Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
It was Harold Princes original production ofCabaretin the fall of 1966.
That I ended up in the Shubert was completely by chance.
I knew nothing about the production.
There had not yet been any reviews to tell an audience what was in store.
Wilkommen … he sang.
That happily proved not to be the case, but other shocks were to come.
That last effect would be discarded by the timeCabaretopened at the Broadhurst in New York a few weeks later.
So would an entire act of what had started as a three-act piece.
Yet none of them were as original or startling as what Prince created at the start.
Prince, who died earlier today, at 91, was both.
Its impossible, in fact, to imagine that history without him.
Prince directed all of them (with Michael Bennett as co-director onFollies) and produced all exceptSweeney.
None of that matters in the final accounting of Princes long life.
The rewards for theatergoers now and in the future are incalculable.
