Orville Peck performs at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park Sunday October 6, 2024.
Will gay country crooner Orville Peck wear one of his signature face masks when he makes his Broadway debut this spring?
That’s what fans of the singer are asking after producers announced this week that Peck will replace Adam Lambert as the Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, starting in March.
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“Leave your troubles outside,” Peck teased on his Instagram page, @orvillepeck. “Catch my Broadway debut as the Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club beginning March 31!”
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Peck will play a 16-week engagement at New York’s August Wilson Theatre from March 31 to July 30. Lambert’s previously-announced last performance as the Emcee will be on Saturday, March 29.
Peck will be joined by two-time Tony Award nominee Eva Noblezada, who is taking over for queer actress Auli’I Cravalho in the role of Sally Bowles. Lambert and Cravalho replaced Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, who opened the musical on Broadway last April.
This will be the first appearance on Broadway for Peck, who’s known for his sultry, bass-baritone voice and highly-theatrical concerts, music videos and annual ‘rodeos’ with numerous other queer performers.
His 2024 album, Stampede, featured collaborations with stars such as Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Beck, Shania Twain and Willie Nelson, with whom he sang Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other. His other albums include Pony in 2019 and Bronco in 2022, along with the EP Show Pony in 2020. He has a reputation for always appearing onstage in a face mask — sometimes fringed, sometimes not — and not showing his face publicly. He said he started wearing a mask so audiences would focus on his music, not his appearance.
Deadline.com first reported the casting change. Peck, 37, said in a statement that he’s wanted to perform in Cabaret for years.
“The Emcee has been my dream role since I was a teenager,” he said. “The nature of the character allows for complete freedom of individual expression. It can be portrayed through such a vast range of emotions, perspectives, and performance styles. That kind of freedom is every actor’s dream.”
The casting changes were announced by producers Adam Speers for ATG Productions, Underbelly, Gavin Kalin Productions, Hunter Arnold , Smith & Brant Theatrical and Wessex Grove. Casting for the two roles after July 20 will be disclosed this summer.
Though this will be Peck’s first appearance on Broadway, it’s not his first theatrical production. A native of South Africa, he was trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and appeared in Peter Pan Goes Wrong at the Apollo Theatre on London’s West End in 2016. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner and last year received the Vito Russo Award at the GLAAD Media Awards, given to an LGBTQ+ media professional who has made a difference in accelerating LGBTQ+ acceptance.
‘I truly cannot believe I’m getting to make my Broadway debut in one of my favorite shows and in probably my favorite role in all of musical theater,” Peck said in a statement. “I grew up in the theater. I was a working actor and a dancer for many years before I started making music. I did the hustle, and the struggle, for a long time, trying to make things happen for myself. But it taught me so much of who I am as a performer and a person, so it feels very full circle to be making a return to it at this point in my career.“
“After such a brilliant collaboration with Adam Lambert, I’m thrilled to be able to bring yet another incredible contemporary musician into the role of the Emcee,” Cabaret director Rebecca Frecknall said in a statement. “Orville brings such theatricality to his own musical performance and has one of the most crystalline voices in music… It’s going to be exciting to see him become a part of our production and hear him sing John Kander and Fred Ebb’s score.”
Based on Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin and John Van Druten’s dramatization of it, I Am a Camera, Cabaret is set in Weimar-era Berlin as American writer Clifford Bradshaw arrives to work on his novel and soak up the nightlife. He meets English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and a complex relationship develops, all as the Nazis rise to power and the specter of World War II looms on the horizon.
The original Cabaret from Kander and Ebb opened on Broadway in 1966. Its 1972 movie adaptation won eight Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Liza Minelli; Best Supporting Actor for Joel Grey and Best Director for Bob Fosse. It holds the record for the most Academy Awards won by a film that didn’t win Best Picture.
For the current production, the August Wilson Theatre has been transformed into an in-the-round Kit Kat Club. Ticket holders receive a “club entry time” before their show date so everyone can take in a pre-show, which can even include a full dinner at some ticket levels. The prologue company, a group of 12 dancers and musicians, welcomes theatergoers with a pre-show performance beginning about 75 minutes before curtain time.
Cabaret also stars two-time Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth as Fraulein Schneider; Calvin Leon Smith as Clifford Bradshaw; Steven Skybell as Herr Schultz; Henry Gottfried as Ernest Ludwig and Michelle Aravena as Fritzie/Kost. Tickets are available at the production’s website.
Orville Peck fans are ecstatic for the singer and are already getting into the spirit of the show.
“Willkommen, Bienvenue, yeehaw,” exclaimed one fan on Instagram. “Fremde, etranger, cowboy,” said another. “Are we finally getting the mask reveal?” asked a third.
Neither Peck nor the producers would say whether the singer will appear with his trademark mask.
As Peck told Variety’s Marc Malkin: “People will have to buy a ticket to find out.”
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