Video: Alan Cumming and Ari Shaprio Are Bringing OCH & OY! to Canada

I'm Oach

I'm Oi. He's a Jewish boy. I host a show on NPR

I'm a top international movie star. We like to get together and sing a little ditty

and that's why we're coming to... In Set City. We'd like to welcome and..

Harry don't. It's a night full of... stories, songs and fun jokes. Ari, is it appropriate for we younger folk? We can't wait to see you and make some

memories, and we just couldn't do it without Henry on the keys. Welcome to backstage with Richard Ridge. You know my two guests

Alan Cumming, who is a Tony, Olivier and Emmy Award winner, and Ari Shapiro

an award-winning radio journalists from NPR's All Things Considered and guest singer from Pink Martini

They are also both best-selling authors, and they transport audiences to other worlds through their stories

Well, now they have joined forces in song. They have been traveling the country with their critically acclaimed evening of tunes and tall tales, titled

OCH and OI, a considered cabaret, which they are bringing to the Rose Theater

as part of Brampton on stage in Bramton, Ontario on Friday, March 21st at 8 p.m

Please welcome Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro. Thank you so much for having us

Of course, well, so, Alan, before you came on, Ari and I were talking, I have had friends come and see you two

in Pittsburgh, in Westport, and I have watched clips of you too

and I said, this was just like the night I saw Mary Martin and Ethel Merman

at the Broadway theater do their act together, just so you know

Who's Mary and who's Ethel? You can switch out between every time you go somewhere else, you can do that

because their billing changed as they went on the road. But seriously..

Oh, I love that. It's just made my day. I love an honor to be..

Because that's my life. I sometimes feel like a million and sometimes I act like an Ethel

Thank you. Me too, so you can switch out on this. Listen, first of all, how are the two of you and where are you both

I'm good. I'm good. Alan coming here. I'm very well, thank you. I've just been for a couple of days in a spa

So I feel, what's the word? I was drained. I was my lymph, I was lymphatically drained and wrapped and things like that and got detoxed. And so now I'm in Orlando in Florida. I'm here

to do my solo show for three nights at the Phillips Center, which is right outside this window

And then I'm going to, from there, going straight to Scotland to my theatre that I now run

the Pellocry Festival Theatre in Scotland, where I'm going to go there for about a week

It's the Writers Festival that I curated is happening. And then I go to Belgium to make a film in French

And then you go back on the road again, you two. And then I come back from that

and then we go to Canada and do like five, are six. I'm so excited about this

Bits of Canada I've never been to. Yeah, I can't wait. We do round about Toronto a couple of nights

Yeah. Like this, Richmond and blah, blah. And then we go off to New Brampton

Brampton, I mean, oh gosh. And then we go to Nova Scotia and Hollywood

I mean, I'm just so excited. I can't wait. And where are you, I'm right now in Washington, D.C.

but this gives you a sense of how different Alan's life and my life are, because I also just got drained, but in a very different way

Don't get dirty thoughts in your head, Alan. I'm in the snow right now, but I just returned from a reporting trip to Panama where I was in these remote jungles and didn't discover until two days later that we had entered a patch of chiggers, which are these microscopically tiny bugs that bite you

You don't feel it until two days later they drop off. and then you're covered in hundreds of itchy red welts that take weeks to go away

So I am in the snow suffering from the Panamanian chigger bites that I acquired in tropical heat

on my reporting trip to the Panama C. So that kind of gives you a sense of why we're two different characters

Can I see one, Eddie? Sure. I'm going to show a little leg

Okay, this is really, can you see? Oh, it's like, like, like, menschew, like

Mosquitoes or midges or something. Yeah, except they stick up. Like, this is a week and a half later

Isn't that terrible? I've got hundreds of them. It's really unpleasant. Just on your feet

Yeah. Oh, no. They're everywhere. Well, first of all, I want to go back to your collaboration

Yes. Take us back. No, but thank you for showing us, though, seriously

I'll show a little leg. Show a little leg. How did this collaboration come about for you to get together

Where did you first meet? Wow. It's a story that we took

Telling the show, as a matter of fact. We met in my dressing room at Studio 54 when I was doing Cabaret

And I recognized Ari's voice, first of all, coming up the stairs before I..

