The design

from the original design document:
The ‘Cabaret’ larp is a larp musical. This means that it to some extent abandons any ambitions on realism. Some characters express their most intimate emotions through performing song and dance numbers. A useful analogy is it as though you were participating in a Bollywood musical: most of the time, the larp is played in a semi-realistic, immersive manner, but when the music starts, the enactment pauses momentarily. The meta-numbers function as inner monologues, expressing the inner emotions of a character in song and dance. Apart from the music numbers, we have tried to keep the meta-techniques to a minimum.

With inspiration from how musicals and operas work, Cabaret is designed as a ‘larger than life’ larp. The historical setting is very dramatic, and some of the characters are more iconic than realistic, written to be a bit ‘over the top’.  The design is intended to let every character make a difficult decision during the larp, experience a dramatic curve, a turn of fate.

The larp plays out in three acts, each with its own theme. They last between one and a half and three and a half hours, with short breaks between the acts to allow players to replan and sync their stories. The acts help raise the intensity during the larp - the first is relatively calm, the second allows for threats and violence, and characters can leave or die during the third.
Music as a meta-technique
This larp uses the act of performing music as a meta-technique. We consider the act of performing music to be a very strong way to get in touch with the character’s emotions through bodily engagement.

The designers want this experience to be available to anyone who wants to try, even if they are not experienced performers. You don’t need to be a good singer or performer to do a meta-number song in Cabaret; the only thing needed is that you are prepared to sing in front of others. If there are more people who want to do meta-numbers than there are slots, we will decide who performs by lottery rather than by qualifications.