By ANNA O’DONOGHUE

A third-year drama student stands in the middle of a rehearsal studio, fighting back tears. She's been practicing a song at home for weeks—and now, the first time she's brought it into class, a cold or nerves or some combination is preventing her from hitting the notes as she wanted to. In frustration, she stops mid-phrase, and the piano accompaniment behind her halts—but Deb Lapidus, who teaches singing to Juilliard's actors, isn't having it. "Why are you stopping? This is the song. This confusion, this emotion, all this stuff—I want to see you work through it, I want to see you keep going and stay in that experience. I'm sick of this idea that 'I'm this person over here, with all my problems and my emotions, and then my art is somewhere else, it's this other thing that I do.' No—your art is you, your instrument is you. I want you to bring them together, to put yourself into what you're doing. It's O.K. that you're crying, because, you know what? Maybe the character's crying. Maybe if you keep going, you'll learn something, about the song, about yourself." Deb leans forward in her seat. "It's time to step it up."

(Drawing by Jessica Love)

"Stepping it up" is the credo in Deb's class, and as she sets out to create this year's cabaret show, it's on her mind. A drama faculty member since 1988, Deb has taught singing to more than 20 classes of Juilliard actors—some highly accomplished singers, some gifted novices, and some … well, tone-deaf. Each spring, she zeroes in on the third-year class, designing a cabaret production especially tailored to their particular skills and abilities. Under Deb's direction, the cabaret has morphed from an open singing class in a rehearsal studio into a full-fledged production, and a consistent highlight of Juilliard's drama season.

The cabaret—which will be presented this year on March 30-31 and April 1—rehearses while the rest of the school is on break (which means that Deb hasn't had a real spring vacation, ever). "Everybody else is going to St. Bart's and I'm going to be here, so it better be fun," she says. "Actually, it's nice to be here when school's closed, as much as we're bitter that everyone else is on vacation and we talk about that. It gives us a kind of focused energy. People don't have to do a million other things, they don't have to get scenes together or work on their voice and speech; they're just focused on this."

Deb has been doing cabarets—at Juilliard; at N.Y.U., where she is also a faculty member; and in the professional world—for more years than she cares to count. She's not interested in looking back, in keeping a tally; she's interested in what's next, in finding new material, new talent, new ways to keep herself and audiences excited—in stepping it up, year after year.

That can be a struggle—"but as I start to figure it out, I get more excited," Deb says. "In my mind, I have an idea of what it could be; sometimes it doesn't get to that point, and sometimes it actually transcends it." Like when Sara Ramirez (now a Tony award-winner for Spamalot) sang "Meadowlark." Or Oscar Isaac (who starred in the Public Theater's musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona in Central Park this past summer) did "Guido's Song," from Nine. Or when Will Pailen, who will graduate this year, led a group of his classmates in "Saturday Night Fish Fry." In these moments of cabaret glory, something "just totally works. It's somebody with the right piece of material, and you forget they're a student; all you know is you're having a great moment in the theater." There have been disasters, too—like the group number "Travel," from Starting Here, Starting Now. "Every night it made me perspire and want to drink heavily and flee. It was like the parody songs they do on The Simpsons, except with humans. But ours was actually more two-dimensional than The Simpsons. I always liked the song before; that's why I tried it in the show, but I just can't hear it now."

Drama Division Third-Year Cabaret Dillons Lounge and Restaurant, 245 West 54th Street Thursday-Saturday, March 30-April 1 For time and ticket information, please see the calendar.

Although new ideas don't always work, Deb is always on the lookout for them. "It's more fun to work on stuff I haven't figured out yet. I think you can get lazy when you've done a song too many times, because you think you know what it's gonna be; it's not as creative an atmosphere."

Cabaret is a particularly emotionally charged venue, with huge possibilities of experience and expression. "If I cry at least once and I laugh at least once, I know I'm on track. And if I don't do either of those two things, I know it's not a successful evening." But, unlike a conventional play, there is no help—"You don't have any set, or even necessarily any relationships with other people. You walk out there, the piano starts, and you have to create a whole world. It's all naked; just you and the audience." That's the core of the cabaret experience, Deb finds—that vulnerability, that self-revelation. "I'm not interested in pretty sounds, I'm interested in singing actors. In people. I want to be moved. And what I love is when people surprise me, when somebody turns a song into something I wouldn't have thought of or expected."

Back in that third-year classroom, the student is gathering herself to try the song again. This time, the tears still come—but she pushes through them, managing to hold onto beautiful notes and high emotional stakes. The song's lyrics take on new layers of meaning; the student seems to be moving through something immediate, complicated, and deeply personal. When the song ends, Deb is wiping her own eyes. "Well," she says, "you're really brave. That took a lot of courage." Someone stepped it up—and for Deb, that's what it's all about.

Anna O'Donoghue is a third-year drama student.