Alan Cumming and Ari Shaprio

Massey Hall presents

ALAN CUMMING

AND

SHAPIRO: Och & Oy! A Considered Cabaret

ARI

SAT MAR 4, 2023 • 8PM

ALAN CUMMING AND ARI SHAPIRO:

Och & Oy! A Considered Cabaret

A message from Alan and Ari

e from Alan and Ari

We’d like to thank everyone at Massey Hall for welcoming us to what is the Canadian premiere of Och and Oy!

to thank everyone at Massey Hall for welcoming us to what is the Canadian premiere d Oy!

This show came about through friendship and the belief that no matter how different we all may outwardly seem, we can all connect through storytelling and music.

w came about through friendship and the belief that no matter how different we all may seem, we can all connect through storytelling and music

We want to thank our friends who helped us make a connection with you tonight: Scott Morris at CAA, Ethan Christopher our tour manager, Kate Daniels for her sterling work on getting the Och and Oy word out, the producers of Alan’s movie ‘Drive Back Home’ for getting him here, Air Canada for getting the rest of us here, and finally to you for coming out tonight and doing the best thing a friend can do - listening!

to thank our friends who helped us make a connection with you tonight: Scott Morris at an Christopher our tour manager, Kate Daniels for her sterling work on getting the Och ord out th d f Al ’ i 'D i B k H ' f tti him here, Air or getti nd doing the a frien

Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro’s Tour was generously supported by

MEET THE ARTISTS

ALAN CUMMING

Alan Cumming is beyond eclectic. His most recent projects include creating a dance theatre piece about the Scottish bard Robert Burns, lip-synching the protagonist in a documentary, directing a podcast series about a sperm bank heist, playing a gangster opposite Liam Neason in a Neil Jordan film, curating a cabaret festival in Australia and recording a duet with a Gaelic rapper. Perhaps not surprisingly, Time Magazine called him one of the three most fun people in show business (the others were Cher and Stanley Tucci!)

Thirty years ago his Hamlet stormed the West End and he was hailed as ‘an actor knocking at the door of greatness’. A quarter of a century ago he was a sensation as Cabaret’s Master of Ceremonies in a production that forever changed the Broadway landscape . A decade ago his visceral, virtually one man Macbeth was a stunning, transatlantic coup de theatre.

His screen work ranges from art house to blockbuster, cult to mainstream, but his performances are always indelible and some immortal: Mr Floop in Spy Kids, Eli in The Good Wife, Nightcrawler in X2: X Men United, Sebastian in The High Life, ‘O’ in Sex and the City, Boris in Goldeneye, King James in Doctor Who, Sandy Frink in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Mayor Menlove in Schmigadoon and himself on Broad City.

He is the author of six books including a New York Times #1 bestselling memoir, performs in concert regularly in halls around the world and co-owns his own, eponymous cabaret bar Club Cumming, a home for ‘all ages, all genders, all colours, all sexualities, where kindness is all and anything could happen!’

The list of his collaborators over the years includes Liza Minnelli, Jeremy O. Harris, Jackie Chan, the Smurfs, David Bowie, The Simpsons, Robert Wilson, Stanley Kubrick, Jay Z, Bianca Del Rio, the Spice Girls, George Lucas, Terence Blanchard, KT Tunstall and not forgetting Dora the Explorer, Arthur and Elmo.

He had a photo exhibition named Alan Cumming Snaps! and an award-winning fragrance named Cumming. He has played Dionysus, the Devil, God, the Pope and was shot by Herb Ritts for Vanity Fair as Pan. He recently played a 70 year old woman. He has been a Lee Jeans model and on a stamp. He is a Tony and Olivier award winning theatre actor. He hosted the Tonys and was nominated for an Emmy for doing so. In fact he has been nominated for five Emmys, won a New York Emmy, a Scottish BAFTA and a British Comedy Award. He is an Independent Spirit award-winning producer and National Board of Review winning director. He is a Grammy and multiple Golden Globe nominee. His portrait currently hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. He has four honourary doctorates and over forty awards for being a humanitarian, but as he says, ‘awards mean nothing’!

ARI SHAPIRO

Ari Shapiro is the award-winning co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” the most listened-to radio news program in the United States. As a journalist, he has reported from above the Arctic Circle and aboard Air Force One. He has covered wars in Iraq, Ukraine, and Israel, and he has filed stories from dozens of countries and most of the 50 states. Before joining the “All Things Considered” host team in 2015, he was NPR’s international correspondent based in London. Shapiro joined NPR’s international desk

after four years as White House Correspondent during the Obama presidency. In 2012, he embedded with the presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney. He was NPR’s Justice Correspondent for five years during the George W. Bush administration.

Ari is also a frequent guest singer with the “little orchestra” Pink Martini, from his hometown of Portland, Oregon. He has contributed songs to four of the band’s albums, singing in several languages, and joined them on stage with some of the world’s leading symphony orchestras. Since his 2009 debut at the Hollywood Bowl, he has performed in many of the world’s most storied venues, including The Royal Albert Hall in London, L’Olympia in Paris, and Carnegie Hall in New York. He has shared a stage with both Chita and Rita (Rivera and Moreno), among many others. He was featured in the American debut of the play Request Concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He was also a guest singer in the Washington Ballet’s original production of The Sun Also Rises and a soloist at the Kennedy Center with the Washington Chorus in Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. In 2016, Ari debuted his original one-man show, Homeward, and has since performed it around the US.

JAMES HARVEY

James Harvey is a writer, musician, and performer whose “voice and...ideas are vital to the continual evolution of musical theater” (Alexander Gemignani). He has performed his one-man show, The Bald-Faced Truth, throughout the US and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His original musical, The Crack in the Ceiling, was presented at The New York Musical Theater Festival and the New York International Fringe Festival, where it was awarded best musical. James is currently developing a new musical, Prime Day with director Ashley Brooke Monroe (Hamilton National Tour, Life of Pi). A sought-after music director and accompanist, James frequently collaborates with today’s biggest stage and screen talents. James studied music composition at NYU (Alan Menken Scholarship) and is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop.

www.jamesharvey.com

Annual Campaign

Presenting Sponsor –Share the Music

Desjardins

Education & Outreach and Artist & Audience Development

The Woodbridge Company Limited

Call & Respone

Supported by The Azrieli Foundation

Choir & Organ

Supported by the Edwards Charitable Foundation

Collaborations

Supported by The Lewitt Family Foundation

Learning English Through Song

Supported by Canada Life

$50,000+

Estate of Catharine Frances Thompson

The Lewitt Family Foundation

Edwards Charitable Foundation

$20,000-$49,999

The Azrieli Foundation

The McConnell Family Foundation

$10,000-$19,999

Canada Life

The Lloyd Carr-Harris Foundation

Ontario Arts Council

$5,000-$9,999

Carol Nichol

TD Securities Underwriting Hope Fund

The Sixty Three Foundation

$1,000-$4,999

Suzanne Bradshaw

Melissa Coulson

Bianca Marcus & Greg Cumming

Carole Fabris-Mackie

The William and Nona Heaslip Foundation

Laraine Herzog

Robert Lodge

Long & McQuade Musical Instruments

Crystal Penner

Timothy & Frances Price

Mathew Szeto & Jenny Porter

SOCAN Foundation

Bev Shugg Barbeito

Joseph & Antoinette Sorbara

Elizabeth Tory

Kirby Gavelin & Louise Tymocko

Jimmy & Roberta Wang

Current as of February 2023