INTERVIEW: ‘White Rose’ tells a story of courage and resistance
Photo: White Rose: The Musical features Paolo Montalban as Professor Kurt Huber. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by JT PR with permission.
White Rose: The Musical, now playing a 12-week engagement at Theatre Row in New York City, features a moving story that promises lessons of “courage” and “resistance.” Set during World War II in Germany, the show follows a group of college students who stand up to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, according to press notes. Their means of resistance was literature and leaflets that combated the propaganda that was circulating in Europe.
Paolo Montalban, an accomplished actor known for Broadway’s Funny Girl, portrays the character of Professor Kurt Huber, who was connected to this group of students and their efforts. He is joined on stage by Jo Ellen Pellman, Mike Cefalo, Sam Gravitte, Laura Sky Herman, Kennedy Kanagawa, Cal Mitchell, Aaron Ramey and Cole Thompson, among others.
“It’s really fascinating because I’ve never done a musical that was based on a true story,” Montalban said in a recent phone interview. “Seeing the audience in real time find out what happened and the weight of the fact that it’s a historically accurate portrayal of it is pretty fascinating because it’s a very intimate space. It’s not like I’m actively looking out at audience members, but they are right there. So when they find out certain things within the show, it’s nice seeing it in real time.”
The spirit of courage and resistance, which are both interwoven throughout the piece, is what attracted Montalban to the project; he sees parallels to today’s society and the unfortunate circumstances that sometimes repeat themselves throughout history.
“In so many ways, history repeats itself,” he said. “A lot of people take potshots at Millennials and Gen Z. I’m Gen X myself, but I have so much faith in them. I have so much faith in the next generation, and I really think in many ways they’re going to clean up the mess that previous generations set up for them, not that we did it on purpose. I think that every future generation hopes to improve on what the previous generations did.”
Montalban’s character of Huber was a real person who was a member of this group, known as the “White Rose.” In fact, the actor said the professor was a main member of the movement and authored one of the leaflets that they distributed.
“He was a philosophy professor and musicologist at Munich University,” the actor said. “He wanted to see Germany be the great Germany that it once was prior to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and so these students that attended his philosophy class, they ended up being the founding members of the White Rose. And Brian Belding, our writer, crafted it in a way that perhaps because of the things that Kurt Huber was teaching in his class — having his students think for themselves, speaking the truth and writing the truth — that might have helped inspire them to create the movement. He doesn’t take credit for it because he actually ends up being recruited by them in real life and in the show, too, so in a way it’s this beautiful dance of them inspiring each other.”
Montalban recognizes that this material is heavy and difficult to process. During rehearsals, the cast and creative team — which includes Belding (creator, book and lyrics), Natalie Brice (music) and Will Nunziata (direction) — needed to hit the pause button and talk about the issues at hand.
“It’s pretty difficult stuff,” he said. “It’s an incredibly talented cast with intelligent and level-headed personalities. … During rehearsals it was a little bit more intense because a lot of the story was unfolding to us in real time, if that makes sense. Now we have the bigger picture to it, and there’s that hopeful moment at the end that kind of brings us back to a positive place.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
White Rose: The Musical, featuring Paolo Montalban, continues at Theatre Row in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
