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Cellar and I had a really tough time collaborating, and
that made the show a difficult experience. It was still a
good show, but my heart wasn’t in it. And my heart wasn’t
in it for 43 productions. [laughs] I threw myself into it as
best I could, and it wound up being a success and a really
satisfying experience, but mostly because I felt like I got
a really solid education in how to work. I walked into that
project very naïvely, and I walked out decades wiser.
Compared with that production, this production feels
like a fantasy because every single person on the artistic
side is a close friend or respected collaborator. I love
working with Steve Bogart, and the movement director
Steven Mitchell Wright I imported from Australia. The
music director is my great friend Lance Horne. On and on
and on. The whole thing feels like a beautiful family, and
that’s also why I love theatre. I think for anyone who just
has a passion for making theatre, you know it’s not just
about the work that you’re doing in the rehearsal room,
it’s about the family you create around you. I feel that
family now. I didn’t feel that family in The Onion Cellar. It
left me feeling like an orphan during that show because I
always associated theatre with that feeling of life or death
and close-knit community and decisions that would affect
everybody—and a lot of respect, a lot of talking and a lot
of sharing—and I wasn’t used to the professional, colder,
more detached approach to theatre that I felt that production
had and was really bumming me out. This really
feels like a perfect homecoming in every way.
Amanda Palmer speaks to the American Repertory
Theatre cast of Cabaret at an early rehearsal.
www.stage-directions.com/amandapalmer
ONLINE BONUS
For a longer version of this interview,
including info on Palmer’s
production of Hotel Blanc, visit
www.stage-directions.com/
amandapalmer
Kati Mitchell
www.stage-directions.com • October 2010 17