Storm and Wade PCS Cabaret Interview

An interview with Storm Large and Wade McCollum that appears in the Portland Center Stage Cabaret program.

Hunter Wades through the Storm

A Few Moments with the Stars of Cabaret

MEAD HUNTER: Storm and Wade, you are both busier than ever these days, with projects underway in various media. What made you willing to take on the challenge of a live musical extravaganza, playing Sally Bowles and the Emcee in Cabaret?

WADE MCCOLLUM: This is an amazing show with a message that is applicable to today's political climate. It strikes a chord in me about the roles we all play in our current state of governmental abuse. It is a provocative and challenging piece of classic musical theater, and I could not pass up the opportunity to work with Storm and PCS on this incredible story.

STORM LARGE: As an artist, it's very good for your brain to thrust yourself out of the comfort zone. For me, my comfort zone is free style, spontaneous rock n' roll and touring ... plus being the Big Loud Me that I've been forever. This is somewhat more regimented, and though Sally and I share some certain qualities, she's not me. So I'm doing it for my delicious brains.

MEAD: Did you give Chris a hard time about accepting your roles? I know he courted you some time....

STORM: Not a hard time ... we had some lovely dates, meals and laughs while he was courting me. I was hard to nail down because my schedule is constantly changing, and there were other great opportunities that fell in the same time frame ... but he finally got me. He's a charmer, that Chris!

WADE: Like Storm, I was and am juggling many projects and schedules. It is a great problem to have, too many wonderful things ... and having a hard time choosing.

MEAD: You're both popular, well-known faces here in Portland. Does that make it harder for you to disappear completely into your roles?

STORM: We'll see ... I hope not!

WADE: Absolutely not, for me. The essence of the craft of acting is transformation. I love the ultimately compassionate act of transforming into different skins.

MEAD: Storm, Sally Bowles is a mass of contradictions. She wants to be happy, to be in love, but she also worries about becoming conventional ... she longs for stability, yet seems to benefit from the instability of Nazi Germany. How do you inhabit such a quirky character?

STORM: I don't know karate, but I do know CR-RAZY! Sally has the textbook artistic struggles we all have ... I totally relate to wanting to be utterly worshipped, paid well, the toast of every town, yet I want to appear aloof, unfettered and brilliant ... skinny and young, too. Did I mention I want to look skinny and young?

MEAD: And Wade, who is the Emcee? For the audience he's a bit of a cipher – antagonist and protagonist both – but who is he to you?

WADE: The Emcee is the master of ceremonies. The question is: what ceremony are we in? He is the mercurial id in the beginning of the show. He is the archetypal trickster – a dangerous, sexually ambiguous, androgynous siren of sensuality, luring us into the deep shadowy waters of our subconscious ocean. He is a drug-addicted, glorified callboy in a debaucherous 1930s Berlin cabaret doing the best he can to survive in a deluge of fascism, violence and political, racial and economic turmoil. He is the Nazi in us all and the victim of nazism in us all. A paradox...

MEAD: Nowadays, most people know the Cabaret plot through the movie version, as opposed to the play or Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical book The Berlin Stories. What surprises are in store for them with the musical version?

WADE: Well, if we told, it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?

STORM: Wade, as the Emcee, gets naked a lot. YAYYY!!!!!

MEAD: Tell us about life after Cabaret. What's around the corner for you creatively?

WADE: I will be workshopping the musical I have been working on for some time called ONE the musical. We have a brilliant new playwright on the project and we're taking a new approach to the book. I am also heading into a period of intense study and writing – a training pilgrimage of sorts, to study with master artisans to create a semi-autobiographical theater piece. There is more but I will spare you the list of future projects.

STORM: I immediately start pre-production for my next album, to be released in February 2008 ... then I hit the road for another gang of months.

MEAD: Great, but I hope your projects won't be taking you away from Portland completely. What might we do to lure you back?

STORM: Portland is the shiny lure for me. I may travel far and wide and often, but I will always return. This is my home.

WADE: Storm said it best. Portland is the lure. This is home. Though I will travel far and wide and often, I will always return to this amazing cradle of conscious community and kick-ass artists.

Mead Hunter is PCS' Director of Literary & Education Programs.