This March, The Company Theatre is diving headfirst into one of musical theatre’s most provocative and enduring works. The cast invites South Shore audiences into the seductive and glittering world of Cabaret and asks them to look beyond the stage lights.
For Haley Miller, who plays Sally Bowles, the production feels deeply personal, urgent, and timely.
“Cabaret has been a dream show of mine for many years,” Miller said. “Especially right now with everything that is going on in our country and in the world, I think Cabaret is so important, so necessary.”
A Full-Circle Return
Miller’s history with The Company Theatre stretches back two decades. She first performed there at age nine in The Will Rogers Follies. After studying musical theatre at Marymount Manhattan College in New York and pursuing acting professionally, she returned to Massachusetts and reconnected with the theatre earlier this year as Maureen in Rent.
Coming back to the Company Theatre, she said, has felt like coming home.
Michael Tokar, who plays the enigmatic Emcee, is making his Company Theatre debut. A lifelong performer, Tokar stepped back from theatre while earning a degree in tourism and hospitality management at Johnson & Wales University. Now returning to the stage, he calls the experience “wonderful.”
And stepping into Cabaret has been the realization of a long-held dream.
“The Emcee has actually been my dream role since I was probably about 12 years old,” Tokar said. “I’ve seen the show at least 10 times live, a few on Broadway, once in Italian in Milan. Every actor brings such different nuances to the Emcee.”
Immersion and Impact
Set in 1930s Berlin as the Nazi regime rises to power, Cabaret famously juxtaposes the hedonistic revelry of the Kit Kat Club with the creeping political darkness outside its doors.
Tokar describes the show as transformative and cleverly deceptive.
“The first act has this element of fun and joy,” he said. “Forget your troubles. Leave your worries outside. And then at the end of Act One, it really hits you. While all of this has been happening, we forgot that everything else was happening outside.”
That shift, from scintillating spectacle to sobering reality, is what makes the show timeless, both actors say.
“History repeats itself,” Tokar said. “It makes a statement about how everyone needs to pay attention to what’s going on in society, in the world, and in our relationships with other people.”
For Miller, the dynamic between Sally and Cliff Bradshaw grounds the story in recognizable humanity. Cliff is educated and increasingly aware of the political storm brewing around them. Sally, ambitious and fiercely independent, resists confronting it.
“The audience can see themselves, or people they know, in these characters,” Miller said.
Reimagining Sally’s Strength
While Sally Bowles is often portrayed as naïve or oblivious, Miller and the production’s creative team lean into the character’s resilience and self determination.
“For a musical created in the ’60s, to have a female character that is so strong-willed was huge,” Miller said. “Our directors and choreographer are really encouraging me to keep Sally as this strong, well-rounded female character.”
Miller’s process includes extensive historical research into 1930s Berlin cabaret clubs to better understand the environment in which Sally would have lived and performed. She also looks inward.
“I most enjoy playing a character when I’m able to find the similarities to myself,” she said. “Then, when I dive deeper, it helps me see the differences too.”
A Role Rooted in Freedom
For Tokar, the Emcee is layered, elusive and deeply symbolic, a character who holds up a mirror to the audience.
“A lot of my role is ad libbing, playing with the audience, interacting with them,” he said. “It invites them into the story rather than just having them watch it.”
That invitation carries particular weight for Tokar, a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from Ukraine after facing antisemitism in the Soviet Union.
“My parents immigrated here to give me the freedom that they weren’t afforded as Jewish people,” he said. “Doing this show in this role that centers on freedom of expression and identity in a setting where it was being suppressed is really liberating for me.”
He describes performing Cabaret now, in this place and time, as a dream come true.
“You Are in Safe Hands”
As opening night approaches, both actors are eager to see the production fully realized with costumes, lighting, set and, most importantly, an audience.
“It’s such an immersive show,” Tokar said. “The energy in the room really changes once the audience is there.”
Miller hopes audiences leave entertained but also reflective.
“We all feel so strongly about the story that is being told,” she said. “I would want the audience to know that they are in safe hands and that we do care about this material very deeply.”
With its iconic score, provocative staging, and unflinching themes, Cabaret remains a show that dazzles even as it disturbs, a reminder that what happens outside the club doors can never be ignored for long.
Cabaret will run March 6-22 at The Company Theatre in Norwell. Tickets are available here.