La Cage Aux Folles premiere at the Kassel Opera House, Germany

The musical will premiere on 12 October.

I am what I am! hurls the dazzling drag queen Zaza into the spotlight and in doing so manifests more than just her own identity: Since the musical La Cage aux Folles conquered the stages in the early eighties, the solo of the great drag diva has become a self-empowering anthem for the queer movement worldwide.

The successful musical by Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein made big waves and has hardly lost any of its relevance to this day: Georges runs the frivolous drag club La Cage aux Folles (A Cage Full of Fools), in which his partner Albin, Zaza, is the star of the evening every day. Jean-Michel, the artist couple's son, falls in love with the daughter of an arch-conservative politician who has declared the local drag scene a target. At the in-laws' get-to-know-you dinner, it is up in the air how much one's own identity must take a back seat for family happiness.

The South African director Matthew Wild transforms the Kassel State Theatre into a seedy southern French nightclub, where the cages of social normality are broken with the lightness of dance. The colourful ensemble of the “Cagelles” presents itself in its performances as a collection of bizarre personalities, but the bourgeois philistines also act in a similarly grotesque manner. Everything is packaged in a good mood in the classic Broadway sound between a glittering show and the greatest emotions: “Bonsoir, bonsoir, Messier-dame! Only champagne from now until the finale!”

Adrian Becker leads the company as Albin and Livio Cecini as Georges joined by Merlin Fargel as Jean-Michel, Fausto Israel and Jacob, Clara Marie Hendel as Jacqueline, Leonie Dietrich as Anna Dindon, Bernhard Modes as Edouard Dindon, Ingrid Froseth as Marie Dindon, Janina Steinbach as Francis, Bernhard Modes as Monsieur Renaud, Ingrid Froseth as Madam Renaud, Lena Poppe as Colette, Philipp Faustmann as Etienne, Melissa Laurenzia Peters as Derma, Giovanni Corrado as Phadra, Thiago Fayad as Mercedes, Clara Schönberner, André Leander Bertholdt and Philipp Faustmann as Cagelle and André Leander Berthodt as Hercule.

Stage director Matthew Wild, conductor Peter Schedding, costume designer Connor Murphy, choreographer Louisa Talbot, set designer Sebastian Hannak, dramaturg Felix Linsmeiere and lighting designer Christian Franzen