The Cabaret at the Commons has promised a “wicked” start to its 2025 spring season.
On Feb. 13, join Tony award winning actor Norbert Leo Butz at The Commons as he dances through his Broadway life.
Titled “Broadway, My Way,” Butz said he will take the audience through a retrospective of his Broadway career, how he came from a large Catholic family in Missouri to the Broadway stage and winning two Tony awards.
He plans to perform songs from many of his Broadway performances, from “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” to “The Last Five Years” to “Catch Me If You Can.”
Fans of “Wicked” can also anticipate fun introductions to some of the songs they know and love in new and surprising ways, as Butz and pianist Andy Roninson have arranged them for guitar and piano, he said.
“Like for instance, that big song ‘Dancing Through Life’ that I sang in ‘Wicked,’ we found a version of it that hopefully will surprise the audience, it’s more like a coffeehouse version of that song,” Butz said. “So, I think people will have fun hearing these songs in different contexts.”
Audience members can also expect to hear covers of songs by artists including Tom Waits, Elton John and Bruce Springsteen, in addition to some of his original compositions. Butz said he also enjoys telling the stories behind the songs, the shows and how lucky he said he has been to have worked with great composers.
“One thing I like to say is somebody with the most unlucky name in show business got really, really lucky,” Butz said. “I had moved to New York in 1996 and two months after I had moved here, I was playing the lead role in a Broadway show. I’d never even seen a Broadway show and was playing the lead in “Rent.” Just stories like that, these kind of incredible strokes of luck that I’ve had.”
As a fellow Midwesterner himself, Butz said he’s looking forward to performing in Columbus for the first time and cannot wait to share some of his stories. He compared his upcoming performance to a private concert, one where the audience feels as though they have been invited backstage for an insiders’ view on how Broadway shows are produced. Those attending can anticipate a night that’s sure to be fun for fans of Broadway and music lovers of all ages, he said.
“It’s a night with a really wide range of musical styles. I’m a singer who likes to sing in a lot of different styles, so there’s some jazz, there’s some rock n’ roll, there’s some classic Broadway, there’s even a couple of folk ballads,” Butz said. “I love interpreting music from a lot of different styles, so it’s a very wide reaching musical palette.”
Butz’s performance begins at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, and tickets can be purchased at thecip.org. Single show tickets cost $85 for Platinum, $65 for Gold and $55 for Silver. Purchasing a Platinum table costs $450 for six people, $480 for eight people for a Gold table and $400 for eight people for a Silver table. Platinum tickets for the entire series cost $225, Gold tickets cost $180 and Silver tickets cost $150.
