Orlando – The Mad Cow Theater’s 12th annual Orlando Cabaret Festival is set to debut on April 24, and this year it’s bringing in some pretty big names. Tony Award-winner Laura Benanti, Tony Award-nominee Christiane Noll, and former One Life to Live star Nicholas Rodriguez are headlining the 18-day festival, which will also showcase Central Florida’s local talent through May 11.
While several Tony Award nominees have performed in previous years, Benanti, who won the 2008 Tony Award for her role as Louise in a revival of the musical Gypsy, will be the first Tony Award winner to perform at the festival.
David Mink, Mad Cow’s Director of Audience Development, promises that the 2014 festival line up will not disappoint. He also said this year’s acts are particularly LGBT-friendly.
“Laura Benanti has a very large following in the LGBT community. She does things to support the LGBT community and has been an outspoken ally,” says Mink. “She often speaks highly of her [LGBT] friends in her performances…she jokes that she was born a 45-year old, gay man.”
Benanti’s solo show In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention comes to the festival on May 9 and 10.
Rodriguez gained wide-recognition for his portrayal of a gay character on the ABC soap opera One Life to Life in 2009. His character Nick Chavez was ensnared in a love triangle with gay couple Kyle Lewis and Oliver Fish.
“He’s a phenomenal talent. Just an amazingly kind person,” says Mink. “He’s got a huge following because he had a pivotal storyline on One Life to Live as a gay character.”
Rodriguez’ is scheduled to perform his cabaret act The First Time on May 1 and 2. He says the show is a personal exploration of life, love and loss through music.
“[My show] is definitely personal. It’s not just stories about my career. For the audiences that are just getting to know me, this is kind of the soundtrack of who I am. It’s kind of a great introduction to who I am as a person and an artist,” says Rodriguez. “It’s a little bit country, a little bit rock, a little bit music theater.”
Rodriguez told Watermark that he is incredibly proud of his stint on One Life to Live, but he said that he does not really have any agenda other than to be authentic as both an artist and an individual.
“Whenever I do a role, I approach it as honoring the role and honoring myself. I’m a gay man who happens to play gay men sometimes and I’m a gay man who plays straight men sometimes. It’s just the character,” Rodriguez says.
Rodriguez came out when he was 22 and just recently celebrated his eleven-year anniversary with his partner, Matt Lenz.
Even with all of the progress that has been made toward LGBT equality, Rodriguez says being an openly gay actor is still a challenge.
“I think if you’re openly gay, it’s a lot easier [to get type-cast] as a gay character. It’s still a bit of an uphill climb,” says Rodriguez. “I try to look at the positive side of it. I still get opportunities. I still get auditions. I try not to be defeatist about it but I’m also not naïve enough to think that it’s completely equal opportunity. It’s not. We’re not there yet. You just have to keep showing up and doing good work.”
In addition to One Life to Live, Rodriguez has starred as Tarzan in Disney’s Broadway production, appeared in the film Sex and the City 2 and was in several Off-Broadway shows. He recently performed opposite Kathleen Turner in the play Mother Courage and her Children at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
Even though it can be difficult for openly gay actors to get straight roles, Rodriguez said the theater world tends to be more open-minded. He recently played the role of cowboy Curley McLain in the musical Oklahoma! at the Arena Stage. Rodriguez said the production also featured an interracial cast.
“We can expand our thinking,” says Rodriguez. “I think it’s about educating audiences. We’ve yet to have a strong, gay film star that gets to play heterosexual roles. That’s going to break down a lot barriers once we have that happen. It’s a lot easier in theater and to some extent television than film.”
Mink echoes Rodriguez’s sentiment regarding how cabaret is an intimate way for the audience to get to know artists.
“Here you get to know the art of cabaret…which what is one of the wonderful things about this type of performance is…you actually get to know the individual,” says Mink. “They tell you personal stories and they sing songs. It’s like hanging out with a friend in your living room and having a little pow-wow.”
This year’s festival line up will feature 11 unique acts including Benanti and Rodriguez . Some will be one-time only performances, but most of the acts will have multiple showings. While Mink thinks everyone should see everything at the festival, he said some of this year’s highlights include headliners Benanti, Noll and Rodriguez, a Mother’s Day cabaret brunch, the “It Was a Very Good Year” series, and the festival’s weekday, lunchtime performances.
“The [Orlando] Cabaret Festival is a celebration of music; it’s a celebration of life, a celebration of story-telling and they all collide in one event,” says Mink. “We bring together artists from all over the country. We feature local artists who you may have seen on our Mad Cow stages but some of them have not performed on our stages before. ”
Mink describes the festival’s musical repertoire as a blend of different styles from Broadway to jazz to pop featuring both classical and contemporary tunes.
The Orlando Cabaret Festival first launched in 2003 and is the longest-running cabaret festival in the United States. The Adelaide Cabaret Festival, which began in 2001, is the longest-running cabaret festival in the world.
“The Adelaide festival only has two years on us,” boasts Mink. “We are really proud of this festival. It’s a really fantastic opportunity for Central Florida to get this wonderful burst of this style of story-telling music where the shows feature songs that people might be familiar with and might not.”
More Info:
WHAT: Orlando Cabaret Festival
WHERE: Mad Cow Theatre
WHEN: April 24-May 11
TICKETS: OrlandoCabaretFestival.com
