Director/choreographer Josh Rhodes creates thrillingly original productions of classic musicals. Drayton Alexander, Literary Associate at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida, sat down with Josh to discuss how this production is creating an unforgettable experience of Weimar Berlin.

Drayton Alexander: Josh, I’m so happy we have finally gotten you to direct Cabaret.

Josh Rhodes: I wanted to be sure that when I did the show, I would have something unique to say, and it took me some time to find the story we could tell that matched the urgency and vitality of this musical—while also being entertaining as hell.

DA: That was one of the biggest surprises for me. I’m so used to seeing this show where the club is seedy with ramshackle performers, but you’ve gone the opposite route: this cabaret is a showcase of phenomenal talent.

JR: And it should be. These cabarets were the height of entertainment, and the more things were falling apart, the greater the shows they put on were. Here’s something fascinating: after 9/11, people couldn’t stock enough alcohol and nail polish, because when you are blue, you will paint those nails and you want to party. So the Kit Kat Klub gives you an escape, but escape doesn’t mean it’s mindless. The cabaret holds a mirror up to society, it makes political commentary, but it’s first and foremost about the energy created by all these young artists who are determined to have a good time and make great art.

DA: Which is so key, because we’re talking the 1920s and early 1930s, which was a real Golden Age for Weimar Germany. Berlin was a hotbed of culture and arts and pushing boundaries.

JR: It was this cultural revolution in Berlin. Germany was a true democracy, political and social opportunities were being created for women, for Jewish people, for gay people, for Black people. It was a haven, and folks were going there from all over Europe for the artists and for the experience. It wasn’t Nazi Germany yet. This was still that sliver of time when something beautiful could happen.

DA: Even as things were going a little crazy. In this brief decade, Germany was going through constant political and economic upheaval. There were high unemployment and a government that couldn’t quite function the way it was supposed to. There was a growing lack of trust in institutions. All of that’s very present in the Kit Kat Klub you’ve created.

JR: This is a show about survivors, about artists who are finding beauty and joy as a way to keep living. When I sat down to work on the set, I said to our brilliant set designer Tijana Bjelajac, “I would love this to be a room that was once glorified by brilliant artists who made something beautiful even though it might be a little older and need a couple more coats of paint.” I wanted to celebrate that artists are thriving in this era, even if the makeup and the nail polish are covering up their poverty, even if while they’re dancing they’re also looking for someone who will buy them a meal afterward.

DA: You say this is a world of survivors, and perhaps the greatest survivor of them all is Sally Bowles. How did you approach this character?

JR: Sally is such a great contradiction: this vibrant life force who is also broken and a bit lost. I think she has an innocence, a guilelessness, and a hedonistic quality that make her feel childlike, but she’s also deeply intelligent. She knows how the world works. And she’s an incredible entertainer. It’s become this cliché—“Oh, Sally’s a bad singer”—but I think it’s so much more compelling if Sally is a phenomenal performer who should be the star of Berlin, but she just can’t quite get her life together. And with Joanna A. Jones in the role, we open wonderful possibilities about Sally’s journey and ambitions that haven’t been seen before. You know, she was sitting in England seeing Josephine Baker be this huge star in Paris, and she thought, “I can do that, I can be Berlin’s Josephine.” And part of the tragedy is that she could, but things keep going wrong along the way.

DA: Without giving anything away, what can you tell us about what you have in store for this production?

JR: Well, for this production, I’ve really pulled out all the stops, so you can expect surprises galore the whole night. The genius of Cabaret is that it is about an event that affected the entire world, millions of people, but it’s told through the lives of six people in a rooming house and another 15 people in a cabaret. It’s this very intimate story that is about the entire world. The final gesture of the show is about finding a way to bring all of us together to remember the larger event.

Reprinted with permission from Asolo Repertory Theatre.