have, and on stage, and the whole, it was fantastic. So here's this individual who's known really at this point, if he is directing, for directing pretty, I don't want to say stereotypical, but pretty traditional musical comedies at the time. What do you think, or maybe you know, what prompted him to go into Germany in the late 1920s, early 1930s with Cabaret?

[9:23] Bruce Kimmel: I don't know if he initiated the project or if the writers initiated it, but I know he was a fan of that type of theater of and Germany in those years, and so I think he was looking for something with meat on the bones, you know, he had done very kind of, I guess you would say frothy things, A Family Affair and She Loves Me and all that stuff, but I think he was looking for something that would put him in the big leagues because he hadn't had a real hit as a director. So I think that he glommed onto this, whether it was his notion or their notion, but I think it evolved during the rehearsal process into what it is. I don't think it began quite in that way, so it seems like it was a pretty traditional linear musical in the rehearsal process.

[10:38] Robert W. Schneider: And then he interrupted that. Can you explain a little bit about what were some of the techniques he was using in terms of story structure or in terms of song placement that felt revolutionary at the time? I know you've talked a little bit about the staging, but I'm wondering if we could look at the text and the score for a little bit.

[10:56] Bruce Kimmel: I think the big breakthrough for him and everybody was the Emcee. Because the Emcee was not used in the way he is now in the final product. So I can't remember exactly what that deal was, but Joel Grey has talked about it a lot, how he was basically just sitting around and not doing all that much, but the only number. But at some point it occurred to them that he was this thing that could comment on everything, and then they began restructuring everything, I think.

[11:31] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, as if I remember correctly from Jill, I think it was Joel Grey's autobiography, but you're right, which is it seemed like the Emcee was only in a compartmentalized 20-minute or 10-minute segment that was like a montage of what was going on in Berlin at the time, and then you never saw him again.

[11:49] Robert W. Schneider: Can you remember as an—when you saw the show in LA, had you listened to the recording prior to going to see the show? Or did you go into the show totally fresh?

[12:00] Bruce Kimmel: No, I had heard the recording about 100 times.

[12:04] Robert W. Schneider: Okay, I love that. I love that.

[12:06] Bruce Kimmel: And I had also seen the, you know, Wilcom and on the Tonys, that first Tony Awards.

[12:11] Robert W. Schneider: So I was ready for that, you know, because I thought when I saw that on the Tony, I thought that was the most genius number ever in the history of musicals, and it remains a genius number.

[12:23] Robert W. Schneider: How, I mean, you've seen so many musicals, but what to you makes that so iconic? Why is that opening so memorable?

[12:31] Bruce Kimmel: Because he just, it's just, it was shocking. I don't know. It just, he—the way he comes out and he's nasty and he's, you know, kind of very raunchy with the girls, and we had never seen that before. And just the whole way it played out with the mirror, you know, they had that huge mirror on stage, which reflected the audience and the stage, and the lighting and Ron Field's brilliant choreography of it, and it just felt so fresh. And if you look at the other nominees that year and the little excerpts that we saw, it was Walking Happy, I think, or I Do My I Know it was I Do, I Do, you know, and we're so we're seeing all this, you know, kind of Rodgers and Hammerstein-y stuff or Comden and Green-y stuff, and then this.

And it's just, you know, the drum roll to the sign lighting up and Joel Grey coming out in black, you know, in dark total out of total darkness. Just it was, it was—I can't, you know, you try to tell people what it was like, and they go, "Oh, but I love the Sam Mendes production," you know, they don't want to even hear about it. And I'm sorry, if you were in 1966 and saw this number on the Tonys, you knew you were seeing something that you'd never seen before.

[13:59] Bruce Kimmel: And Cabaret is one of those shows from the 1960s that still gets revived with quite a lot of frequency.

[14:08] Bruce Kimmel: Um, I know there's a, as we're speaking right now in 2022, I know there's a production playing in London.

[14:13] Bruce Kimmel: Um, big stars in that.

[14:17] Bruce Kimmel: Um, so my question for you is what is it about Cabaret that's still revivable where many other shows from that era, like the ones you mentioned, Walking Happy, I Do! I Do!, and I think The Apple Tree was the third one or the fourth one in that list, we don't see those so much anymore.

[14:34] Bruce Kimmel: Why does Cabaret stand above the rest?

[14:38] Bruce Kimmel: Because it's really about issues that don't date.

[14:43] Bruce Kimmel: Like such as Nazism and dictatorship and people doing ill to people, we're living it, certainly right now.

[14:54] Bruce Kimmel: And so I don't think it ever dates.

[14:56] Bruce Kimmel: I think it's of a time in history that we've come, I'm not gonna get political, but that we've come too close to repeating with January 6th and the former president, and you know, it's a crazy and now the war in Ukraine, it's, oh, I'm told it's Ukraine now.

[15:20] Bruce Kimmel: I have to relearn everything.

