Mack the Knife meets Santa Monica pier: Actor Paul Sand and his pop-up cabaret return

Actor Paul Sand and music director Michael Roth prepare to transform the end of the Santa Monica pier into a pop-up cabaret

Tony-award winning actor, and Santa Monica native, Paul Sand has appeared in dozens of movies and television shows. Now, he’s turned a hidden slice of the iconic Santa Monica Pier into a pop-up cabaret.

The musical revue he calls Kurt Weill at the Cuttlefish Hotelhas been so successful, it’s returning to the makeshift theater at the end of the Santa Monica pier starting January 17th for an indefinite run.

Songs by the German composer are performed by Sand and a trio of other performers, accompanied by live music–including a violinist plucked from the ranks of the ubiquitous Pier buskers.

To talk about the show before it opened in December, Sand and I walked out to the what his music director, Michael Roth, joked must be the most westernmost performance space in all of the US. They call it the “West End Theater.”

It’s a spot that Sand knows well, and is what inspired this event in the first place.

“I was walking along the pier, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a dark, scary cabaret?” he said. Turns out, the pier managers were looking to attract theater, so they struck a deal with Sand.

For tickets and performance details, visit: http://www.thewestendtheatre.com

(This post has been updated from the original post in December.)