Auli’i Cravalho and Adam Lambert Descend to New Depths as Cabaret’s Sally Bowles and Emcee

The last time Adam Lambert performed in New York, he was belting “Fat Bottomed Girls,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Who Wants to Live Forever” to a packed crowd at Madison Square Garden in his sometime role as the frontman of Queen.

Auliʻi Cravalho, meanwhile, is best known as the voice of Moana—the island-born, sea-voyaging Disney Princess who sings the self-empowerment anthem “How Far I’ll Go.”

Earlier this month, the duo stepped into two much darker roles in a very different setting, taking over as Cabaret’s Emcee and Sally Bowles at the August Wilson Theatre/Kit Kat Club. They spoke to Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek for The Broadway Show during their final week of rehearsals.

Welcome to Broadway. How does that feel? I know you both have had dreams of this moment of making a Broadway debut for a long time.

AULI’I: It's funny. We started off in, of course, a rehearsal space and I felt so strong there. And then moving here because our stage is in a round, I'm spinning like a top. I go, "Where is upstage and downstage?"

ADAM: Same.

AULI’I: Thankfully, the music brings me back. I'm on that emotional journey rollercoaster whether I like it or not, so that's helpful. But we still have some time to get rehearsing and I'm going to need it.

Where are the emotions for you right now, Adam?

ADAM: I'm excited. It's such a full-circle feeling. I feel like I was on this trajectory in my 20s. I did a national tour of Wicked. And then I took the fork in the road to go on American Idol and that took me on the last 15 years of this other thing, which I've totally enjoyed and I'm still on it. But coming back to this is like, "Oh, yeah. This is what I wanted when I was a kid. This is what I thought I was going to be doing." So it feels like I've gone back in time in a way. I feel like I'm 30 again because I'm doing what I was doing then and it feels really good. And I love being in a cast on a stage. I missed theater people. I missed the community. Pop music is really fun, rock music is really fun, but it gets a little lonely. And working with a cast and a team like this, I really missed it. 

I have to tell you I actually first met you 20 years ago this month at the Kodak Theater. You were starring in the Ten Commandments musical. We all needed a Ten Commandments musical.

ADAM: And I don't think anybody wanted it.

But you were fantastic. I specifically remember in the show, having one of those moments in the dark of looking at my Playbill and going, "Who is this? Who is this kid?" because you were so fantastic.

ADAM: Oh, thanks.

So it's taken a while, but we're thrilled you're here.

ADAM: Thank you.

So Cabaret, obviously it's a classic musical. I think you guys both know classic musicals. You did a lot of classic musicals when you were a kid.

ADAM: I'm a show pony. I'm a theater queen for days.

Is there a 13-year-old version of the Emcee that there's a video of?

ADAM: Duh, yeah. I sang a couple of the songs—in a recital format. 

And what about you, Auli’i?

AULI’I: I grew up in a small island in the middle of the sea, so no. There are no videos of me playing Sally. I truly was not introduced to this story until I was in my late teens and I watched the queen, Liza Minnelli, in the film. So coming to this now, to say it's a dream come true, I didn't even know this was possible. I was a theater kid who didn't have an outlet so I was tortured by playing piano every Saturday. My mom tried to get me into baton twirling. 

I feel like you could maybe throw that into your Sally Bowles, some baton twirling.

AULI’I: No. Do not tell anyone that. I am not looking for any more choreo.

ADAM: My parents were trying to get me out of baton twirling. I was just doing all sorts of things in my bedroom.

AULI’I: I'm happy to be here now.

This production is wild and it's very 360. It's very immersive. What was it like when you first saw it and sort of entertained the idea of being up there in the middle of it? I mean, you really are working this entire club. It's wild.

ADAM: It's interesting. It's like a new muscle that you have to kind of tune into because so many of us are used to just the regular proscenium where you flatten everything out. You know what I mean? This is different. It's abstract. It's cool.