[15:22] Bruce Kimmel: Um, so I don't think this, I think everybody identifies with the subject matter.

[15:29] Bruce Kimmel: So unfortunately, this is going to be a show that will be with us for many forever and ever and ever.

[15:34] Bruce Kimmel: And I don't necessarily agree, I have to tell you.

[15:37] Bruce Kimmel: Uh, I guess I'm one of a voice in the wilderness about the Sam Mendes take on it, because I just, I don't like to be hammered over the head.

[15:49] Robert W. Schneider: So actually, you're not the only person that said that.

[15:51] Robert W. Schneider: So let's discuss this a little bit if we can, which is, um, for our listeners, there was the original 1966 production, and then in '97, '98, I believe, there was a revival by Sam Mendes, who now is a pretty big film director.

[16:07] Robert W. Schneider: Um, and this revival starred Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson.

[16:12] Robert W. Schneider: Can you tell us a little bit about what made that version different from the original version?

[16:18] Bruce Kimmel: It's totally different.

[16:20] Bruce Kimmel: Everything about it is, they take literally a sledgehammer to everything.

[16:24] Bruce Kimmel: So what was a little raunchy or shockingly raunchy in 1966 is made so blatant in, you know, and the girls with their hairy armpits, which was a contractual thing they had to do, and the drug, you know, marks on Sally Bowles.

[16:41] Bruce Kimmel: I mean, I don't, and the ending, which everybody loved with the concentration camp, which I thought, you know, I get it, I get it.

[16:49] Bruce Kimmel: I really get it without all this.

[16:51] Bruce Kimmel: And they cut a couple of my favorite songs in the show.

[16:54] Robert W. Schneider: So what do you think is lost by underlining the ideas in it so much?

[16:54] Bruce Kimmel: Everything is, is it the element of surprise?

[17:05] Bruce Kimmel: Is the element of drama?

[17:07] Bruce Kimmel: Is it, or it's just your whole interest in the show?

[17:10] Bruce Kimmel: Subtlety, you know, the first one again, there is, as controversial as it was back then, the way it approached everything was, it didn't hit you over the head with it.

[17:22] Bruce Kimmel: And there were certain things they couldn't do, they couldn't do, uh, she wouldn't look Jewish at all back then.

[17:28] Bruce Kimmel: They had to say she was an Amish guide at all.

[17:31] Bruce Kimmel: But, uh, you know, I love the characters, I guess, in the original.

[17:38] Bruce Kimmel: I loved, you know, they were compelling.

[17:42] Bruce Kimmel: And, uh, in the, uh, in the new one, I just, I didn't get with it.

[17:46] Bruce Kimmel: I just, I saw it three times because I kept knowing people who were Sally Bowles and they kept saying I have to come.

[17:53] Bruce Kimmel: Um, so I just, you know, this, it's personal for me, you know.

[17:58] Bruce Kimmel: It's, I, everybody loves this, that revival.

[18:02] Bruce Kimmel: Uh, and I tell you, Hal Prince revived it in the late '80s, as I recall, and that wasn't very good.

[18:09] Bruce Kimmel: And I can't tell you if it had just, I don't know, if enough time hadn't gone by, you know, it was 20 some years later, uh, or if it just seemed, uh, not fresh enough.

[18:22] Bruce Kimmel: And they again replaced one of my favorite songs of the show with a new song, uh, which is Why Should I Wake Up became Don't Go, and I'm like, oh please, you know, Why Should I Wake Up to me is a brilliant great song.

[18:36] Robert W. Schneider: Bruce, have you seen a production of it since that one in Los Angeles that had us excited you?

[18:42] Bruce Kimmel: No.

[18:44] Bruce Kimmel: No.

[18:44] Bruce Kimmel: And that includes the revival because the revival, Hal Prince's revival became all about Joel Grey.

[18:52] Bruce Kimmel: It really became all who was in it, you know, reprising his role.

[18:56] Bruce Kimmel: So of course, you know, he's above the title now instead of one of many in the lower part of the poster.

[19:04] Bruce Kimmel: But, um, uh, and the Mendes revival, I, I, you know, listen, I can appreciate interesting takes on things and interesting direction.

[19:14] Bruce Kimmel: It was interesting.

[19:15] Bruce Kimmel: I thought it was interesting, but it never ever grabbed me the way the original did, you know.

[19:21] Bruce Kimmel: You know, I mean, in the original, the Fraulein Schneider and Schultz relationship was so moving, even here with Signy or whatever her name is, Hasso and Leo Futz.

[19:36] Bruce Kimmel: But I saw it on Broadway, I got to see it with La Dena, and when I went to New York, and that was extraordinary because there will never be a Fraulein Schneider like La Dena.

[19:48] Bruce Kimmel: And when you talk, or you talked a little bit earlier about a conceptual direction in which every single element furthers the director's point of view, let's talk a little bit about the casting of La Dena in the original production.

