Roxy's Downtown presents the classic musical "Cabaret" throughout the coming month, beginning Thursday, April 5.
"Cabaret" is set in a Berlin nightclub as the 1920s draw to a close and the Third Reich emerges. It premiered in 1966, with music from John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and book by Joe Masteroff.
Despite the impending tumult, patrons and performers at the club find time for laughter and love. (The source material for the musical includes John Van Druten's 1951 play "I Am a Camera" and Christopher Isherwood's 1939 novel "Goodbye to Berlin.")
A popular 1972 film adaptation followed, and the musical has had a number of major revivals in subsequent decades, including a recently launched run on Broadway.
Roberta Wilkes, a Kansas theatre veteran, serves as musical director for the performances. Wilkes, an attorney who practices in Yates Center, has a long history not only with the theatre but with "Cabaret" itself. She is also author of the book "One More Season: Trouping with the LaBerta Stock Company one last time" with Michael (Mickey) Lacey.
Wilkes recently visited the KMUW studios to discuss her history with performance and what she loves most about "Cabaret."
Performances at Roxy's are Thursday-Saturday with 8 p.m. shows each night and an additional 2 p.m. performance on Saturdays.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
How did you get your start in theatre?
I was born in a trunk, as they say. My parents were actors, troupers, in tent repertory theatre. They traveled all over. Most in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, places to the north. Tent repertory theatre is something that's kind of gone now, but it's really a piece of American history. It was really prevalent around the turn of the last century. It started around the Civil War when people got too hot in the opera houses. By the time my parents would have been trouping in the '30s, it was already on its way out. Then television really finished it off.
When I was a baby, my parents would do plays that were more or less in the mainstream. They'd go into mostly small towns with a repertory of seven plays. They'd perform a different one each night and then do vaudeville in between. My dad was usually the heavy. He was also a piano player. My mother was a dancer. They acted but they also did specialties. I was born into (that) life, and I traveled into that life until I was 11.
My mother died when I was eight. I went out with my dad a couple more years, but then he got a job in the Black Hills Passion Play. He sent us to live with my mother's parents in Howard, Kansas. I ended up in Wichita after I got out of high school. Since then, I've done lots of different things, but I've never been too far from the stage. When I lived here, from '61 to '73, I was active in Wichita Community Theatre.
Did you study theatre?
[Laughs.] I studied theatre by being in it. I'm a lawyer. I went to school while I was raising children. I graduated from Wichita State University. My undergraduate degree is in psychology. We moved up to Kansas City, and I went to school at UMKC. I did all of that while I was raising children. I actually studied music in Emporia, but way led on to way, and I got married.
I don't really regret it. I've gone back and studied music by taking some music theory courses. I've done some composing. My genre is ragtime. I consider myself an expert on ragtime and stride piano. I've written a couple of one-woman pieces. I did one here at Roxy's in 2019.
Talk about total immersion.
[Laughs.] Yeah.
What is your specific role in this production of "Cabaret"?
I wouldn't want to call myself the music director because Dr. Simon Hill is the resident music director at Roxy's. He's marvelously talented and educated. But he has a role on-stage. Rick [Bumgardner] thought of me to do the musical direction. I did do musical direction for "Cabaret" in either '78 or '79 at Resident Theatre in Kansas City. That was right after I got out of law school. It was a tremendous experience.
There are a few differences now. Everything is faster. This is something I've learned as I've gotten older, everything is faster. I do believe the world is speeding up! [Laughs.]
What do you like about the music in this show?
It's dance music. It's kick-y. [Laughs.] There is a song called "Kickline." Even though the story has a dark side to it, the music is always trying to uplift the [audience] even through these dark times. When you have a song like "Cabaret" or "Willkommen," obviously that's what they're trying to do. "Come on in here and enjoy yourself while you can." That's the way that feels to me. In fact, I sort of got shivers when I said that. There are some nice, soft waltzes that change the mood and bring it down. There's a lot about it that I like. I also like it because I've done it before, and I like to go back and think about that.
There's an entire emotional range.
What I really like is if the emotional part is coming from some real-life emotional experience. In other words, if it's a love song or speaking to that part of a relationship, I want it to feel that way. I really do feel this stuff when I'm playing it. To me, I'm all of those characters when I play the music. That's one of the reasons that I love Sondheim music as well as ["Cabaret" composers] Kander and Ebb. I've played for other Kander and Ebb musicals. In their music, piano is an important part. I can always tell when the composer of a musical is a pianist. Sometimes, even worse, you can tell when they're not. Sometimes it's impossible to play! [Laughs.] You think, "Well, that person never, ever sat down and put their hands on a piano!"
