Both are part of the LGBT community, though Grey is a more recent addition, having publicly come out last January.
Both own small dogs — Grey, a Chihauhua named Nicky and Cumming, a Chihuahua-Rat Terrier mix named Jerry.
Both have written memoirs. Cumming’s — Not My Father’s Son — was published in 2014 while Grey’s — Master of Ceremonies — reaches Amazon in a few weeks.
Both have found success on television. Grey has enjoyed almost 60 years of television appearances, including guest arcs on both Alias and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, while Cumming has brought to life, with brilliant, vivid nuance, the Emmy-nominated role of Eli Gold on CBS hit The Good Wife.
Both have had astonishing stage careers. Grey originated the role of The Wizard of Oz in Wicked and Amos Hart in Chicago, while Cumming has played in everything from Hamlet to Bent to The Threepenny Opera. But their Broadway link lies with Kander and Ebb’s classic Cabaret: Each won a Tony Award for playing The Emcee. Grey originated the showy — and show-stopping — part in the original Broadway production in the ’60s (and later in the 1972 film, for which he took home an Oscar). Years later, in 1998, Cumming won a Tony for darker, more sexualized take on the part.
And both are coming to our city: Cumming, 51, will be at Strathmore on Valentine’s Day — Sunday, Feb. 14 — with his critically heralded cabaret, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, while the 83-year-old Grey will settle into the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue on Feb. 23, for an in-depth conversation about his book, his life, and his remarkable career.
Tavis Kordell may not yet be a household name, but their performance career is off to an auspicious start. The young triple threat graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro last year and within six months landed a leading role in Some Like It Hot, the musical based on the hit 1959 film about two heterosexual musicians on the run from the mafia after witnessing a murder. To hide, they dress in drag and join an all-women's band.
Kordell steps into the shoes and heels of the role of Jerry/Daphne, which earned J. Harrison Ghee a Tony Award when the show premiered on Broadway in 2022. Both actors have much in common. They are non-binary, are preacher's children, and, even more coincidentally, share the same hometown.
As director Joe Calarco put it to the press night audience at Signature Theatre's Fiddler on the Roof, he had a simple pitch for what would become his twentieth Signature production.
For his Fiddler, Calarco -- whose 2017 Jesus Christ Superstar at the Northern Virginia theater still ranks as tops among the handful I've seen -- envisioned a table in the round. The family table, the community table, where so much that matters in life happens, would serve as the center for this telling of the musical composed by Jerry Bock, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein.
Lizzie Borden swings a mean axe in Lizzie the Musical, both as a rage-fueled maybe murderess and as the electrifying voice leading this hard-charging, concert-style rock musical. For director-choreographer Jennifer J. Hopkins' bracing new production at the Keegan, Lizzie's voice -- and her rage and riveting determination -- reside in Caroline Graham.
Lacing Lizzie's fury with a winking sense of humor, Graham positively shreds the grunge-punk rock score composed by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt, with lyrics by Cheslik-DeMeyer and Tim Maner. Maner wrote the show's book, which hews close to the known facts and testimony that have shaped public perception of the notorious 1892 murder case.
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