[20:00] Robert W. Schneider: So for our listeners, who was she and what significance did she bring to the original production of Cabaret?

[20:07] Bruce Kimmel: First of all, it was the genius casting of all time.

[20:10] Bruce Kimmel: She was married to Bertolt Brecht.

[20:13] Bruce Kimmel: I mean, Kurt Weill, excuse me.

[20:16] Bruce Kimmel: She was Kurt Weill's wife, and she was part of that whole period when they wrote Three Penny Opera and she was in it, and, uh, so she came out of Weimar Germany.

[20:30] Bruce Kimmel: And so the thought of having that authentic a person singing those songs and playing that role, they couldn't have done any better.

[20:41] Bruce Kimmel: I mean, it was just, and with her, as good as the people in LA were, this is just nothing like seeing her, and she was a brilliant actress.

[20:50] Bruce Kimmel: I don't know if you've seen her in her few films that she made, but in Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, I mean, just incredible performance, and of course, Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love.

[21:03] Bruce Kimmel: Uh, she, and it was when she sang What Would You Do?

[21:09] Bruce Kimmel: It was like, you know, I live this.

[21:11] Bruce Kimmel: It's like she was saying, I live this.

[21:14] Bruce Kimmel: Been there.

[21:16] Robert W. Schneider: And I'm assuming you've not seen a performer since who's been able to evoke that because that history is something that just comes with that particular, you know, it's really sort of ingrained in you, isn't it?

[21:29] Bruce Kimmel: And, uh, I've seen really good people do it.

[21:33] Bruce Kimmel: I mean, really good people.

[21:35] Bruce Kimmel: Uh, Regina Resnick was good when she did it.

[21:38] Bruce Kimmel: And, uh, who did I see?

[21:40] Bruce Kimmel: I can't remember who I saw in Sam Mendes because those characters didn't stand out to me in the Sam Mendes, you know, thing.

[21:47] Bruce Kimmel: They were there.

[21:48] Bruce Kimmel: I think it was Danny Burstein, and I can't remember who else.

[21:52] Bruce Kimmel: I think, uh, oh, in the most recent one, yeah, it was, it was Danny Burstein, yeah.

[21:57] Bruce Kimmel: Uh, but I just, uh, no cast I can't remember, and I'm trying to remember who else I saw it with in New York because it was later, uh, in '69.

[22:06] Bruce Kimmel: But I think Anita Gillette was Sally and wonderful, and Martin Ross was the MC.

[22:13] Bruce Kimmel: He had replaced Joel, and he was great.

[22:16] Bruce Kimmel: But the MC we had in Los Angeles, I have never seen a better MC than that, including Joel Grey.

[22:22] Robert W. Schneider: Do you remember that person's name?

[22:24] Bruce Kimmel: Robert Salvio.

[22:25] Bruce Kimmel: Robert Salvio, yeah, and he's, he only did a couple of things and died very young.

[22:31] Bruce Kimmel: Uh, but he did Billy Bud, the musical Billy on Broadway in '69.

[22:36] Bruce Kimmel: Oh, Billy Bud.

[22:38] Bruce Kimmel: And he went his own way with it.

[22:43] Bruce Kimmel: And he was incredible.

[22:46] Bruce Kimmel: I can't say enough about him, but I think it was George Voskovet was, uh, Jack in Jack Guilford's role when I saw it, and Gene Rupert, I think, was, uh, Cliff.

[22:58] Bruce Kimmel: What was it?

[22:59] Bruce Kimmel: But it was really good.

[23:00] Bruce Kimmel: It was in good sh, you know.

[23:01] Bruce Kimmel: I think Hal goes back a lot.

[23:05] Bruce Kimmel: Yes.

[23:05] Bruce Kimmel: To his shows and make sure they're on their toes.

[23:09] Bruce Kimmel: Love that.

[23:10] Bruce Kimmel: You know, uh, another person I think is so integral to the success of Cabaret originally is the great set designer Boris Aronson.

[23:18] Robert W. Schneider: Can you talk a little bit about either him or his relationship with Hal Prince or the visual world that he created for Cabaret?

[23:25] Bruce Kimmel: He was a genius also.

[23:27] Bruce Kimmel: I keep using that word, but everybody, uh, associated with that production was at the top of their game.

[23:34] Bruce Kimmel: And Boris, I guess they had done Fiddler together.

[23:38] Bruce Kimmel: You know, Hal produced that.

[23:39] Bruce Kimmel: Um, right, didn't Boris Aronson do Fiddler?

[23:42] Robert W. Schneider: I'm sure he did.

[23:42] Bruce Kimmel: Yes, he did.

[23:43] Bruce Kimmel: And he beautiful set and clever, very clever set.

[23:47] Bruce Kimmel: And the cabaret set, for me, I had never, I guess, seen anything that came out of nothing, out of a void.

[24:01] Bruce Kimmel: You know, whereas the only thing on stage at the top of that show is that mirror, the hanging mirror.

