NPR's Ari Shapiro and award-winning actor Alan Cumming are bringing their show “Och & Oy! A Considered Cabaret” for a one night only performance, Dec. 1 at the Byham Theater. They spoke to 90.5 WESA's Priyanka Tewari on Morning Edition.
Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Tewari: Good morning gentlemen.
Shapiro: Good morning, Priyanka.
Cumming: Hello there. And good pronunciation of 'Och' by the way.
Tewari: I was practicing that, actually, so I'm glad I got it right.
Shapiro: I learned something new from that introduction. I did not know Alan was on a postage stamp.
Cumming: Did you not? I'm glad. I still have some secrets from you, Ari.
Tewari : There is such wonderful camaraderie between the two of you. So let me just begin with how did this collaboration on 'Och and Oy!' come about?
Cumming: Well, we met through a friend who was in [the musical] 'Cabaret' that I was doing on Broadway, and Ari interviewed me for a couple of things, like to do with my book, and then an event at the museum. And as we were walking offstage, I said, 'Gosh, you know, we have really good chemistry Ari, we should do a show together.' And he said, 'Don't say something if you don't mean it. Don't tease me.'
Shapiro: I said, 'You better not be joking about this, because I will absolutely take you up on this offer.'
Cumming: And then the next day, I did call him up and say, 'I still mean it.'
Tewari: So who came up with the name of the show, 'Och and Oy!' and what does it even mean?
Shapiro: We crowdsourced it, and people made lots of suggestions having to do with A and A, like Alan and Ari.
Tewari: So what does it mean?
Cumming: Well, 'Och,' it's a Scottish word. It's sort of the same thing as 'Oy.' It's sort of like exclamation point and a sort of manifestations of our characters.
Shapiro: And Alan suggested we call it 'Och and Oy! A Considered Cabaret' because I'm known for 'All Things Considered.' Alan is known, among other things, for the show 'Cabaret,' and we want the show to combine sort of the best bits of public radio with the best bits of a musical, where we have deep thought provoking conversations — and also entertaining perhaps slightly bawdy musical numbers.
Tewari: Alan, you've said that one of the things that you love about the show is that it's 'fresh and ever-changing.' So what's going to be new and fresh in your Pittsburgh performance?
Cumming: Well, from my point of view especially, I'm always kind of grasping for what comes next, thank goodness Ari is there.
Shapiro: Well, but also we incorporate the things that have happened in our lives. And not too long ago, I had just returned from covering the war in Israel, and Alan had just returned from being on a float at a gay pride parade in Honolulu. And so I thought that was a good illustration of how different we seem. So we discussed that a little bit.
Tewari: So Ari, what is it about doing this? Your being part of the Pink Martini group and now this cabaret. Is that a part of you too, that you feel you get to explore?
Shapiro: For me, these are all different ways of telling stories, different ways of connecting with an audience that are sort of complementary, even if they feel very different on the surface. I just feel incredibly fortunate that I get to spend time with somebody like Alan, and one of the things he's taught me is that it's very important to make space for fun.
Cumming: I feel like that too. Like you come back sort of refilled and rebooted and re-energized because you've had that sort of shot in the arm. I actually love the variety of it and the difference. I also think acting should be easy and you shouldn't overthink it and you should just sort of pretend to be someone and mean it, and it should be like a child playing.
Shapiro: And we get to have these little moments in each place we go, you know, even though we're only in Pittsburgh for one night, we're getting vegan food from Apteka for dinner, which is this incredible Pittsburgh restaurant. When we were in Portland, we got to eat at this amazing Haitian restaurant, Carne. So we have these little experiences in the different places we go where it might not be a full vacation, but we get this little sample of the flavor of the city.
Tewari: You both are gay and you're out. And, everybody knows that now. Was that something that you felt that you couldn't really be very open about, when you both first started your professional careers?
Shapiro: This is actually something we discuss, or touch on anyway in the show.
Cumming: Absolutely. It's our first sort of meander. I think that's much more of a deal than people make out, actually. In a way, I often feel discussing it, and especially in the times of Hollywood and, you know, coming out in public, there's a sort of cultural thing that if you're from Europe, it's much more expected, that the job you're doing, it means you play lots of different people and you hide in that character or you disappear into that character. So I think when you come to America and you have a sort of track record of doing that, it seems much more impressive than it actually is.
Shapiro: Although I would say, I think one difference is that Alan was a public figure and then came out. So we sort of did it in a different order. For me, I came out when I was 16. I've been with my college boyfriend since we met in the 90s. And so, the idea that I would get to work at NPR and suddenly pretend he didn't exist or pretend the last however many years of my life as an out person hadn't happened. It just wasn't conceivable. So for me, there was no real question about it.
Cumming: Yeah, nobody said to me, Oh, don't do this. No. And I don't think people do that very often. I mean, I also think we ultimately want to live in a world where nobody has to come out. You are who you are and you just sort of, get on with it.
90.5 WESA is a media sponsor of the event. The audio conversation was edited by Doug Shugarts. Music is courtesy of the Cabaret.
