40 | APRIL 22 • 2021 

J

osh Young, a Tony Award 
nominee, often performs 
in cabaret style on pres-
tigious stages. He sometimes 
appears in cabaret shows with 
his wife, Emily Padgett, also 
with Broadway credits, and he 
regularly teaches cabaret enter-
tainment at Oakland University 
in Rochester.
Although the couple’s live 
performances have been side-
lined during the pandemic, 
Young and Padgett will be 
onstage at the Berman Center 
for the Performing Arts in West 
Bloomfield, joined by pianist 
Frank Pitts, to give the sense of a 
live show although there will not 
be a live audience.
The performance, hosted 
by Cabaret 313, will be taped 
and presented online at 8 p.m. 
Friday, April 30.
“We’re doing an evening of 
Andrew Lloyd Webber songs 
with stories of how his music 
has affected my career and my 
life and how it has affected my 
wife’s career as well. 
“We go from my first inter-
action with Andrew Lloyd 
Webber music, which was when 
I was working at the Stratford 
Festival in the musical Evita, and 
move into the next year, when 
the festival cast me in Jesus Christ 
Superstar, which eventually 
became my debut on Broadway. 
Emily’s first big Webber show was 
Cats, and she will be debuting a 
medley of Cats songs.
”
Although neither appeared in 
Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, 
they will be presenting the song 
“
All I Ask of You,
” which con-
tinues its popularity apart from 
the production. Other Webber 
shows providing plentiful materi-
al include School of Rock, Sunset 
Boulevard and Joseph and the 
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. 

“We talk a bit about back-
stage fun and insight,
” Young 
explained about the kinds of 
behind-the-scenes experiences of 
a performance. “I was working for 
Andrew and did well by him, but 
he wouldn’t cast me in Phantom 
of the Opera because they have 
different height restrictions. 
[Audiences] wouldn’t know about 
the industry without these stories.
”

TEACHING CABARET
Young, who grew up in 
Philadelphia and attended syn-
agogue services, graduated in 
theater studies from Syracuse 
University and soon toured with 
Les Misérables, which brought 
him to the Fisher Theatre.
Besides accepting Broadway 

roles, Young has worked in 
regional theaters including the 
La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore 
Center Stage and North Carolina 
Theatre. He is the cofounder of 
“Cutting-Edge Composers,
” a 
concert series on broadwayworld.
com to spotlight young theater 
songwriters.“If I appreciate music, 
I want to sing it,
” Young said. “
All 
the songs that we’ve chosen for 
Cabaret 313 are songs that we 
appreciate and enjoy performing.
”
Young, assistant professor 
of theater at Oakland U. since 
2019, uses his international stage 
background to establish curricu-
lum as he teaches Advance Song 
Analysis, Acting the Song and 
Professional Practices as well 
as Constructing the Cabaret: 
Conception to Concert.
“Performing has brought ful-

fillment, but my long goal was 
to settle down with a family,
” 
said Young, 40, whose time in 
Michigan has included celebrat-
ing the birth of two children, ages 
2 years and 4 months. “Teaching 
has given me stability. 
“Because Oakland is a research 
university, it gives me the ability to 
still perform. We actually have to 
keep working in our industry so 
we have the best of both worlds.
”
Although the couple had to 
cancel live performances with the 
Toronto Symphony Orchestra 
and the Philadelphia Orchestra 
because of pandemic closures, 
they look forward to perform-
ing with the Detroit Symphony 
Orchestra in March 2022, 
when they will feature songs by 
Rodgers and Hammerstein.
“We actually ended up being 
one of the only universities that 
taught in person,
” said Young, 
who has traveled to Jerusalem to 
portray Shlomo Carlebach in Soul 
Doctor. “I used the Meadow Brook 
Theatre’s loading dock, exhaust 
fans and video and audio tech-
nology to have students tape live 
while following COVID restric-
tions. Most universities did one-
on-one Zoom [programming].
”
As Young and Padgett present 
their Webber programming, he 
will be demonstrating a critical 
lesson about cabaret. 
“The most important thing is 
that there’s some kind of through 
line,
” he explained. “It doesn’t 
have to be so much a story as 
long as there’s some kind of 
theme. Whatever connects the 
songs also has to be engaging 
with some kind of humor.
” 

Details 
The Josh Young and Emily 
Padgett performance will 
be shown online at 8 p.m. 
Friday, April 30. To purchase 
pay-what-you-can tickets, go 
to Cabaret313.org and then 
receive a private link to the 
show. Suggested prices: $15-
$40.

ARTS&LIFE
MUSICAL THEATER

Musical couple stages Broadway 
songs for digital viewers.
CABARET 313

SUZANNE CHESSLER 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Emily 
Padgett and 
Josh Young

