Audience Engagement
These are my plans for audience engagement. Below you will also find a PDF of my current draft of my program note and a download link for my V-File.
Lobby Display
With my goal to highlight the history of the plot of Cabaret, I want to utlize the concept of the Serial-Position effect, or the Primacy/Recency effect, to my advantage. This phenomenon suggests that people tend to best remember the beginning and end of a learning event much better than the middle. I hope to use my lobby display and program note to inform the audience with some historical significance before the show. The end of Cabaret then makes a return to the real German history of the decade at the end of the musical. These moments will serve as bookends for the audience experience, hopefully ensuring that the history is what sticks most with them when they leave.
I want my lobby display to look like a museum exhibit on German society at the end of the Weimar Republic. I hope to have different stations with images and short bits of text for different areas, such as the queer scene in Berlin, the acting government at the time, how society in 1930 viewed Hitler and the Nazi party before their rise to power, and Christopher Isherwood’s experience living in Berlin. As Cabaret is a popular and widely produced musical, audiences might already be familiar with the music and the characters of the story. However, I hope that my lobby display will be a surprise to incoming audiences, setting a different tone for their experience with the musical than they were expecting. One station will include short, documentary style videos playing on a loop on the TV that the Villanova Theatre Department provides to dramaturgs for lobby displays.
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Here are some videos I might play:
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“Educational Film: The Weimar Republic – Golden Twenties – Culture and Media.”
Youtube.Com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTKmgVg4D5g.
“A Day in Roaring 20's Berlin | 1927 AI Enhanced Film [ 60 fps,4k].” Youtube.Com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf3_wefprMo.
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I will decide between playing either instrumentals of songs from the musical or other instrumentals of Berlin cabaret music.
I plan to request to borrow flats with stage jacks from the Villanova Theatre Scene Shop in which I will put up the printed images and short bits of text. With the hope that borrowing the flats and stage jacks will be free of charge and the department covers my printing expenses, this lobby display may not require any of my budget. I will have $100 allocated to the Scene Shop if I am unable to utilize their resources for free.
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Speaker's Night
For Speaker’s night, I will invite both Dr. Paul Steege from the Villanova History Department and Dr. Laurie Marhoefer from the History Department at University of Washington to do a post-show talk back. Dr. Steege specializes in 20th Century German history and violence in everyday life. Dr. Marhoefer specializes in gender and sexuality studies as well as 20th century Germany. She has a book titled Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. With both of their specialties, the post-show talkback will foster conversation that lies perfectly between my two interests for this production—putting Cabaret in historical context and bringing out the inherent queerness of the musical. I will let them know that this is my goal for the talkback and invite them both to see the show that night. I will also invite them to bring both prepared material and observations from seeing the show.
A Spicy Saturday Night Our Preshow Activity
Another event for audience engagement will be a dance class with our production choreographer and any actors who are willing to attend (in full costume) before a Saturday night performance. The choreographer will teach a modified, simplified version of one of the Cabaret numbers, and the cast members will be there to demonstrate and help teach the dance. It will be advertised that all are welcome, and queer folks are especially invited to come and participate in this safe, creative space, and then stay to see the show afterwards. Perhaps if money allows, those who come to the dance class can see the show that night for free. Fun costume pieces can be purchased for cheap from Amazon or Party City rather than utlizing the Villanova Theatre Department Costume Shop to avoid fees for possible dry cleaning and damages. The participants can keep their costume pieces and wear them to the show that night as well! I would allocate about $100 for this workshop, to be able to provide the costume pieces, water bottles, and possible snacks for afterwards. I would encourage online RSVPs in order for us to get a more accurate count for these supplies.
Social Media Posts
For social media content to post for this production, my plan is to do a photo and interview series with the cast members. Every few days leading up to opening night, we will post a photo of each individual Cabaret boy and girl, as well as the leading characters, and include an interview question or two that they have answered about their experience working on the show. This mimics the introduction of the Cabaret boys and girls in the opening number of the musical. And with my desire to cast primarily queer folks as the Cabaret ensemble, I hope this will become another moment to feature these performers in our process.
V-File and Minor Changes
Before making my V-File available to the audience, I would change a few things about it. Firstly, I would either pick the instrumental version of the music that I chose or pick another Berlin cabaret-style song instead. I don’t want the music in the lobby that the audience experiences before the show to contain direct music from Cabaret itself. My goal is to make the pre-show experience more history-based. I might also consider removing any images from modern day, particularly the images of the January 6th Insurrection. The connection that I make to the Insurrection is in my program note, and I’m not sure I want to repeat that idea in the lobby experience. My goal is for the audience to experience the museum-like lobby display, creating a real, historical context for the time period of the actual musical. Then, I want them to enter the theater and read my program note, priming themselves for a critical look at the musical itself, and only then begin making possible connections to modern day society and politics. And thinking practically, if audience members neglect to read the program note, the intial priming of German history will have already been achieved. The program note serves as an extra nugget of connection if they are interested.
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Just download the PowerPoint presentation and hit "Present from beginning" to get a timed slideshow with music!
Program Note
Reasoning Behind It All
My program note focuses on building a connection between the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and the Janurary 6th Insurrection. Though I could make my whole directorial POV a connection between Hitler and Donald Trump, this is not the purpose of my association. My goal is to demystify the individuals who became Nazis (like Ernst in Cabaret) not to create sympathetic characers out of them, but to emphasize the reality of actual human beings being compelled and convinced to do real, unforgivable harm. I want to make a connection to the mobolization of individuals to participate in the Insurrection. Hatred, corruption, and evil were present in German society that led to the rise of Hitler and Nazis, and hatred, corruption, and evil existed before Trump came to power and lasting effects remain. We can even incorporate analysis of the failing governmental systems that drive people to desperation, such as those who began to support the Nazi party simply because they said they would continue unemployment payments longer than the current government could when the Great Depression hit. It goes without saying that condemnation of both the Nazis and those who attacked the capital is absolutely essential. But when we make them out to be non-human monsters, does this hinder our ability to truly make sure history does not repeat itself? Real live people felt the need to book flights and participate in the attack on the capital. What happens when we really think about that? How did they get to this point? My goal here is not even to suggest that connection or compromise is to be made across these divides, but more of a plea to avoid looking at these moments as spontaneous events in history unconnected to the world before and after. I hope my program note can help the audience to watch Cabaret with a more critical eye.