Orville Peck won’t be sporting his signature mask when he debuts as Emcee in Broadway’s “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” later this month.
The alt-country crooner, who has never revealed his face publicly under his artist persona, confirmed the news in an interview with the New York Times on Monday.
“The mask is part of my expression personally as an artist and a very big personal part of me,” Peck said. “But I’m here to play this role and to bring respect and integrity and hopefully a good performance to it. It’s not about me. I’m not trying to make it the Orville Peck show.”
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Since his debut album, 2019’s “Pony,” Peck hasn’t been seen without some sort of facial covering, though the shape and size of it shifts. But with “Cabaret,” where he’ll star alongside Eva Noblezada as Sally Bowles, that all changes.
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“I wouldn’t have necessarily done this for just anything,” Peck told the Times. “But this is probably my favorite musical of all time.”
He’ll replace Adam Lambert, who is currently leading Broadway’s “Cabaret” revival, beginning March 31 through July 20. Speaking to Variety in January after the announcement of his Broadway debut, Peck said it was always a dream of his to play the eccentric Emcee.
“I grew up as an actor and doing theater, and for a lot of people this is a really coveted role in musical theater because it’s so open to interpretation and an incredible character,” he said.
According to the New York Times, who caught a peek at Peck during rehearsal, his Emcee appears to have been informed by his days coming up in the Canadian punk scene. He “looked less like a German fop welcoming the curious to a Berlin nightclub and more like the Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins summoning the sweaty to a mosh pit circa 1984,” the Times’ Erik Piepenburg wrote.
Read the Times’ full interview with Peck here.
