Interview: Amanda Palmer to star in "really, really fucking dark" production of Cabaret at the American Repertory Theatre this fall

AMANDA PALMER swore us to secrecy last month, but now that the cat's coming out of the bag (when the ART reveals its fall schedule tomorrow morning), we can tell you that Amanda has signed on to star as the Emcee in an American Repertory Theatre production of CABARET to be staged in September at Club Oberon in Harvard Square, the same place she kicked off her ill-fated Evelyn Evelyn tour just weeks ago. "I can tell you this much," she says, "it's going to be really, really fucking dark. The darkest production of Cabaret you've ever seen."

Amanda's return to the ART comes as something of a surprise, since the last time she attempted to team up with AmRep, she was less than satisfied with the results. The Dresden Dolls had agreed to team up with director Marcus Stern to create an experimental piece called The Onion Cellar, but Palmer and Stern didn't see eye to eye, and by the time the curtain went up, Palmer was pre-emptively, and very publicly, criticizing the finished product. Since then, however, there's been regime change at the ART -- with the arrival of new artistic director Diane Paulus -- and Palmer is stoked to give the stage another shot. 

"I'm happy to go back there and work on another project," Palmer told The Phoenix just before the Evelyn Evelyn gigs.  "The Onion Cellar was a huge success and people liked it, but creatively it was a disaster for me. This time, the entire team is, um, mine." 

That includes Palmer's friend, the musical director Lance Horne (who has also been musical director for another Cabaret Emcee, Alan Cumming), and a hand-picked director -- STEVEN BOGART, Palmer's high-school drama teacher at Lexington High, with whom she collaborated last year on a musical based on Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over the Sea. In fact, Palmer says, "one of the things that we considered doing at the ART was that. And then I thought, let's do something that we can completely knock out of the park, that everyone will come see no matter what. The Neutral Milk Hotel musical -- the show was incredible and I loved it. And everyone who saw it, loved it. But it was really weird. And kind of a hard sell to the general public. And I wanted my re-entry into the ART to be completely, y'know, drop-jaw sold-out, let's just go in and kill it. And the Neutral Milk Hotel play would have been somewhat riskier. So I thought, I've got my whole life to do shows in Boston, let me start with something perfect."

No word on when tickets go on-sale, but stay tuned.  "It's going to be incredible," says Palmer. "It's this great mashup of perfect people. I'm also really excited to have a reason to stay in Boston for four months."