Catching up with Rock Star Supernova Storm Large

Portland, Ore., rocker and actress Storm Large will be playing the nightclub singer Sally Bowles in Cabaret, the racy musical opening Wednesday at Geva Theatre Center.

Wherever Large performs, scores of admirers fly in to cheer her on. At least 50 are expected in Rochester — mostly from the East Coast, but a few from as far as England, Puerto Rico and Argentina.

“My fans are super sweet, thoughtful, delicate creatures,” says Large, who was a contestant on the CBS reality show, Rock Star: Supernova. “I’ve never experienced the kind Metallica gets: screaming, disenfranchised males from screwed-up families. Mine are tea drinkers, not slam dancers.”

That’s good news for Geva, where the aisles are a bit narrow for slam dancing. But Large’s flamboyant rock-star persona could unleash the party animal slumbering in midwinter Rochester.

It did in more temperate Portland, Ore., where Cabaret recently set an $829,000 box-office record at the co-producing Portland Center Stage. Large and her co-star Wade McCollum (as the nightclub emcee) got much of the credit.

This 1966 show lives or dies by the charisma of its lead actors. Getting cast as Sally is a sure sign you’re an “it girl,” or least the flavor of the moment. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Debbie Gibson and Brooke Shields have all played the part, though Liza Minnelli still owns it (thanks to the 1972 movie version).

The show’s real star is the Kit Kat Klub, a seedy Berlin nightspot hosted by an alluring yet sinister emcee. Young American writer Cliff Bradshaw begins an affair with Bowles there and gets a front-row view of the Nazis’ violent rise to power.

This graphic tale of 1929 Germany unfolds at the crossroads of sex and politics — a place where Large feels very comfortable. Blisteringly candid about her own life and (shudder) liberal in her ideology, she sees parallels between Cabaret’s troubled era and our own.

“We’re a very decadent and distracted society,” she says. People would rather read about Lindsay Lohan than Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. “We’re a spoiled nation worried sick about where our next 16-ounce pumpkin-flavored latte is coming from,” she says.

Director Chris Coleman has a different take on the musical’s relevance. He feels that Americans prefer to remain untouched by disturbing political trends — much like some customers at the Kit Kat Klub.

“In Cabaret, characters are forced to make desperate choices: Stand up to the forces of oppression or save their skin,” says Coleman, 46, artistic director for Portland Center Stage. “In the United States, we’re living in a climate where torture is condoned, phones tapped and people put in prison indefinitely without legal representation. We just sit there aghast or quietly approving as our freedom is taken away.”

In Portland, he adds, several businesses and homes were spray-painted this fall with swastikas and the word “Jew.” The vandals have yet to be caught.

Given Cabaret’s dark moral undertones, you might ask how a rock diva like Large was chosen as the star. Consider this thumbnail sketch of her life, from her own famously uninhibited potty mouth.

“I was a runaway kid with a mohawk, combat boots and a … baaad attitude,” says Large, 38, who doesn’t mind a few expletives between friends. “I went to acting school but was a terrible actress. So I pursued music, which turned around my life. I got off heroin and discovered great moisturizers.”

Born Susan Storm Large, she grew up in Southborough, Mass., and showed early promise for body piercings, music and bisexual dating. (The last two activities, at least, proved useful for Cabaret.) She attended Southborough’s exclusive St. Mark’s School and then earned an acting degree at Manhattan’s Academy of Dramatic Arts. More comfortable as a punk rocker than an actress, she left for San Francisco in 1990 and fronted several second-tier rock bands. That experience led to her best-known gig as a contestant on Rock Star: Supernova.

She was eliminated just before the 2006 season finale. But her national exposure helped propel her single, Ladylike, to No. 5 on the Billboard charts. Now living in Portland, she enjoys a reputation as a Courtney Love of the iPod generation (minus the drug rehabs and house arrests).

Coleman heard her sing in that drizzly city and immediately felt she’d bring glamour and grittiness to the role of Sally.

“He went to my Web site and started harassing me,” recalls Large. “I made him buy me four lunches before I said yes.”

When the Portland production began in September, Coleman couldn’t help noticing Large’s fan club and the record number of e-mails her performance drew.

“She was pretty extraordinary,” he says. “We had fans coming from New Zealand, Cuba and South America. Wade McCollum gave a very sexy performance, too — really chilling.”

Part of the chill may have come from McCollum’s costume, which includes a shaved head and a great deal of exposed skin.

Large, who also wears little and sings a lot, has one request for local fans: Don’t go too wild backstage after the show. She’s often drained by the demands of the acting. And she feels that adoration has its limits.

“All these fans trying to get to me, thinking they know me intimately,” she says. “I just want to take a shower.”

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