Quick Questions with Peter Miller

The Talon staff sat down with senior Peter Miller to discuss this year’s Cabaret, as well as their upcoming spring break cruise.

Q. What is Valentine Cabaret?

“It’s now just called Cabaret. It was called Valentine Cabaret in past years. It’s a Broadway-style variety show where we have numbers taken from different shows, old and new, so we’ve got things like ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and ‘The Greatest Showman,’ really new shows, as well as a lot of older shows like ‘Kiss Me, Kate.’ We have all sorts of different genres within Broadway, which is a really wide category. There’s solos, group numbers and it’s about a two-hour show. The jazz band is also featured, playing some classic big-name tunes as well.”

Q. What is your favorite part about Cabaret? 

“My favorite part is the big group numbers. They’re huge production numbers. We’ve got some numbers that are really big dance numbers or really big vocal numbers, and those are a lot of work to put together. Those are also my favorite parts of the homecoming musicals, just because the amount of collective effort that goes into it makes it really impressive.”

Q. How much work goes into preparing for Cabaret? 

“So much work goes into preparing Cabaret. We practiced on MLK Day for eight hours, and we practice four hours a night, five days a week, from the Sunday night before school starts, and add a couple more days on starting next week. We’ll be going six and seven days a week, and we do that all the way up until Valentine’s Day weekend, which is when our show is.”

Q. What is your favorite song to perform in this year’s Cabaret?

“It’s a little bit biased. It’s ‘Slap That Bass,’ which is a huge dance number. There’s tap dancing and there’s just a really fun time, some really cool, big group dance effects in there. I enjoy that one a lot.”

Q. What have you learned from being in Cabaret over the years?

“I remember my first year in Cabaret, my freshman year, I was absolutely terrified to sing a solo. It was the first time I had sung in front of people, and then it was just me, by myself, doing it. I think I learned to really just believe in myself and not be afraid to just put myself out there and perform. That’s the hardest part about Cabaret. It’s a small cast in a small theater, and it’s really just you, and the audience is like four feet away from you. It’s really scary, but I’m getting to overcome that fear, and getting to connect with the audience on that close of a level is really awesome.”

Q. How have you seen Cabaret change in the past few years?

“Cabaret has gotten a slightly bigger cast. It went from 16 to 20, and we moved from Adams Recital Hall to Judd, which is now newly renovated and a really pretty place now. We’ve got a bigger audience there, we’ve gotten new lights, we have body mics instead of handheld mics, which is really nice. It’s a lot easier to do dancing with that. It’s gotten a lot more technology and a lot more people, and I think overall, it’s gotten a lot better.”

Q. Can you tell us one song that will be featured?

“We will have a ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ medley, which is my favorite show. I think it’s a lot of people’s favorite. We have a medley of that, and then a smaller ensemble comes forward and sings ‘You Will Be Found,’ and that’s one of my favorite parts of the show. We also have a couple numbers from smaller shows that are lesser well-known, like ‘Big Fish.’ We’ll have a couple solos from there.”

Q. How do you manage to juggle all of your time with engineering, musicals, Cabaret – everything going on in your life?

“Really, actually, a lot of the cast are engineers or definitely not music majors. And, if you’re a music major you still have a lot of homework to do. It’s kind of something everyone has to deal with. We really have to plan ahead and plan out our days. It takes a lot of work, but I think, ultimately if I wasn’t there, I’d be missing it a lot. I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

Q. What can you tell us about the Cabaret’s upcoming performance on the alumni cruise in March?

“We will be performing on a cruise ship; the Liberty of the Seas. That’ll be during spring break, and if you really want to come, you can buy your tickets and come on the cruise with us. That’ll be really exciting. That’s a group of people that I’m sure haven’t heard of Oklahoma Christian, and it’ll be a totally different place to perform than on campus with our friends and family there. And also, we get to go on the cruise and see Honduras and Mexico. It’ll be a really fun time.”

Q. What are you looking forward to the most for the spring break cruise? 

“I think it’s going to be really fun to perform in front of a new audience. I think—not just me, but most of the cast—we really only perform in October or November for the homecoming musical and then Cabaret, so it’ll be really interesting to see how other audiences that aren’t OC audiences react to stuff, and how much fun we can have with it.”

Q. When do tickets go on sale for Cabaret?

“Tickets are on sale now at oc.edu/cabaret.”

Q. Why would you encourage people to come to Valentine Cabaret this year?

“This year, I think, is going to be a really good year for Cabaret. I’ve been in it four years, and I think this is the best year. We have a ton of really big group numbers, which are just so exciting to watch because there are 20 people on stage, different choreography and different words, a lot of things going on, all at the same time. There’s going to be a lot of that. There’s going to be some really good solos, too and some really sad, emotional moments as well. I think this Cabaret has more effort and more group numbers going into it. It’s going to really show, I think, once we have it together.”