For Orville Peck, playing the Emcee in Cabaret has been his dream role since he was 14. So now that he's about to do it on Broadway, he's taking it very seriously.
"I really wanted to make a point of coming into this production as an actor as well, and to give this show the integrity and the respect that it deserves…I would never have wanted to make it about me, the Orville Peck Show," he tells Playbill. That is why as the Emcee, Peck will give up his signature masked look and instead let audiences at the Kit Kat Club see his face. “It’s really scary ‘cause I’ve gotten so used to,” he says, gesturing to the mask he wears during the interview. To watch Peck and the show's newest Sally Bowles, Tony nominee Eva Noblezada, discuss their upcoming run in Cabaret, watch the video above.
Peck and Noblezada will begin their run at the August Wilson Theatre March 31 and continue through July 20. They will succeed Adam Lambert and Auli‘i Cravalho, who will play their final performances March 29.
Likewise for Noblezada, Sally has been her dream role (she even sang "Cabaret" as the finale to her show Nostalgia: A Love Letter to NYC). But what really stood out for her in this revival directed by Rebecca Frecknall has been how chillingly prescient it feels.
“It shakes me to my core just knowing we’re in a time period of a certain point of the '30s right before the Nazis regime in Germany and Berlin. It is too real. And it makes me feel off of my balance to look at the TV and to see Nazis in America," she says fervently. But she says getting to do the show is giving her a sense of purpose.
"At the same time, I am grateful that I get to come to work with people who feel the same way and who feel active and feel inspired and passionate and ready to tell this story and to educate themselves and the audiences that come into this show.” In the musical, the character of Cliff tells Sally, “If you’re not against it, you might as well be for it." Says Noblezada: "When I get told that in the show every night, it’s not just a reminder to Sally, it absolutely speaks to me to my skeleton.”
Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club also stars Calvin Leon Smith as Clifford Bradshaw, Steven Skybell as Herr Schultz, Bebe Neuwirth as Fraulein Schneider, Henry Gottfried as Ernst Ludwig, and Michelle Aravena as Fritzie/Kost.
As in the production's West End run, the theatre has been transformed into an in-the-round Kit Kat Club. Ticket holders receive a "club entry time" before their show date so that everyone's able to take in the pre-show, which can even include a full dinner at some ticket levels. The prologue company, a group of 12 dancers and musicians, welcome theatregoers with a pre-show performance beginning approximately 75 minutes prior to curtain time.
Based on Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin and John Van Druten's dramatization of it, I Am a Camera, John Kander and Fred Ebb's Cabaret is set in Weimar-era Berlin as American writer Clifford Bradshaw arrives to work on his novel and soak up the debaucherous nightlife. He meets English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and a complex relationship develops, all as the Nazis ascend to power and the spectre of World War II and all its horrors loom on the horizon.
The creative team also includes choreographer Julia Cheng; club, set, and costume designer Tom Scutt; lighting designer Isabella Byrd; sound designer Nick Lidster (for Autograph); and music supervisor and director Jennifer Whyte. Hair and wig design are by Sam Cox, and Guy Common is handling makeup design. Prologue composition and music direction are by Angus MacRae, with Jordan Fein serving as prologue director. Casting is by Bernard Telsey and Kristian Charbonier, and Thomas Recktenwald serves as production stage manager.
READ: In Cabaret, Set and Costume Designer Tom Scutt Wanted to Celebrate Queer Individuality
Visit KitKat.club. See the current Cabaret cast below.