[24:07] Bruce Kimmel: Everything comes out of the void, everything disappears into the void at the end, and you're left with black.

[24:13] Bruce Kimmel: And so I'd never seen anything like that.

[24:16] Bruce Kimmel: And then his, the, he had circular staircases on the sides where the cast would watch scenes and just the fluidity of the train coming, you know, coming forward and going back, everything about it was incredible.

[24:32] Bruce Kimmel: And of course, he designed my favorite show of all time, which was Follies, and, uh, he, and, and then Company.

[24:39] Bruce Kimmel: I mean, just was there, uh, he was an incredible designer.

[24:43] Robert W. Schneider: And for our listeners, and I think it can't be stated enough, and you had mentioned it early, and I just want to come back to it, which is, you know, this idea of having actors staying on stage and observing scenes feels so commonplace now.

[24:58] Bruce Kimmel: That's right.

[24:58] Bruce Kimmel: But back then, this had not been done before.

[25:03] Robert W. Schneider: Ever.

[25:04] Bruce Kimmel: Why do you think, uh, it was so successful?

[25:07] Bruce Kimmel: Why don't you think audiences turned and said, What the hell is this?

[25:10] Bruce Kimmel: Oh well, we've never seen this before.

[25:12] Bruce Kimmel: Because the, the, uh, that original production had enough in it that appealed to general audiences who could de, and it was subtle, it wasn't never a hitting over the head thing.

[25:27] Bruce Kimmel: So you got these, uh, and I don't know that they always knew what they were seeing, uh, audiences, you know.

[25:33] Bruce Kimmel: They just thought, oh, it's a big splashy number about money, or it's a big gorilla in a suit.

[25:39] Bruce Kimmel: You know, that's one of the most shocking moments in all theater, you know, is when he says it wasn't a me skite at all, or doesn't look Jewish at all.

[25:47] Bruce Kimmel: And, um, but I just think it was so entertaining at every turn, which is why I like the songs that they cut, you know, it's, that's why I love Me Skite.

[25:59] Bruce Kimmel: I mean, that character has to have that song, which is the Herr Schultz character, yeah, yeah.

[26:06] Bruce Kimmel: What does he have?

[26:07] Bruce Kimmel: Otherwise, he comes and gives her a pineapple, and, uh, enough moments like pineapple, do you know what I mean?

[26:14] Bruce Kimmel: And, uh, the, and again, a great cast, uh, doing it, and, and songs you could really were that were memorable.

[26:22] Bruce Kimmel: So I think it was, they accepted it.

[26:25] Bruce Kimmel: Now this show has, it's so interesting because you've talked about the original production and we've hit upon the revival, but in between is the movie version directed by Bob Fosse, and I think it won, what was it?

[26:25] Bruce Kimmel: Every Oscar it was nominated for except Best Picture.

[26:43] Bruce Kimmel: Is that, is that, it's a close, close and it lost to The Godfather, I believe.

[26:48] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, um, Godfather II, or was it Godfather I?

[26:52] Bruce Kimmel: Godfather I, I believe.

[26:53] Bruce Kimmel: I believe it was Godfather I.

[26:54] Bruce Kimmel: Um, what was your impression when you saw the movie for the first time, having loved the stage show as much?

[27:01] Bruce Kimmel: Well, I'll tell you a funny story.

[27:04] Bruce Kimmel: We love, I got to go to a sneak preview at the Village Theater in Westwood because I knew somebody who worked, was an executive at Man Theaters who was working with me at the time on a show.

[27:16] Bruce Kimmel: So I used to go to all of the big sneak previews.

[27:19] Bruce Kimmel: And I was a preview nut anyway.

[27:21] Bruce Kimmel: I used to go to, and in a day when nobody knew what the preview was.

[27:24] Bruce Kimmel: It wasn't a focus preview, it wasn't all that bullshit.

[27:28] Bruce Kimmel: It was just they saw it with an audience preview.

[27:31] Bruce Kimmel: So I am one of the only people, maybe the one of that thousand people that were in that theater that night who saw it in stereo because it was separate sound and picture.

[27:46] Bruce Kimmel: And the line, can I say the F word on your show?

[27:49] Bruce Kimmel: Absolutely.

[27:50] Bruce Kimmel: The, uh, the line in the movie was originally fuck Brian or whatever his name is in the movie, and they had to change it to get their R rating to, and it's looped, and you can see her mouth say fuck, and she says, Screw.

[28:05] Bruce Kimmel: I love that.

[28:06] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, I did not know that, so we love that.

[28:09] Bruce Kimmel: So we saw the unexpurgated version. Um, and I have to say, I really loved it. I really loved it.

[28:20] Robert W. Schneider: And then later I said, but where are all my favorite songs?

[28:27] Bruce Kimmel: I was going to ask. I know you're because most of your favorite songs went away.

[28:31] Robert W. Schneider: They all went away.