But it didn't hurt that as I walked up the stairs, I was repeating from NPR News

This is all things considered. I'm Ari Shapiro over and over and over again. And yes, because Ben, Eakler, friend Ben, was in the show and he went to college with Ari

So that's how we met. And then we became friends. and then, I mean, it was sort of one of these gradual things where

Ari, there was a couple of things we did together, like sort of when I had a book out

Ari, you know, it was a conversation in Washington, and then a thing at the museum for pride or something

Yeah, it was like the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. And it was after that event, as we were walking off the stage

Alan turned to me and said, we always have such a good rapport together when we do these things

We should make a show together. And I don say it if you don mean It going to be I know this is never really going to happen And here we are And what crazy is that we built a show around the things that we have in common And over the time that we been doing it the list of things we have in common has grown

So as you mentioned, we are now both best-telling memoirists. When we started, neither one of us hosted a reality competition TV show

Now we're both hosts of reality shows. Only one of us has won an Emmy for it

But, you know, there's time. Two Emmys for it. So thank you for that correction

The cruise counting awards mean nothing. We all know that. All right

So I know your show sort of. So when you just said, I wasn't a writer, he wasn't a best-selling writer, all of a sudden, it's

like anything you can do, I can do better, which I... Very that. It's like all about Eve

It's all about Adi. It's like I, first, I have a, I write a memoir

He writes a memoir. I host the traitors. He hosts them all. I'm like, Ari, Arie, Ari

It's all about Array. I say imitation is the sincerest form. of flattery

It's true. So without giving... Next, I'm going to become artistic director

of a theater somewhere in the rural Scotland. Some other plays with an S in it, somewhere else with

an S. So without giving too much away, what can the fans

at Brampton and your fans across the country come to see the show? What is the show

First of all, let's talk about the title. I love the title. I sat for

two days listening to your title so I could get it out, you know. You're very good

I must come comment. of och. Outstanding. Oye is the easy part

I'm the Oye. I'm the O'i. So OCH is a Scottish word

which sort of is the equivalent of the Jewish word, OI. It means, ah, you know

or you say, Och no. Oe is more like OI-V, or like

oh, yeah, Oye is like, I can't believe, oh, no. Like an exclamation point

Yeah, yeah. Och's more like, oh, or like when you make a mistake

you, oh, like that. So, anyway, It's kind of a similar vibe

So we just thought that, I mean, actually did a sort of a competition on Instagram

asking people to suggest a name for us. And this man suggested it

and we thought, that's perfect. And then we met when we did a show in Minnesota, he came and we met him

We gave him a pair of free tickets, or at least we offered. I don't know if we took us up on it. But the show is at Cabaret in that it is stories and songs

and both of us have done solo cabaret shows, but it's really fun to have the two of us doing it together

because I think having somebody to play off of having somebody to laugh at your jokes

somebody who you know really well, where you can incorporate little inside jokes

and things that just happened. And the show has, I think, the feel of two old friends

just bantering and having a good time together. And it's like the audience gets to be a part of that with us

And also I think we play on the fact that we are, you know, from the outside, kind of an audible couple

a sort of, you know, Ari's a sort of serious journalist. And I'm sort of, oh, you know

Alan coming and we come from different ends of the sort of showbiz spectrum

But and I think that's, and that is true, we are very different people, but also we talk about

the fact that we've got so much more in common than you might imagine. And so it's about, I guess it's kind of a message, it's very prescient for the world we find ourselves in right now

that you may, you may have more than much more in common with someone you think is very different

to you than you might imagine. I like that the show is light and funny and

and it is not at all about the news, and it is not about politics. And yet, there is something about it that very subtly communicates that what we have in common is greater and stronger and more valuable and more important than the things that make us different from each other