AULI’I: And like you said, it's very immersive, truly interacting with these front tables. The Emcee does a wonderful job of this and it's truly your job to also introduce everyone like they are truly here in the club with us, which helps on that emotional journey, also, of starting out in this tawdry, beautiful place where everything and anything goes, till the very end of our show where we're all in suits and all buttoned up very tightly. And seeing that rise and fall, I think, for the audience who have been included in this story, it emotionally affects them, which is, I think, the entire point of theater.

It's also such a beautiful, queer safe space, the Kit Kat Club. Right? There's so much about that in the experience of coming. I actually saw this show again a few weeks ago and it was a very sort of tourist crowd. It's been playing for a while and it was really fun to watch them all experience it. I love that. Is that exciting for you?

ADAM: I think that's one of the things that drew me to the show. This role and this show in general, I know, have always been very subversive. The queer through line of it has always existed since the beginning, but has gotten pulled out more and more, I think, over the years, which I also really love. I think one of the things that's really exciting about this too is that coming in to replace two incredible stars obviously is a little intimidating.

AULI’I: Yeah.

ADAM: But what's been amazing is that the creative team have been very open and collaborative. They've been like, "How do you see the part? What do you want to bring to it?" And I think that's what's going to make it such a valuable theater experience, for those of us on stage and for the audience, is that it's coming from reality. We're drawing on bits of ourselves for these parts and we've been given the freedom to do so.

But you will be wearing the cute little birthday hat.

ADAM: Oh, yeah, which I might not rock down the street. But Tom's design of this whole thing is another thing that drew me to it. There's a fashion language happening. It looks like an editorial. I love that.

And you mentioned Liza Minnelli already, and obviously so many incredible performers have played these roles in past Broadway productions and on film, and it's exciting to get to put yourself into it, right? So what about Sally Bowles? It's so fun to watch you, Disney Girl, explore all the sides of yourself. Also, in the Mean Girls film, you were fantastic in that.

AULI’I: Thank you.

What is it like to get to play someone like Sally Bowles?

AULI’I: Oh, it's a dream. I have been fighting for my life to get out of playing high-school roles. There's such a meat to Sally, starting off with Don’t Tell Mama where this is a large number. She's larger than life. She is Beyoncé on that stage. And by the time we get to Cabaret, when she's washed all of her makeup off and in a men's oversized suit and having an abortion, we're meeting the Sally that is not Beyoncé. The one who can't look herself in the mirror. The one who is in a society that truly doesn't care for women. The one who is feeling the world crumble around her. And I think everyone can relate to that. Everyone has their own Sally.

It's going to be fascinating to see you do that. And you mentioned it already, but you get to sort of hold the audience in the palm of your hand every night. Right, Adam? He's this amazing narrator.

ADAM: It's interesting. The Emcee exists outside of reality a little bit. I feel like he is orchestrating the evening in some ways. He's commenting on things. He's the ringmaster. He's the host. He exists both in the real world of the club and in some more abstract moments that exist in the piece. I feel like a lot of the scenes and the songs that are happening inside of the Kit Kat Club are sort of reflections of what's going on inside Sally's mind or what's going on in Germany at the time. It's all very metaphorical.

And it gets really dark in the second act. That's the thing that I love about this show, the second act just really flips the whole thing upside down and it becomes, "Oh, wait. This isn't fun anymore." You know what I mean? It becomes about, oh, anti-Semitism, fascism, misogyny. It becomes about a lot of things that are scary and very real today. So that's the other thing that really is wild about this, is that this show is still timely. And it's been 60 years and we're still dealing with the same things.

Great art makes you uncomfortable.

ADAM: It sure does.

AULI’I: Absolutely.

I’m curious. What do you think is your biggest dream for this Broadway run?

AULI’I: Letting go of that perfectionism that I've learned from doing film and being able to have one take and then sitting with it for months until it finally premieres and you go, "Oh, I hope that's fine," because that's all we got. In theater, you have to do the homework before and let it all go. And the joy is in being able to live in that moment and letting it breathe on stage, which I am so ready to do.

ADAM: I agree. I'm excited to get back into the acting part of it because I started off as an actor and I really missed it. It's fun to work on a character and tell a story with more than just a three-minute pop song. There's just more depth to it and you can find new things in the character every night. It feels really good.