[28:32] Bruce Kimmel: And that was his choice. And I think if he had directed the stage show, that's exactly what he would have told them to do. And I think that is what he told them to do, out of town when they were still struggling. Which was to cut that subplot or to cut every all the numbers that weren't cabaret numbers.

[28:55] Robert W. Schneider: Ah, interesting.

[28:57] Bruce Kimmel: And so, which is what he ended up doing. And I didn't think his, you know, I love Bob Fosse or as Ed Sullivan calls him Bob Fosse. I love his work, I love him. Um, but I did not think his choreography was anywhere near Ron Field's, which I thought was brilliant, as I'd said. Um, but I really that night, I mean, the audience was riveted, you know, huge applause at the end of it. And Liza, you know, when else are you gonna get that one of a kind, you know? I mean, that was her year and his year, as you know, it was his EGOT year, and um, you know, it was just everything was kind of perfect, and the casting was perfect, and thank God he kept Joel Grey, and uh it was but it was its own thing. You can't say it was a movie version of the stage musical.

[29:55] Robert W. Schneider: Do you think that the darkness of the movie and the changes that the movie made then sort of conditioned audiences in the 90s to that they needed a production of Cabaret that was as dark as the one Sam Mendes was doing because their familiarity with it was more of the movie than it was the actual '66 musical?

[30:15] Bruce Kimmel: Probably. I would think so, because you know, who remembered the '66 production, you know, by the time of the movie they remembered it, but you know, later, 20 years later, is Sam Mendes going to be watching the original stage production or is he gonna be watching the Bob Fosse movie?

[30:32] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah.

[30:32] Bruce Kimmel: And so that movie was incredibly influential in many ways on the film musical of the '90s, interestingly, starting with Chicago, which is a port, shall we say, a directorial tribute of Bob Fosse? I mean, if you look at the opening of All That Jazz, it's all the shots of the people in the audience with the cigarettes, and it's just you know, you go, okay, thank you. We've seen this before.

[31:00] Robert W. Schneider: I have seen it, Rob.

[31:05] Bruce Kimmel: So I think that movie was very influential on the famous revival in the '90s. So this is a show now that people are so familiar with. How do, because you direct as well? How do you take a show like this where it once was so shocking and once was so surprising, and get that back into an audience and get this back into this story? Is it possible?

[31:36] Bruce Kimmel: If they, first of all, I have always said I would never direct a show that I felt was perfectly directed in the first place, because what could I bring to it? You know, I would only direct a show and have directed many shows where I feel I can bring something that's interesting in a different way to it. Not subversion, I'm always very about the text and very about doing it the way it was written. You know, but I just speaking of Little Abner, I did a production of Little Abner that fixed all of the issues people have it without changing anything. Uh, other than cutting one number. But um, and it went over like gangbusters because I knew understood the material. I understood the jokes.

[32:24] Robert W. Schneider: And do you think the problem with people taking on Cabaret today is that they just don't understand the material?

[32:32] Bruce Kimmel: No, I think they understand it in the way Sam Mendes did it. I think he is the template now. So if you see a college production or if you see a community theater production or even a small, they all emulate that. They all just take it, they do it. You can see it on YouTube. There's a thousand videos of the opening number exactly that way. Now I gather in this new production with Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley that it is different. I don't know how different or what the difference is. But if I were to do Cabaret and I didn't want to copy Hal Prince, but I would take it back to its roots. I would put the only, I would do only the songs that were, I would not do Maybe This Time, I would not do Money Money, I would not do I Don't Care Much. You know, I would do it the original way the creators wanted the show. That's to me how you do theater.

[33:35] Bruce Kimmel: Somebody said, I'm about to do a big production, or a product, not big production, but a production of Applause. And I'm doing it because people said to me, you can't do Applause. It's so dated. And nobody'll want it. And I'm going, then I'm doing it because I don't believe you. And I read it, I liked it. And uh, you know, and it won the Tony for Best Musical, so it has something going for it. And it's Condon and Green and Strauss and Adams and what's not to like. So, but I trust the material. I'm not changing the material. I'm not, they tried to do it at Goodspeed Opera House, I guess, and change everything. Yeah, and the authors tried to change everything. Common agree, they put the title song at the top of the show.

Terribly stupid idea. And uh so, but I trust shows. If you look at any show that I didn't write that I directed, I try, and I'm sure you're the same way with what you're doing now. You gotta trust the material, you gotta love the material. You gotta, I mean, I don't think you're wholesale rewriting what you're doing, are you?

[34:48] Robert W. Schneider: No, not at all. My friend Jim Jimiro.

[34:51] Bruce Kimmel: No, Jim, no, no, no, not at all. That's very important for us, is to present the show as written. Um, there is no need for us to make changes.

