Meet the cast members of Cabaret

Twenty years ago, Barbara Grant (Fraulein Schneider) auditioned for the CitiArts production of Quilters, and the rest, as they say, is Willows Theatre Company history.  She has appeared in numerous Willows productions over the years, including Over the Tavern, The Spitfire Grill, You Can’t Take It With You, Joyful Noise, Funny Girl, Once Upon a Mattress, The Rothschilds, Auntie Mame, Nunsense Jamboree, Rags, and Brimstone, for which she won a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle award for Best Supporting Actress, and she received a Dean Goodman Choice award for her role as Eliza Gant in Look Homeward, Angel.  She has also performed with Center Repertory, Role Players, and the Celebration for Life AIDS benefits.  Her involvement with the Willows Theatre on the administrative side began with volunteer work, helping with fund-raising events and eventually becoming president of the board of directors.  This led Barbara to a position on staff, working part time on grants and fund raising, and from there to the position of development director 10 years ago.  A Bay Area native, Barbara lives with her husband Rob (who is a physician with Kaiser) in Alamo.  They have a daughter, who is a physician in Portland, and a son, who is a rock star/tour musician (and potential physician).

 Geoffrey Kidwell (Cliff) is a Los Angeles-based actor and a recent graduate of UCLA’s School of Theatre Film and Television.  While at UCLA, Geoffrey performed in a variety of productions including Hair (tribe member), Hello Again (The Senator), and Elektra Fragments (Orestes).  Geoffrey has worked professionally in a number of regional theaters in shows such as Beauty and the Beast (Ensemble), Sweeney Todd (The Tenor), and King Lear (France).  He was born and raised in Southern California and began acting as a student at Loyola High School.  It was there that he realized he wanted theater to be more than just an after-school hobby.  He applied to a number of colleges, but jumped at the chance to attend UCLA.  During his stay there, he had the great fortune of studying with actors such as Salome Jens, April Shawhan, and Michael Hackett.  Additionally, he attended master classes and seminars led by Sir Anthony Hopkins and Annette Bening.  Geoffrey is thrilled to be taking on the role of Cliff in this production of Cabaret.  It’s going to be a great challenge and he is ready to tackle it.

While attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Stu Klitsner (Herr Schultz) performed in a college musical composed by Jerry Bock – the future composer of such Broadway hits as Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello, and The Rothschilds.  While doing graduate work at UCLA, he met Rhoda Guttman and both auditioned for the Sacramento Music Circus in the company's first summer of 1951.  Rhoda's dream was to dance in a Broadway show for choreographer Agnes DeMille so after getting married in 1952 they took off for New York.  Things were tough at first so in order to survive they asked their friend Jerry Bock, who was not famous yet, if he would write them some special material for a nightclub act, which they performed in clubs in New York and Long Island and on TV variety shows.  Then Rhoda was cast in the last Broadway musical Ms. DeMille choreographed: A Girl in Pink Tights.  Stu was cast in the comedy Twin Beds, which hit the road from Allentown, PA, to Milwaukee, WI, and back to Philadelphia, where both shows played simultaneously.  After having their first child, they decided to move back to the West Coast.  They found a home in Walnut Creek, where Stu still lives, and while raising two more children, Stu taught at Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek and Rhoda choreographed and directed shows for Diablo Light Opera Company, eventually becoming Artistic Director.  In 1963, Stu was cast in Under the Yum Yum Tree, which ran in San Francisco six nights a week for three years, during which time he was also teaching five days a week.  When the play closed, he got a job as the first school counselor in the Lafayette School District at Stanley School and in addition did some film roles and many commercials, voice overs, and industrial shows.  Since retiring from teaching, he has been concentrating on doing stage productions and has been seen extensively at Woodminster Amphitheatre and here at the Willows.  He especially enjoys after-show visits with the many parents, students and children of students he has had through the years, some of whom have appeared with him in productions, and being stage partners with Barbara Grant in Rags, The Rothschilds, and now Cabaret here at the Willows.

Kristin Stokes (Sally Bowles) is very excited to be making her debut at the Willows.  She just completed a run of Into the Woods at Palo Alto’s TheatreWorks and is ready to jump head first into the role of Sally.  Kristin recently moved back to the Bay Area from the central coast, where she attended school at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts (PCPA).  She was given the opportunity to appear on stage numerous times while attending, including roles in Brigadoon (Jean MacLaren), Annie (Lilly St. Regis), and My Way (Woman No. 2).  Although her resumé mainly showcases musicals, Kristin loves to do plays, as well.  Some of her favorite roles have included Rachel (To Gillian, On Her 37th Birthday), Juliet (Shakespeare’s Women), Helen Keller (The Miracle Worker), and --- even though she was just the understudy -- Ophelia (Hamlet).  Along with her training at PCPA, Kristin also has seven years of dance and three years of choral training.  But she attributes most of her education to her mother, who started a children’s theater group over 10 years ago (Star Struck Theatre).  When not performing, she loves to bake, read, and hang out in Berkeley.  She’s a full-time Vegan and aspires to travel the world quite soon.