Yes, indeed. And also two queer men in their, well, I was going to say in their 50s, but I've just left my 50s and you've not even got to your 50s yet, have you

Not quite yet. I love spending time with you, Ellen, because you make me feel young

By comparison. Now I'm 60. We haven't done it since I turned 60

Isn't that nuts? It's nuts. So this will be the first time you're back together doing the show

You just turned 60, Alan, right? Yeah. How old are you? I turned 65 this April, just so you know

Wow, you did. Fantastic. Bravo. I hope you're planning a big celebration

I think I'm going to go to Europe, but I want to see your show first. But, you know, you talk about

being gay men. I've always been gay. It was never something I ever hid. My husband and I

had been together for close to 47 years. We met in 1970, right at the end of 77, 78

when you could do this stuff and we've been together forever. So it was never an issue for me

You guys are totally gay men. You're out, everything else. And you also celebrate that in your show

which I think is wonderful. And with LGBTQ plus rights being stripped away

Was there ever a time for either of you when you were starting out your careers that you thought, I can't be gay right now

Or was it something you just put out there from the very beginning? Well, I came out in high school

And when I started in journalism, I was an intern at NPR

And it certainly occurred to me that my sexual orientation might be a stumbling block in my career

but it never occurred to me to try to hide my sexual orientation or to go back into the closet

And it's a testament both to the people who were around me in my career and to the people who came

before me and paved the way, that it did not become a stumbling block, that I have been able to

accomplish everything professionally that I would have hoped to without my sexual orientation

being a limiting factor. But I don't think that's because of me. I think that's because of all

the generations of people who came before me who allowed that to be the case

Ellen. Well, for me, it's slightly different because I would sort of consider myself bisexual

and actually had relationships and marriages even with one marriage and one engagement

and various relationships over the years with women. And so it wasn a question of no I mean I sort of I mean when I did decide to be public about my queerness it was because I didn want the press I had a lot of press I talk about this in the show actually a lot of press intrusion into my life when I was getting divorced

and was with a new person who's still a dear friend. And it was just awful

The tabloids in Britain were really awful. So when I had my first sort of adult same-sex relationship

I just didn't want that to happen again. So in a way, it was sort of about the fact that I talked about it in public and supposed came out in that way because I didn't want that to be

I mean, it's interesting. You just, you know, there's no way to learn about how to deal with, doing both dealing with the press and dealing how to deal with how to tell people about your sexuality on a sort of a public way

But no, it didn't. I've never felt really that it was a problem

My sexuality was, even when I, you know, with women, I knew I was bisexual

That wasn't an issue ever. But I feel like I, over the years it's been more important for me to talk about it

because I see the effects of, you know, I live in a, now live in a country where most of the time

I'm talking about America, where, you know, it's so important to speak up and to be strong and to be a role model and to be, to be, to be, just to, to be

be visible because we need to, and to be vocal about what's going on and about how you

and to defend your rights, you know, it's just, I just, I can't believe we're living in a country where people are, they're having the rights taken away from them. It just seems

insane. So I think it's really important to be loud and proud. And I've never felt like my

in my career as a actor or whatever that has suffered. I mean, it's the sort of hypothetical thing

how would you know? But, you know, it's going pretty well. And I certainly think I get to play and do things

Like it's so funny that I did a photo shoot recently for, I think it was interview magazine

And one of the pictures was me kissing this man of this wrestler

who'd been brought in to wrestle me for some pictures. And I was just kissing

I just pictured me kissing this foot. And Grant, my husband said, it's so amazing, you're so lucky in a way that you

so many men of your age and in your sort of level of success and bracket would never dare do that

They would never dare do such a provocative image. And for me, it's not even provocative

I just think it's kind of a nice, arty thing to do. And also I like feet. And so I think in a funny sort of way, my being open and sort of out in that way is, it's even more exciting and gives me more opportunities and makes me more

sort of adventurous as an artist than if I wasn't. I was literally just last night telling a friend over drinks

how much I admire your refusal to let your fame shape the kind of life

that you want to live. And we were talking about on your 60th birthday

celebrating it by doing a photo shoot in a jockstrap and talking about wearing jock straps