[35:03] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, and that's the way I feel these things should be. But everybody's better than you know, it's people get mad at me because they didn't love the new West Side Story movie. But sorry, I don't, because I don't think the changes they made were necessary. I find them, they also, oh, but backstories. I said, who gives a crap about Chino's backstory? I don't care. I don't care that Bernardo is a boxer. And I said the change with Tony is disastrous in my opinion. Because you make him an ex-con who almost killed somebody, then where is the surprise in the rumble? Which is one of the great shocker moments of the original movie, is when Tony gets so emotional about Riff being stabbed that he can't think anymore. And this heretofore unviolent guy picks up that knife and stabs Bernardo. The gasp in the movie theaters was amazing.

[36:09] Bruce Kimmel: And uh so I don't like these changes. I don't like people who change. I get it, you know, I understand they want to make it woke or they want to, they don't think this will go over that. To me, there's a way to do everything. And not and have your cake and eat it too, as they say. And so many of these changes that you're discussing in both Cabaret and West Side Story, these are all directorial changes. Cabaret feels very much like a director's show. Um, so the question is, do you think that when a director takes on Cabaret, somewhere in their mind they go, I have to put my stamp on it because Hal Prince did that with his Bob Fosse, Sam Mendes?

[36:52] Bruce Kimmel: I think that's valid for him to say or her to say that, or they or we to say that they want to put their stamp on it. I have no issue with that. I have an issue with rewriting. It's the rewriting itself.

[37:07] Robert W. Schneider: Somebody had posited once, and I'm curious about your opinion on this. Would Cabaret be effective if they had actually cut all of the Emcee's commentary numbers? So it became a very linear traditional book musical about Cliff and Sally, a couple, um, Schultz and Schneider, a couple, and there is no Emcee to interrupt things.

[37:31] Bruce Kimmel: I think not. I think that's what they found out on the road. Is that it wasn't playing that way. Because I think that was the original intention. Uh, with as you say, this montage thing in the middle and him at the beginning, I guess. I guess that Will Coleman was always in it, wasn't it?

[37:49] Robert W. Schneider: Yes, yeah.

[37:50] Bruce Kimmel: Yeah. So, but I think they did the right thing. I don't know that it, although I am a Cabaret plays very well. Uh, and that's that story. This the play, the source, yeah.

[38:07] Robert W. Schneider: Um, now in your line of work, I'm so curious. Had did you ever get the chance to work with either Mr. Kander, Mr. Ebb, or Mr. Prince?

[38:15] Bruce Kimmel: Many times. Would you tell us a little bit about that?

[38:18] Bruce Kimmel: Not with Mr. Prince, but certainly Kander, you know. I when I started doing albums, uh, when we did the first Lost in Boston album, I guess it was, came first. Um, I called Frank Military, I called all these people who worked at Warner Chapel, said, 'I'm doing this album, I'm doing cut songs, I mean, uh songs that were cut on the road from great musicals, uh or not so great musicals. And uh so I had already met John, uh because I did an album when I had a label called Bass Cities called Classical Broadway, which was classical music by Broadway composers. So I had John and Sy Coleman and Harvey Schmidt and Charles Strauss. So I met him and he was lovely, and he gave me these three art songs, and we had a famous Karen Neblett, uh, you know, opera singer did them.

So we just hit it off really well. And then, so for Lost in Boston, I called him and I said, Do you have any cut songs for me? Because I want to do Kander and Ebb. And he said, Well, come over. I said, Oh, really? Okay. So I trotted over to his little apartment, big apartment, and uh and he just sat at the piano playing me all these songs. I just said, I'm sitting here with John Kander, and he's auditioning songs for me. I cannot believe it. And we found some, you know, a good one to do. And uh so I had worked with him then and stayed in touch with him many, uh over the years and recorded a lot of Kander and Ebb. And when we did Brent Barrett's Kander and Ebb album, he was just thrilled, and he came in and played the piano for A Quiet Thing.

And my favorite John Kander story ever is that we were in a studio we hadn't been in before, and somebody had been before us and broken the sustain pedal on the piano. Oh, and it was not gonna work without the sustain pedal, and nobody I'm going, who there's got to be somebody here who knows how to fix this. It's your piano. And John Kander said, I'll fix it. And he went in and got on the ground. He was in his 80s, even then, I think. Got on the ground and fixed it right up. And then played the piano. But so that, and um, so I've recorded a lot of Kander and Ebb, and he's always grateful. And I ultimately recorded the only complete version of And the World Goes Round in its original orchestration.

Uh, and so I've had a lot of fun with him, but I had never met Fred Ebb. In all of that time, in that you know, 15 years, I had never met Fred Ebb until I was forced to see the Wild Party on Broadway. The uh Michael John LaChiusa Wild Party. And I sat next to Fred, and we had a nice conversation. He was wearing his, you know, what he wore on his head, his toupee. And I swear to you, after the show, it looked like the toupee had moved. And he turned to me and he said, You're not gonna record this, are you? I said, No, I'll leave it to RCA. I'll leave this one to RCA. That's good, Bruce. He was very funny, he was very, very, very nice guy. But Kander was my guy. And who else did you ask about?

