{Sally Bowles (Storm Large) and Kit Kat Boy, Hans (Luke Longacre) in “Mein Herr” from Cabaret.}

As the Portland run of Cabaret comes to a close, the cast prepares for our transfer to Geva Theater in Rochester, NY just after the New Year. Next week we load up trucks with the sets, costumes and props and send them across the country. Then the whole team reassembles in the snowy NE to set upstate New York on fire.

A few really nice letters in response to the show have arrived lately. Barbara Miles and Donald Lee wrote:

“We have not seen anything better anywhere in the past 40 years! In talking to a number of our friends, we are all in agreement about your show. We were astonished at the magnitude of the talent assembled before us - Storm Large was a miracle! What incredible casting! . . . My husband notes in Wade McCollum’s character how he starts out tempting and teasing, as the two sides of the coin of good and evil, and gradually morphs into a much more stylized symbol, as the situation in real life Germany disintegrates around him into unspeakable horror . . . It was all magnificent.”

{Rosie (Amy Palomino), Texas (Emily Lockhart) and the Kit Kat Girls in Cabaret.}

Barbara Hort wrote:

“I want to congratulate you on your absolutely breath-taking production of Cabaret. The film version made such an indelible and superlative imprint on our collective impression of the show that it was hard to imagine how you could match or surpass that, but you have. In addition to your casting coup of enticing Wade back to play the Emcee, and your inspired choice of Storm Large to play Sallie, you have taken the production beyond its original merit and the film’s enhancement and brought it (and us) into a contemporary framing that is both exhilirating and excruciating. What a tour de force!”

{Lulu (Karen Hyland) catches eyes in Cabaret.}

And Melissa Kelly wrote:

“I was particularly struck by the supremely soulful performance of Michele Mariana. Wow. I’ve never seen her like this . . . This show worked for me on so many levels, it was simultaneously delightful and frightening.”