This is from the Asheville Citizen-Times …

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Theater review: HART offers unique take on “Cabaret”
WAYNESVILLE – “Cabaret” has been performed many times in community theater. But at Haywood Arts Regional Theatre, director Charles Mills and company executive Steve Lloyd came up with a plan to make their version extraordinary and effective.

Their approach was to construct a large platform out over the audience seating area, where the action takes place. The audience is seated at bistro tables on the traditional stage. Literally turning around Waynesville’s Performing Arts Center, they have created more intimacy between the audience and actors, bringing the horror of Nazism close to all viewers.The cast serves as greeters and servers in the Kit-Kat Club before and between the acts. We become the “good Germans” who are drawn into the seductive appeal of decadence, debauchery and deviousness that was Berlin in the 1930s.

Mark Jones gives us an androgenous and seductive Emcee, with the help of gender-bending costumes by Cary Nichols and makeup by Beth Swanson. His slinky and sinister cabaret master of ceremonies suggests the way the German nation was programmed by the leaders of National Socialism. Jones carries the show with panache.

The other major role whose talents match the music is Julie Kinter as Sally Bowles, the impish young ingenue from Britain who finds herself out of her depth in the turmoil of Berlin in the 1930s. Kinter can carry a tune and emote with the best of ’em. Her romantic interest is the boyish and winsome David Ostergaard as the young American, Clifford Bradshaw, who has come to Berlin to write.

Beth Holmes’ choreography captures the feel of the original. Chuck Taft, Anne Rhymer, Linda Davis and David Bruce did their best to get the feel of the fine score by John Kandler. A few more real instruments and fewer electronic substitutes may have aided the support sounds behind the voices.

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All-in-all a good review. I just wonder if the reviewer would like to loan us a few thousand dollars so we could hire people to play “a few more real instruments.” This pisses me off ’cause I am in a “focus on the negative” mood today.

From the Enterprise-Mountaineer.

Ja … ze show vent pretty vell zis veekend.

And the whole cast was running around talking in German accents. I came into work yesterday talking all strange and annoying. Heh.

So, yeah … the show went well. We had full house all three days but I am not sure if people know what to make of the show. I think there is a different expectation because of the Liza Minnelli movie version. It eliminated one of the major story lines (and those characters) and a lot of the “darkness” that comes into the story during Act II.

I must confess that it is fun to pull the safety net out from underneath the audience at the end of the show. So far all the performance have been greeted with dead silence when the show ends.

Tickets are going out the door pretty fast. From what I understand that just a few seats a night available at this point. We will add additional performances but only if the run sells out completely.

The Kit Kat Club is ready and now open for business. We do a benefit performance for a full house tonight and play to a sold out house for Opening Night. Here a sneaky peek with a few photos …

Also, we found out yesterday that the September 12th issue of the Washington Post had an article about “Unexpected Retirement Spots.” Not only was my sleepy, little hometown mentioned … but the theater got a nice plug as well.

I wonder who Steve slept with to get this kind of mention …