[41:48] Bruce Kimmel: I said how I had a lot of interaction with Hal Prince because he wrote liner notes for one of the Laurie Beechman CDs, and he liked my work when I was an actor, and he never cast me, of course, but he loved the albums we did. He just loved the albums, and so my last interaction with him was he wrote an article, I remember for American Theater, I think. And so I emailed him immediately. I said, "This is a brilliant article, Al, thank you so much for doing it." And he's so gracious. He writes right back. He says, "I'm so pleased you loved it." And then I did the remix of Follies, the original cast down the Follies, and made it good. And he wrote me the sweetest, kindest letter. But whenever I would see him, he would come right up to me and chat.

But everybody involved with Follies wrote me that was still living about that remix. But he was just the most gracious person. But if you look at his body of work, I don't know where the American theater would be without him. Can you even imagine? Somebody would have done it at some point, done something game-changing. But he really, if you look at Cabaret, skip Zorba, and go right to Company and Little Night Music and Follies and Sweeney, all those shows and the way he did them. And then even fan, you know, some people love it and some hey, Phantom of the Opera. That's a genius production. That's just an incredible production. And even the flop he did, Rosa, I thought was wonderfully directed. So I have seen very little by him that I felt failed.

[43:53] Robert W. Schneider: And you know, we had talked about this a little bit earlier on, and I just wanted to get your feedback on this, which is, you know, the word concept musical was such a word that was associated with Hal Prince and he shunned it. He said, "I don't like that. It's a historian's term, it doesn't mean anything to me." But I want to ask you, Bruce, do you think there is such a thing as a concept musical? And do you think Cabaret falls under that title if you do believe there is such a thing?

[44:24] Bruce Kimmel: You know, if I had to really think about it, maybe not. There's just a musical, and you write the musical and you want to write. And if you go into something so tunnel-visioned, I think, as I'm doing a concept musical, I think that's not good somehow. As someone who's written, you know, a few and done a few new ones, I think you just write your musical. I think giving word, I think he's right. I think it is a historian's term. I think that's really and not applicable then to him. No, because what makes Cabaret, if you want to call it a concept musical, is what he did with it. And you separate his work from the actual text itself, or is it so intertwined? Was that experience for you so intertwined between his direction plus the actual book and music and lyrics?

[45:34] Bruce Kimmel: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And when he's not directing productions of it, do you think you get then you get "Money, Money," "Maybe This Time," "I Don't Care Much," and things that you find a little bit less enjoyable?

[45:49] Robert W. Schneider: I don't think it's not less enjoyable. I hate them. Just hate them. We'll use the word. I like the songs, John Kander, who just turned 90 something. I like the songs themselves. I always liked "I Don't Care Much" when Barbara Streisand sang it. But not in the show. A standalone piece is great and just not in terms of moving the story along. I don't want to hear "Maybe This Time." I don't want to hear it.

[46:20] Bruce Kimmel: You bring up a really interesting, you brought up an interesting point before, which is in 1987, 88, I believe, Hal Prince did a 20-year revival of Cabaret, in which, like you said, you know, Joel Grey went from under the title to above the title. And even I think the key art was pretty much him everywhere you go.

[46:40] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, yeah, absolutely it was. For somebody like Hal Prince, who was so had such integrity about what he was doing, why do you think he changed the role of the MC beyond the fact it's Joel Grey and now he's a celebrity? Why though?

[46:57] Bruce Kimmel: I don't know. I don't know, other than maybe he just didn't want to do the same thing twice. And I would guess and bet that that was it, that he wanted to bring something fresh to the table, which is why he put in "Don't Go," which I don't think is a wonderful song. And so I get it, you know, and the set wasn't exactly the same, it was a little different. I still enjoyed it. I mean, because it was Ron Field again, you know, so that was fun to have that choreography back. I mean, I don't know if you did you ever see it, the original.

[47:36] Robert W. Schneider: No, I did not see the original, but I was gonna tell this to our listeners if you're interested. The revival that we've been talking about, both actually the Hal Prince from the 1980s and the Sam Mendes from the 1990s, both of them are fully available on YouTube in, I know, in professionally shot productions. So if you dare venture to take a look to get a fuller idea of what we're talking about, I would encourage you to do so. I might also mention that Rosa is on there, but that might just be something for Bruce and I to watch on our downtime.

[48:14] Bruce Kimmel: But I'm just curious as to why for someone like Hal Prince, where it was the integrity was such a big thing, to then take this role and put it above the title and sort of play up the celebrity of Joel Grey. I'm just curious if you might have a thought.

[48:30] Robert W. Schneider: I don't have an answer other than he probably wanted to do it a little differently. I wish I had seen the original. Well, the original, you know, there were the telephone dance. I don't know if you know what that is.