And I just thought to myself, Alan has the career he wants

wants to have and he has the life he wants to have and neither one compromises to make room for the other

No. And also I love, I, you know, I went on the tonight or which one, which one, Stephen

Colbert. Colbert. The late show, yeah. The late show. And talks about what I was going to do

on my birthday, which is going to this place called Mother Disco. And I went there and went and so

when I, and then they reposted that. So when I went to this thing, it was so magical. It was like

thousands of or hundreds and hundreds of mostly boys with our tops off some girls and I just felt

like it was my party because everyone was wishing me a happy birthday because they knew about it because

I talked about it and I felt like you know the sort of honorary daddy birthday guest and it was I think

you're in for a good decade yes it was actually it was so nice but it was also I really felt my

tribe you know to me I really felt and I have that tribe and also I can go on you know the

view and talk about going there and everybody loves that too. And so it's just a really, I once said

years and years and years ago when I was, you know, when there weren't so many sort of out or

queer celebrities that I felt like I was the acceptable face of deviance in America. And I sort of

there's still a sort of, I can go on, you know, I could go on the talk shows and talk about the

need for marriage equality in those days. And everyone was like, oh, interesting. He's that cute boy off the

tell it, you know. And I think that's what I've managed to always straddle different things. And as

Ari says, not ever feeling that I can't do anything I want to do in any way, actually, in my work and in my

life. I've sort of quite, and I think in a funny way I learned perhaps because of all that sort of

tabloid speculation early on in my career, that to be coy or to not be fully open is to just

invite speculation. And it's much, much better just to lay it all out there as I did with my jockstrap

But you know, the two of you are role models and you've been touring this show across the country and you're getting ready to take it to Canada

What's it like meeting the audience members who look up to you? I mean, you've been a role model to so many people and just watching the freedom you two have in this show what it must feel like for the audience

What's it like meeting them afterwards? Ari? For me, it's really special because on the radio, while I know that lots of people are out there listening, I don't ever interact with them

And so radio is kind of a one-way street. And we don't always go out and meet people face-to-face after a show

but I'll often get Instagram messages or DMs from people who will say what it meant to them

And that's such a special feeling. Even as we're performing it, hearing the reactions in the moment from the people in the audience

is something that you don't get on the radio. And I love being a host of all things considered

But there's a different kind of give and take with the audience when we're doing. doing something like this show

And there's also a lovely bit at the end where we kind of get people to join in with something. And that a sort of you know we we mentioned it early on and now here it comes back and everyone comes And that such a magical bit because you realize that they feel part they feel like

they've been in a, they feel part of a tribe as well, that tribe tonight and that theater

And it's really beautiful, beautiful moment. And it's just such, it's fun. It's such fun as well

Everyone's singing along and it's also so stupid what we've managed to get them to do as well

It's just a beautiful moment. It's so it's, I love that. Well, you do so many classic Broadway duets

I mean, that must make you feel so great the two of you. Like you said, Marian Ethel or any of these other people, I mean, who have done these shows together

You look like you're having the time of your lives up there, are you? The thing for me that's so extraordinary is the lineage, because I know that I'm singing this song with Alan

that he has previously sung with Cheetah Rivera, who learned it. from Bob Fosse

And so to me, there's something extraordinary and special and just precious

about not just doing these classic songs that everybody loves, but the specific kind of DNA

that I feel like I now have some connection to. Oh, that's so nice, Addy

I love that. And I love the fact that I'm sort of such a bad

musical queen because I don't really, I'm not, I'm like, which one's that again

Everyone, you know, and Henry, I'm musical director, and Ari. I think, Despair. of my sort of Luddite musical

knowledge. But I love in this that I sing all these songs

Oh gosh, I mean, there was something I watched and I realized that one of the songs with the one of the medley, what it's from

is it from, is it one of the things from Brigadun? YouTube, almost like being in love

