Life Is a ‘Cabaret’: Bebe Neuwirth’s Latest Role Is a High-Stakes Broadway Homecoming

variety.com:

Bebe Neuwirth calls herself a “theater rat.” So it’s natural she’d be sitting in an old-school New York diner on Eighth Avenue, on the edge of the Broadway district, right around the corner from where she’s in rehearsals for her latest show, “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.” Less than two weeks from its April 21 opening, Neuwirth’s midday order is a simple one: English breakfast, hot and black.

She doesn’t need the overflowing pile of creamer the waiter brings, but she’ll take that little dish for her teabag. Once that’s settled, she explains how she scored the part of Fräulein Schneider, the owner of a boardinghouse in 1930s Berlin whose late-in-life romance with a Jew suddenly turns dangerous: She auditioned, just like everyone else.

Given all the trophies on her shelf (she’s won two Tonys and two Emmys), Neuwirth doesn’t often have to audition — in fact, some actors with bigger egos would find the ask insulting.

But Neuwirth has the attitude of a performer who values the work above all else. “My agent was so apologetic about it, but I kept saying, ‘It’s fine, it’s absolutely fine,’” she says. “I like to audition.” Smaller than you might imagine her, Neuwirth moves with the precise spatial awareness you’d expect of someone with a lifelong background in dance — instead of a handshake, for instance, she rises from her chair for a waggish curtsy — but that kind of grace feels so effortless on her you almost don’t notice.