[48:46] Bruce Kimmel: The telephone song, yeah. But it was just unbelievable. The choreography of that number is so clever. But all of it, I just, Ron Field's work is pretty monumental to the American musical theater, yet he's not mentioned in the same breath as a Bob Fosse or Tommy Tune or Jerome Robbins. Why is that?

[49:13] Robert W. Schneider: I don't know because he really disappears from the scene, I think, after the revival of On the Town. I don't know what he directed after On the Town, because that was a flop. I mean, he did Applause, so that was a big hit. Then On the Town revival, and then I think the next time I was aware he was doing something was Merrilee, which he was then fired from.

[49:40] Bruce Kimmel: Yeah. So I don't know what the story is, but you would have thought he would at least have been the equal of Tommy Tune or people like that.

[49:55] Robert W. Schneider: Yes.

[49:56] Bruce Kimmel: And I had always heard, and I don't know if this is true or not, but from people who had worked with him that said his personality in the later years of his life left something to be desired.

[50:07] Robert W. Schneider: Could be, and that might have been it. But regardless, the work that he created is so monumental. And yet there's nothing, it's very hard to find footage of it. So it's very hard to show a new generation. This is why he was brilliant.

[50:20] Bruce Kimmel: Yeah, and boy, he was. And even in Zorba, you know, which is not a dance show, if you watch that opening number, it's incredible. Life is what he does with it. Oh, and folks, once again, that also is available on YouTube. Everything is available.

[50:38] Robert W. Schneider: Everything's on YouTube, so you can take a look and see what we're talking about. Bruce, I'm so sorry. My last question for you is, you know, we gave you a list of possible shows to write from, and you decided to do Cabaret. Why did you want to write this story? Why did you want to defend it as a key musical?

[51:01] Bruce Kimmel: I will be truthful with you.

[51:02] Robert W. Schneider: We love truth. What was your first choice, Bruce? If you tell me the shows, I will tell you because I don't remember now.

[51:11] Bruce Kimmel: When Peter sent me the original list, I jumped on something. And I don't remember, maybe it was Company. Oh, maybe. Something I felt I where I could really. But Cabaret was an easy section for me. I mean, just easy because it was a, well, you know, you see certain shows in your life and they're life changers. You can't look at theater the same way ever again. And I felt that way about Most Happy Fella when I saw it for various reasons. I saw it in the round with Robert Weede, you know, the original story.

[51:49] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, wow.

[51:50] Bruce Kimmel: Just life-changing for me for many, many reasons. He being the main one, that performance and meeting him after. But you see these game changers, and they are game changers. Stephen Sondheim got irritated with me once because I called Cabaret a game changer. And I said, "Well, I have to disagree with you, Steve." Because it was. And he said, "No, West Side Story is a game changer." I said, "Of course it was, because you were involved, but you know, Oklahoma was a game changer." I get that, but just as those shows were the 60s game changer was as a whole, Cabaret. There was another game changer in terms of more specific things, I think, which was Promises, Promises. Musical comedy, what was not standard was Baccarat and David.

[52:54] Robert W. Schneider: Yes.

[52:55] Bruce Kimmel: And the sound. Because Promises forever changed the sound of Broadway. Because he brought in, you know, partitions for the drums, and he brought in a mixing board, first time ever, a band had been mixed live. And I don't think the sound of Company would exist without the sound of Promises, Promises, and they shared Jonathan Tunick, the great Jonathan Tunick.

[53:25] Robert W. Schneider: Bruce, I have to ask because, you know, if like I'm assuming we have a lot of other musical theater fans out there. I love those Lost in Boston CDs. And did you all you also did the Unsung Musicals, right?

[53:37] Bruce Kimmel: Yeah, I mean, I grew, I loved these. Is there any, you got any other in the can? You have any ideas about it?

[53:45] Bruce Kimmel: They were very expensive. Well, I mean, we did them cheaper than anybody else could have done them, but they were expensive to do in the scheme of things. So I, you know, my label, Critzerland can't do them because we don't have that kind of money, but I will tell you, and I don't know that this is public yet, maybe I shouldn't tell you, but Concord Theatricals or Concorde, who has bought up everything in the world that they can possibly buy, bought my catalog from Finsworth Alley. Marvelous. I think. I don't know that the deal is finalized yet, but I gave them everything they needed to make it final. And if that deal is done, we'll talk about more them doing more Lost in Bostons because they have labels or they can do it with me or I love it. I would love to do it because there's been so many shows. You know, we stopped doing those in 2000. So we're 22 years. Hard to believe. My God, 22 years later.

[54:53] Robert W. Schneider: Oh my gosh. Well, please, please listeners. If you have not listened to any of Bruce's either Lost in Boston or Unsung Musicals albums, please, please do so. They're absolutely fantastic. Bruce, thank you so much for joining us today. Listeners, please make sure to purchase a copy of 50 Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or by clicking in today's show description. If you want to learn more about Cabaret, please also review the links in the below description. I'm Robert W. Schneider, and thank you for listening to 50 Key Stage Musicals, the podcast. Bye bye.