Orville Peck and Eva Noblezada come to the 'Cabaret'

Country music star Peck makes his Broadway debut, and Noblezada headlines her second NYC musical this spring alone, in the Tony Award-winning musical revival.

For Orville Peck and Eva Noblezada, life is beautiful. Peck’s star has been on the rise, even from behind his trademark face mask, ever since the 2019 release of his debut country music album Pony. And Noblezada is a stage star on both sides of the pond: This spring alone, she wrapped a run in Broadway's The Great Gatsby, reprised her Tony Award-nominated performance as Eurydice in Hadestown in London, and got engaged.

And from March 31 to July 20, they're coming to Cabaret on Broadway. They're the latest celebs to assume the musical's iconic roles of the Emcee (Peck, in his Broadway debut and unmasked) and Sally Bowles (Noblezada); their predecessors in this Tony Award-winning production, which opened at the August Wilson Theatre in 2024, include Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, and Adam Lambert and Auli'i Cravalho.

Cabaret is set in a Berlin nightclub gradually corrupted by Nazism. The Emcee and Sally, as two of the venue's most prominent performers, reflect "the lightness and the darkness of the performativeness of the Kit Kat Club," as Noblezada put it. In other words, the characters — for better or worse — are responding to the changing sentiments of the club and its clientele in real time, giving the actors the opportunity to deliver performances that are by turns entertaining, shocking, thrilling, and terrifying.

As Peck and Noblezada prepared to step into the Kit Kat Club, New York Theatre Guide quickly caught up with the pair about their experiences of Cabaret both on and off the stage.

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Describe the experience of seeing this production of Cabaret as an audience member.

Eva Noblezada: Still recovering. I saw it with Eddie and Gayle, and I was at a champagne table with my fiancé [Reeve Carney], and I was blown away. After Act 1 ended, I had to pee so bad, but I just sat there and thought, "Oh, shit. I feel this in my fucking bones. I feel this in my vertebrae; it's vibrating."

And then by the end of Act 2, I literally turned to Reeve and I said, "I feel like I know Sally. I feel like I've known her my whole life, and I feel like I've lost her."

Orville Peck: I came and saw it with Adam. It's one of those shows that by the end of Act 1, you don't know if you should clap or not, and especially by the end of the show, you don't even want to clap. But it's so hard to not be affected by the journey that these people go through, and it makes us look at the journey we're going through, potentially right now for a lot of people. Or even just who we are and our complicitness.

The show shreds away all possible things for these characters and leaves them with very, very real decisions to make, and it's relatable.

What made you want to join the show at this point in your career?

Noblezada: Dream role.

Peck: Absolute dream role. And also, a show that feels important right now, which is also a dream. Of course, it's a great piece of theatre, but we get to go up there and feel like it is hopefully making a difference.

What do each of you bring to these iconic roles?

Peck: Why don't we say each other's? I've seen great Sallys; everyone that's done it in this production is incredible. Something Eva is bringing that I really appreciate is a real cleverness and a humanity to Sally.

It's so funny to watch her, especially in Act 1. She's like every gay boy's best friend, and you just fall in love with her because she's genuine and open, and it really makes you empathize with Sally a lot.

Noblezada: Orville, I was also going to say humanity. Normally, I've always seen the Emcee as [...] almost borderline, "Is he there? Is he not?" There's such a humanness, a rawness to Orville's Emcee that, if I were walking into a club and he would be like, "Come in," I'd be like, "Absolutely, I'm sat."

There's a ferocity in his Emcee behind his eyes and the way he moves. It's almost like he's casting a spell over the audience in a good way, until it's not a good thing, and that's also what really frightens me. I'm terrified of the switch he makes [...] how he pulls these stories together and makes something really dangerous all of a sudden, but with a grin on his face.

He geniusly crafts that delicateness between light and darkness so perfectly. I'm really excited for everyone to see it.

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Photo credit: Orville Peck and Eva Noblezada. (Peck photo by Sam Ramirez; Noblezada photo by Caitlin McNaney)