Bright students, big city: Life in NY

Two students' summers in a 'Cabaret' and trend-spotting in the Village. She slips out from the shadows, lollipop dangling from painted lips, 1930s retro-cut outfit pulled tight. "Wilkommen," she murmurs in a German accent. A young attendant at a Weimar-era night club? No, just College junior Jenn Weber in character for her job at Cabaret, Broadway's must-see show this summer. While many Penn students spent their summers stuck at computers, working as camp counselors or crunching numbers at investment banks, others -- like Weber and Interview magazine intern David Kalstein, a College senior --Echose a decidedly different path. But don't get too jealous --Ethey still had to work hard. Weber, for one, put in 80-hour weeks on average. "I loved working, but it was exhausting to do everything at once," she said, explaining her almost-superhuman schedule. While playing a "Kit Kat girl" at Cabaret, which depicts the Nazi coup at the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin, she was also holding down an internship with the producers of Freak, another New York show starring John Leguizamo. The Freak internship, which Weber found through Playbill's World Wide Web page,"was one learning experience after another." "I got to help the producer with everything -- graphics, publicity, marketing ideas, production set-up. I even helped design the jackets," she said, proudly pulling out a bright orange nylon jacket emblazoned with the Freak logo. "I wanted black, though. I was outvoted," she said. But the internship, which paid about $150 a week, didn't cover the expenses of living in New York or the crowded and expensive New York University dorms. Luckily, she noticed a posting for Cabaret. They needed in-character staff to greet the audience. Soon Weber was donning smoky eye shadow and pulling in $80 per show. At eight shows a week, she was raking it in. And her perks didn't stop with the high salary: After the the curtains close, the Kit Kat Klub of New York, which houses Cabaret, returns to its normally swinging nightlife. "Let's see? Sharon Stone was there. Rosie O'Donnell, Gregory Peck, Danny DeVito, Sarah Michelle Gellar, the Spice Girls," Weber said, listing the stars with the dispassionate air of a seasoned Broadway veteran. "Sporty Spice was really cool. She wasn't snobby at all. I told her that I had played her in Bloomers and she thought that was really funny," Weber said. For former Red & Blue Editor-in-chief David Michael Kalstein, an intern at Interview magazine, staying grounded was almost inevitable. "I walked in the first day and saw all these beautiful people, perfectly dressed, models walking around and then I remembered that, wait, 'I'm from Michigan,'" Kalstein said. To truly grasp the contrast, though, you need to understand the magazine's background: Interview was founded in 1969 by Andy Warhol and "basically focuses on artists interviewing other artists," Kalstein explained. For example, while he was there, actor Matt Damon interviewed fellow thespian Ed Norton. Another time, supermodel Amber Valleta took photos. "She did a great spread on Prada underwear," Kalstein said. Soon Kalstein was thrust into the black-shrouded, seen-and-be-seen scene of Greenwich Village. He said he refused, however, "to get sucked in." "Everyone comes in knowing this is not real life," he said. "People are starving in the real world. Here, people just want to be beautiful. You have to take it for what it is, a world in itself." Keeping abreast of this world and the trends it revolves around made up the core of Kalstein's job. At editorial meetings he was counted on to figure out what was hot and pitch story ideas accordingly. It was Kalstein, in fact, who foresaw the critical success of director Neil LaBute's controversial film Your Friends and Neighbors and pitched a feature of the movie's star, Amy Brenneman. And like Weber, he also picked up some side benefits. "There were a lot of invitations to art openings and parties," Kalstein said. He recounted one memorable party thrown by Bacardi at the old Studio 54 club where father figure Warhol was once a staple presence. But it wasn't all downtown excitement at 575 Broadway, the home of Interview's offices and the Guggenheim Soho. Like all interns, he was asked to do jobs ranging from menial tasks --Elike researching or dealing with publicists, a group Kalstein said "pimp other people for a living" -- and then the most menial: transcribing an eight-hour interview with a young TV star who "isn't much smarter than he looks."