“I’m so prepared for this,” stated the actress Bernadette Peters on Saturday afternoon as she stood on the purple carpet outdoors the August Wilson Theater on 52nd Road, which had been styled to appear like a Berlin nightclub within the Nineteen Thirties.
“It’s type of like a Occurring,” she added.
Ms. Peters had turned up for a efficiency of one of many hottest — and a few of the costliest — tickets on Broadway this season: A revival of “Cabaret,” the 1966 John Kander and Fred Ebb musical, which celebrated its opening night time with twin galas on Saturday and Sunday. The manufacturing, which is ready in a Berlin nightclub on the eve of the Nazis’ rise to energy, options Eddie Redmayne because the nightclub’s Grasp of Ceremonies and Gayle Rankin as its star singer, Sally Bowles.
“For British actors, coming right here to Broadway is the dream, so tonight is a pinch-me second,” stated Mr. Redmayne, who performed the Grasp of Ceremonies in the course of the present’s sold-out run in London in 2022, for which he gained an Olivier Award — the British equal of a Tony Award — for finest actor in a musical.
A number of dozen celebrities — Angela Bassett, Rachel Zegler and the director Baz Luhrmann amongst them — got here to see Mr. Redmayne, who can also be a producer of “Cabaret.”
However this wasn’t the standard turn-up-five-minutes-before-the present drill: Not like a typical Broadway present, “Cabaret” features a preshow at each efficiency that begins 75 minutes earlier than curtain.
The festivities start within the foyer, the place, on Saturday, a bare-chested dancer in a ruffled collar and gold harem pants twisted on an elevated stage as a gleaming gold eye rotated overhead. Individuals in gold-sequined swimsuit jackets and black bandage clothes lined up at a bar to order whiskey mules and rosé, which they sipped as a violinist performed a lilting, eerie tune.
On the second ground, visitors packed in entrance of vivid, gestural work whereas performers danced behind beaded curtains. One other stage up, on the third ground, there have been bedazzled plastic fruit preparations and Polaroids of actors who seem within the play.
Simply earlier than showtime, ushers directed the group into the second-floor auditorium, which had been reconfigured to imitate a big supper membership with fringe lights towering over round tables, every with a small lamp and champagne glasses.
For the subsequent almost three hours, Mr. Redmayne and Ms. Rankin, taking part in the roles made well-known by Joel Gray and Liza Minnelli within the 1972 Bob Fosse movie, led the viewers by quite a lot of requirements together with “Wilkommen,” carried out by a marionette-like Mr. Redmayne in an askew inexperienced celebration hat and a flawless German accent; “Don’t Inform Mama,” delivered by a raunchily charming Ms. Rankin; and, lastly, a showstopping rendition of the title music “Cabaret,” which earned Ms. Rankin a thunderous 30 seconds of applause and foot stomping.
The efficiency was adopted by a spirited cocktail reception that took over each ground of the theater, throughout which trays of mac and cheese balls and mini champagne bottles flowed by the crowds. Within the purple room, the actor B.J. Novak roamed because the actor Billy Porter mingled in a nook.
The influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, remained within the auditorium, whereas Ms. Bassett danced to “Better of My Love” by the Feelings close to the bar within the foyer.
Ms. Rankin and Mr. Redmayne solely made temporary appearances in the course of the reception to greet well-wishers. (“I don’t wish to inform you the unsexy reality,” Mr. Redmayne stated about his celebration plans, “which is that I’m so paranoid about shedding my voice that I’ll drink water and check out to not discuss an excessive amount of.”)
Round 9 p.m., some visitors, together with members of the forged and artistic staff and their households, relocated to The Instances Sq. Version Lodge on forty seventh Road for an after-party on the Paradise Membership.
In a darkish room amid flashing lights and thumping bass, partygoers danced elbow to elbow and packed the bar. However the performers didn’t linger too lengthy on the lodge — they’d one other present to do the subsequent day.
