A riveting ‘Cabaret’ in Brighton

Platte Valley Players delivers a powerful production led by Kelly Van Oosbree

From the opening notes of “Willkommen” to the final blackout, this Platte Valley Players production of Cabaret exceeds all expectations of what community theatre can be. With award-winning PVP Artistic Director Kelly Van Oosbree directing and choreographing the show, I’d expect it to be a top-quality production. But it seems clear that her reputation and work with many other theatres in the state attracts talent on- and off-stage to make a strong production excellent.

It all starts with Jeffrey Parker as the off-the-wall, highly charismatic master of ceremonies. It’s a rich role as written, no doubt, and Parker makes it wonderfully compelling in a myriad ways. With an over-the-top, geography-defying European accent, he struts, contorts, shimmies and shakes through the role while picking up bit parts along the way. Part clown, part ringmaster, the sexually ambiguous MC as played by Parker is a one-man summation of the many conflicting elements of the show itself.

Working with a beautiful set designed by Brian Mallgrave, Oosbree shows off everything she’s got directing and choreographing Cabaret. As she told me in an interview I did with her for the OnStage Colorado Podcast (out Oct. 8), managing both roles is a big lift. But the seamlessness she’s achieved between the acting and the movement here is both exacting and artistically impressive on a grand scale.

Along with well-cast principals, the ensemble of dancers was topnotch. Costume Designer Nicole Harrison outdid herself with their outfits — sexy but not too revealing and able to be mixed up for different looks throughout the show.

Abigail Kochevar as Sally Bowles in the Platte Valley Players production of ‘Cabaret’ | Photo: RDGPhotography

Dark clouds

Despite its many comedic and raucous dance numbers, Cabaret is nonetheless set in a dark period in history: the lead-up to the Nazi party’s takeover of Germany. The action is set in the waning days of the Weimar Republic and the Jazz Age, with a tumultuous relationship between Sally Bowles, an English cabaret singer at the famed Kit Kat Club, and American wannabe novelist Clifford Bradshaw.

As Bowles, Abigail Kochevar is magnetic, with a smoldering sexuality topped by a powerful voice and mad dance skills. The actor convincingly portrays a woman prone to wild highs and deep lows as she careens between life onstage and her messy world — made even more unsettled by her new liaison with Bradshaw.

Tyler Strickland nicely handles a character conflicted not only by his own sexual identity (maybe he’s gay, but maybe he’s impregnated Sally?) but by his involvement with a friend, Ernst (Adam Luhrs) who’s started trying out a particular kind of red armband.

Meanwhile, there’s a romance brewing in the boarding house where he and Sally are living. The landlord, Fraulein Schneider (Jennifer Burnett), is a spinster who’s being wooed by a Jewish fruit seller named Herr Schultz (Joel Silverman). What might seem like a lesser subplot takes on outsized significance when she begins to realize how marrying a Jew could be problematic with these Nazis coming on the scene.

Burnett is excellent in this role, bringing to life a complex character confronting emotions she thought she’d dispensed with long ago. Her big moment of confronting her conflict in the “What Would You Do?” number is a barnburner.

As her suitor, Silverman is charming. As he moves from a guy who thinks he’s about to get married to one who’s having bricks thrown through his window, the look on his face is devastating. We all know what’s coming, but he’s still convinced it’ll turn out OK because, while he may be a Jew, he’s a German. What could go wrong?

Along with the cast and crew is a dialed-in live band led by Music Director Bonnie Simcox. On preview night, they were still working out some of the spotlight timing, but overall the lighting design by Mandy Heath evoked the nocturnal settings very well. Sound design by Ryan Michener was well balanced, enabling the audience to hear every word above the band.

Cabaret has been appearing on stages since 1966, and it’s always tempting to compare the action of the period to whatever’s happening today. In the fall of 2024, the dark clouds are gathered again as we confront a pivotal election. It’s not an exact comparison, but in Cabaret, the shift from relatively carefree populace to one staring down the barrel of fascism in is hard to avoid.

Politics aside, Platte Valley Players has served up a banger production of Cabaret that’s well worth the trip.