No. No, okay. It wasn't that. But one of the songs in our first

the we do this medley of the thing that adie made up i mean i could name them if you'd like yes go ahead go

head you're the top yes whiz and buddies who's and buddies what's that from maim

maim oh maybe it was that yeah it was that yeah then there's anything you can do i can do better

yeah and i get your gun and i get your gun and lesser known the grass is always green

woman of the year candor and eb very good which i didn't know until my husband suggested it we

were brainstorming songs for this medley and my husband said oh listen to this one and it's perfect

I love that song. I know it was made because I'm in my new job as artistic director

I'm looking at all these, you know, shows we might do and all those got to musicals you've got

to get the rights all ahead of time and so I was looking at maim and then I realized that

that what was it again? Buzz and Buddies. It's hilarious. The verses are incredible. Yeah

Well, I love the little aside you add in between the lines

someone throws something else into these bedlies, which are really hilarious, the two of you

Give a big shout out to your musical director. Henry Kaperski, who we adore

Adore. He's here right now with me in Florida. The other night

I drove through a blizzard with him after a very difficult day

and I turned to him and I said, you know, there are people for whom a day like this

would be something to forget about and run away from and chalk up as a miserable failure

And with you, it is such an adventure. And I have such a good time, even when things are going off the rails

And I feel that way about Henry and I feel that way about Alan and doing this show. It's just another chance to have another adventure

Yeah, and as we've had such, we've been doing the show, we actually started doing it right before the pandemic

We did a couple of shows. We did actually Provincetown and Fire Island

And in Fire Island, we did Cheetah Rivera made a surprise appearance

minute. And so that's how not, you know, then we didn't do it for a while, but we've been doing

it for a long time here and there, obviously, we've kind of got our day jobs. But it's so

lovely to kind of meet up. And that's why I'm so excited about this having another little

spurt like this in Canada, because it's so lovely to meet up after a while, see, catch with

you know, check up with each other, catch up with each other. And then also go into these

cities and these places that we don't know anyone and we make friends and we have all these adventures and it's just sort of like it's sort of what the show is kind of about is going out into

life and telling you know making making stories like in a way we should do the next show

should be about having done this show yeah we should call it having a little spurt together

like I said you're going to have the time of your life at the rose theater rampant on stage

is stunning as all the venues you're going to be in up in Canada where you're going to have

the time of your life up there and the other great thing is every place you go are like

vacations for you. I'm sure you get to try food in different areas, even though it's like a day or two and then you fly somewhere else

But they must, it must feel like many vacations, right? Yeah. When we were in Indianapolis, we stayed in a former Coca-Cola bottling plant

Gorgeous. I loved it. Things like that. Yeah, we meet lovely people and, you know, go out to bars and everything

And have fun. Well, like I said, I think my time is just about up. I'm going to catch you gentlemen somewhere along the road

like I said, Alan, you're on my wall here. Cheetah's everywhere. Ari, you're going to be..

I'm right behind you. What's that? I'm right behind you. I just saw. You're right behind me

Cheetah's over there. I got you all over the house. Ari, I'm going to find something of yours to put up on the wall

I would be honest. Do you have merch from the road? Do you have merch from your show

Like, T-shirt? You have to do a T-shirt. You have to do a window card. I'll hang it in my house

You've not done any merch, I really need merch. Yeah. With the name of your show, that would be the first thing somebody would buy is a T-shirt

You know, So just about that as you travel across the country. Should be like the four names, Alan and Ari and Ahri and Oye

And Henry. Henry needs to be on there somewhere too. That's all you need

And that will take you on another vacation once you get all the money from the merch. Well, I want to tell our audience, once again, Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro will be bringing

their critically acclaim show, Ahch and Oye, a considered cabaret to the Rose Brampton on stage

in Brampton, Ontario on Friday, March 21st at 8 p.m. For tickets, go to bramptononstage.com

I want to thank the two of you for dropping by to see me at Broadway World. Thank you

It's been a pleasure. Yeah, to see you next time