NEW YORK – Get ready to say willkommen to the next stars to enter the Kit Kat Club on Broadway — Adam Lambert and Auli’i Cravalho,
Producers of the Tony Award-nominated revival revealed Wednesday that Lambert, the singer-songwriter who has fronted Queen, and Cravalho, the voice of the title character in Disney's animated musical film "Moana, " will play the Emcee and Sally Bowles, respectively, in the current revival of “Cabaret.”
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The two — each making their Broadway debuts — will take over for English actors Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, who both earned Tony Award nominations for their parts. The newcomers will start Sept. 16 and play through the end of March.
“I feel so lucky to have this baton passed to Adam and I,” said Cravalho in an email from Indonesia. She noted that she saw the musical before her audition, pen and paper in hand. “The show feels so fresh and current.”
Lambert, who has just released his new dance-centric EP “Afters,” started his career in musical theater— he was in the ensemble of the first national tour of “Wicked” and later was in the show in Los Angeles for two years. “It sounds cliche, but this is literally a childhood dream,” he said by phone.
He steps into the sinister and lascivious role of master of ceremonies, one made famous by Joel Grey and Alan Cumming. Redmayne's take was more dark and audacious.
“I get the role. I get who he is. I’m excited about it. I think it works with my skill set,” Lambert says. “And I’m really, really excited to be in a cast again because with pop music, it’s like it’s all on you. To be able to do a show with a whole team of people onstage, it’s what I miss.”
“Cabaret,” about the collapse of democracy and rise of fascism in Germany, centers on the world of the indulgent Kit Kat Klub in Berlin as it becomes more precarious on the brink of World War II. The songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb include “Willkommen” and “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.”
“It’s so timely right now. We’re potentially on the verge of fascism again, just like they were then,” says Lambert. “There’s so many parallels to what’s going on in the real world, which is what I think gives it so much weight, and so much validity.”
Cravalho, who appeared in “The Power” on Amazon, NBC's drama “Rise” and Netflix’s “All Together Now,” also starred in the film adaptation of Tina Fey’s Broadway “Mean Girls: The Musical.”
She next takes up one of the stage's most iconic roles, one created by Liza Minnelli. Others who have played Sally Bowles on Broadway include Natasha Richardson, Michelle Williams, Emma Stone and Sienna Miller.
Cravalho recalls listening to the Minnelli-led cast album as a child in Hawaii and looks forward to tackling the number “Don’t Tell Mama” because of “the movement needed to bring it to life.”
“I’m thrilled to be playing a character whose background isn’t really established. Sally is incredibly clever, and always using her wits to find her next bed or drink. But the fun really comes in the detail work,” she said.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits