Interview: Taylor Pearlstein of CRUEL INTENTIONS: THE 90S MUSICAL at VICTORIA

Twenty years after the provocatively delicate teen cult classic Cruel Intentions won the hearts of millennials before the turn of the 21st Century, a new cast of characters are bringing back all the evil plotting, exploitation, sexual immorality, prep school arrogance - and oh yes - all the '90s flair you can harken back to with "Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical."

Throughout the month until June, Maximum Entertainment Productions will stage the musical throughout the country in parts of the northeast and south, with a performance scheduled tonight at the Victoria Theater in Newark.

The musical will reexamine all the conflicting themes of the 1999 hit film, from godliness and devilishness to treachery and honesty, to love and lust, innocence and deviance and naivety and manipulation.

New York City's Taylor Pearlstein is playing the lead role of Kathryn Merteuil, a sultry, spoiled backstabbing vixen who is the stepsister of the haughty Sebastian Valmont. Kathryn, who consumes her days thinking about sex and on the outlook for her next victim to manipulate, involves Sebastian in a vicious bet to deflower an unassuming girl, Annette Hargrove, who happens to be the headmaster's daughter of their prep school, before the start of the academic year. Annette (played by Betsy Stewart in the musical) has vowed to stay a virgin until she weds and finds true love. Though Sebastian is seemingly as wicked as his stepsister, Annette helps to bring out his redeeming qualities. And while Kathryn is simultaneously plotting to destroy another innocent girl's reputation who is becoming romantically involved with her ex-boyfriend, her and Sebastian's true colors reveal themselves in the most epic ways.

BroadwayWorld chatted with Taylor Pearlstein about her role as Kathryn.

BWW: What do you like about playing Kathryn?

Taylor: I had a fun time embodying her. She can be really dry ... just how perfectly sweet and evil of that character. She does it so well. You can't tell which she is. I try to keep Kathryn's voice relatively nasal because I love the quality it adds to the movie. She's a teenage girl but has a very adult sound to her voice that I love.

BroadwayWorld: Why do you feel Cruel Intentions is a film that needs to be brought back to audiences 20 years later?

Taylor: Jeffrey [Kringer who plays Sebastian] and I have talked about how this show is a very interesting examination of privilege. Nowadays people are very privileged and don't know how to take that and positively influence the outside world. You're essentially looking at a group of the richest kids in Manhattan unsupervised and they end up poisoning each other and themselves with it. What I really have come to appreciate is the journey of these characters and teenage girls being empowered by their sexuality, and no one is being shamed for it.

BroadwayWorld: How do you feel some of the concepts in Cruel Intentions (manipulation, meanness, innocence, the idea of love and cruelty) tie into today's society or have any current cultural relevance?

Taylor: It's always relevant. I think we make the mistake in pop culture of criticizing pieces of art that show those things too bluntly. We need to be shown those pieces of ourselves bluntly because they do exist... ignoring them only encourages those forces. I do think they are some moments that make people uncomfortable and change their thinking of themselves and the world.

BroadwayWorld: What are some standout songs in the musical?

Taylor: We opened the show with the opening song "Every You Every me," [The Placebo] "Love Fool," [The Cardigans] and "Colorblind" [The Counting Crows.] Great 90s songs add an emotional element to the show.

BroadwayWorld: What are some of the main similarities and differences in the musical compared to the movie?

Taylor: The feedback they've [the theater company] gotten is that they've done a very great job creating an experience that feels like the movie. We've done everything we can to stay true to the story. The musical is funnier, it's a parody of the 90s. People just have a really, really good time. It's nonstop laughing the whole show, which you may not experience with Cruel Intentions.

BroadwayWorld: Any favorite quotes from Cruel Intentions?

Taylor: [Imitating Kathryn's memorable quote]"I'm the Marcia-f-ing-Brady of the Upper East Side-and sometimes I want to kill myself."

On any given day sometimes that speech is fueled by very real experiences as a woman, so I really love doing that speech. The ladies love hearing it. We live it every single day.

For tickets to tonight's Newark show and others, go to cruelmusical.com/#tickets

Photos Courtesy of Jenny Anderson

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