September 8, 2019 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
Aug. 23-22, 2019
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WILLKOMMEN: Park Slope’s Gallery Players present “Cabaret,” a play about the turbulent Berlin nightlife scene in the late 1920s, during the rise of the Nazis,
featuring, from left, Cait Farrell as Rosie, Brian Edward Levario as the Emcee, Lorinne Lampert as Fritzie, and Ryan S. Lowe as Lulu. Alice Teeple
EMCEE THREATS
Gallery Players musical ‘Cabaret’ recalls the rise of Nazis in Berlin
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Maybe it can happen here.
A Park Slope theater company
will present a timely take
on a musical set in Berlin during
the rise of the Nazis. This
version of “Cabaret,” opening
Sept. 7 at Gallery Players, uses
the tale of a nightclub’s denizens
dealing with the rise of
fascism in Europe to warn today’s
audience about hateful
ideologies that are on the rise
in the United States, according
to its director.
“We were trying to draw a
correlation from the 1920s and
1930s Berlin to 2019 in our own
country,” said David Cronin.
“It feels like these same issues
are still around: homophobia,
racism, transphobia, terrorism.”
The musical, which
launched on Broadway in 1966,
is set at the Kit Kat Club, a
seedy Berlin nightclub during
the Weimar Republic, when the
capital city’s nightlife offered
a tolerant refuge for people on
society’s margins, whether because
of their gender, sexuality,
religion, or race. Previous
iterations of the show often
glossed over the club’s diverse
character by employing casts
that were predominantly male,
white, and straight, according
to Cronin.
Overdoses
down in
Brooklyn
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Overdose deaths in Brooklyn
dropped by almost a quarter
last year, but the borough
continues to suffer from more
drug-related fatalities than any
other aside from the Bronx, according
to new government figures.
A report by the city’s Department
of Health and Mental
Hygiene shows a drop in Kings
County overdose deaths from
355 in 2017 to 273 in 2018, or 82
less fatalities year over year.
The Bronx maintained its
tragic distinction as the deadliest
borough for overdoses, with
391 fatalities, while Manhattan
(267), Queens (215), and Staten
Island (114) followed Brooklyn
as the third, fourth, and least
deadly respectively.
Aside from Brooklyn, only
Queens saw a reduction in
overdose deaths, with 55 less
people dying last year compared
to 2017.
Both cocaine and the highly
potent synthetic opioid fentanyl
— which is 30 to 50 times
stronger than heroin — were
involved in the majority of
overdose deaths, according to
the Health Department.
The improvement in Kings
County follows the launch of
progressive new policies both
in Brooklyn and citywide, including
the debut of Mayor
Bill de Blasio’s $60 million
HealthNYC initiative in March
2017, which saw officials distribute
the lifesaving overdose
drug Naloxone, provide
increased funding to 14 needle
exchange programs, and offer
educational programming to
prevent overdoses.
Continued on page 14 Continued on page 12
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