Orville Peck wore a mask at his Broadway debut, after all.
The gay country singer who’s famous for wearing a mask during his concerts performed without one for his three-hour performance as the Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club on March 31. This was the first show in a 16-week engagement at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway.
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“Willkommen, Bienvenue, yeehaw,” exclaimed one elated fan.
But for his curtain call, after completing the entire show without a mask, Peck reappeared on stage in the suit he wore at the end of the second act and a black Lone Ranger mask over his eyes, as if to signal that he was no longer the Emcee at the Kit Kat Club but back to being Orville Peck again. It was the perfect way to cap a most revealing performance, which received a standing ovation from a sold-out house on West 52nd Street.
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Peck was one of three new cast members in the show, replacing Adam Lambert in the role of the Emcee. Two-time Tony nominee Eva Noblezada replaced queer actress Auli’l Cravalho as Sally Bowles and Ellen Harvey replaced Bebe Neuwirth as Fraulein Schneider.
Peck had made it clear before he took over that he wouldn’t be wearing his signature mask during the show.
“The mask is part of my expression personally as an artist and a very big personal part of me,” he told The New York Times in an interview published last month. “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.”
Ever since his debut album Pony came out in 2019, Peck has developed a reputation as the mysterious gay crooner who always appears onstage in a mask—sometimes fringed, sometimes not—and doesn’t show his face publicly. He has said he does this so audiences will focus on his music, not his appearance.
But performing in a scripted musical is different from appearing in a concert. Peck told the Times that he wouldn’t necessarily have gone maskless for just any show, “but this is probably my favorite musical of all time.”
His confirmation only sparked more interest from fans who have never seen him without a mask. What will he look like underneath? For weeks, social media outlets – including Peck’s own Instagram story – have posted teasers showing glimpses of his face.
Based on Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin and John Van Druten’s dramatization of it, I Am a Camera, Cabaret is set in Weimar-era Berlin as American writer Clifford Bradshaw, played by Calvin Leon Smith, arrives to work on his novel and soak up the nightlife. He meets English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and a complicated relationship develops, all as the Nazis rise to power and the specter of World War II looms.
Peck’s first show was sold out, and the audience was a mix of New York Goths, Broadway sophisticates, and yeehaw country cowfolx. A few wore fringed masks, and others wore leather vests and pants. One man wore a baseball jacket with STAMPEDE on the back. People started lining up outside the theater before 5 p.m., some having traveled from around the country.
The August Wilson Theatre has been transformed into an in-the-round cabaret, with a company of dancers and musicians welcoming the audience before the show and table seating near the stage offering close-up views of the performers. Photography isn’t allowed inside the theater, but just as he told the Times, Peck never wore a mask during the show. At the same time, he was in heavy makeup during the first act, including dark shadowing around his eyes, and the effect was almost as if he were wearing a mask.
Peck’s costumes left little to the imagination, showing off his well-toned body. At one point, he was so close to naked that the audience could count how many tattoos he has. All he had on was a modified jock strap with red hearts that read DANKE over his crotch and BITTE on his bum. He was lithe and expressive as a dancer. He broke into a sort of German accent some of the time – saying “togezzer” for together and “zee” for see – but it worked. Others will judge his singing, but the range in his voice was much more than the deep baritone for which he’s best known.
At the end of Act II, as the Cabaret in the show becomes more conservative with the Nazis taking over, the Emcee was in no makeup at all and looking very clean-cut and straight-laced, with short combed hair that looked almost blond under the spotlights. That’s what made Peck’s decision to wear a mask for his curtain call both jarring and satisfying. It brought home that this is an artist in transition – on to a new phase of his career but also still Orville Peck inside.
In his interview with The New York Times, Peck mentioned one other place in the city where he doesn’t wear a mask. He said he enjoys hanging out with friends at The Eagle NYC, a gay leather bar, and doesn’t cover his face there. While wearing a mask would make most people more anonymous because it makes them harder to recognize, he observed, it has the opposite effect for him because most people don’t know what he looks underneath the mask but they do know the man in the mask as Orville Peck.
“The irony is that if I put my mask on, I’m suddenly not anonymous anymore,” he said. “The weird part is for me to be anonymous” without a mask.
After the show, Peck came out on the street and signed autographs in the rain for nearly half an hour, chatting and posing for selfies with a few lucky fans. As with the curtain call, he had his black mask on, and he added a red felt cowboy hat and red jacket – more of the transition back to Orville Peck.
For one admirer, Peck signed a poster from his nude photoshoot for Paper magazine. He signed the inside of another fan’s fringed mask. He was more than generous with his time, laughing with the crowd and clearly relieved to have the first show behind him. Then he rode off into the night, ready to do it all over again for 16 more weeks.
Peck’s and Noblezada’s limited engagements run through July 20, 2025. Tickets are available at the production’s website.
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