Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro Will Come To Boston With OCH & OY! A CONSIDERED CABARET

Celebrity Series of Boston presents the highly anticipated Boston debut of Och & Oy! A Considered Cabaret, created and performed by two audience favorites from very different parts of the entertainment world.

Originally planned for 2020, this wildly entertaining cabaret-style show brings together Tony Award-winning Actor Alan Cumming and NPR's All Things Considered's Ari Shapiro. It's not the most obvious pairing, but they're both singular storytellers with big personalities, and this evening of tunes and tall tales will quickly prove that unlikely collaborations can yield some of the most memorable and meaningful results.

Come prepared to laugh, think, and revel in the unexpected with this "ever-changing" show.

Och & Oy! A Considered Cabaret
October 24, 2021 at 7pm
Symphony Hall (301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston)
https://www.celebrityseries.org/productions/alan-cumming-and-ari-shapiro/

Alan Cumming has performed with Jay Z and Liza with a Z; he has won a Tony, hosted the Tonys and been nominated for an Emmy for doing so; he has a bar called Club Cumming and a soap called Cumming In A Bar, and; he made back-to-back films with Stanley Kubrick and the Spice Girls; he has played God, the Devil, Hitler, the Pope, a teleporting superhero, Hamlet, all the parts in Macbeth, General Batista of Cuba, a goat opposite Sean Connery, Dionysus, a Smurf (twice) the EmCee in Cabaret (thrice), a James Bond baddie - oh, and political spinmeister Eli Gold on seven seasons of The Good Wife for which he received multiple Golden Globe, Emmy and SAG award nominations; he is the author of five books including a #1 New York Times best-selling memoir; he played the first ever gay leading role on an US network drama, CBS's Instinct. He appeared on Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, topless in Playgirl and naked on the cover of his second album.

He has received over forty awards for his humanitarianism and social activism, three honorary doctorates, both the Great Scot and Icon of Scotland awards from his homeland and was made an OBE (Officer of the British Empire) for his contributions to the arts and LBGT equality by the Queen, whose portrait was taken down when his was unveiled at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2014.

He has sung in concert halls across the globe including the Sydney Opera House, the London Palladium, the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall and Billboard said of his show Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs 'he's an icon to behold - he is unapologetically himself, and with a talent like that, he has no need to apologize."

Ari Shapiro has been one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine, since 2015. During his first two years on the program, listenership to All Things Considered grew at an unprecedented rate, with more people tuning in during a typical quarter-hour than any other program on the radio.

Shapiro 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.

Shapiro spent two years as NPR's International Correspondent based in London, traveling the world to cover a wide range of topics for NPR's news programs. His overseas move came after four years as NPR's White House Correspondent during President Barack Obama's first and second terms. Shapiro also embedded with the campaign of Republican Mitt Romney for the duration of the 2012 presidential race. He was NPR's Justice Correspondent for five years during the George W. Bush Administration, covering debates over surveillance, detention and interrogation in the years after Sept. 11.

Shapiro's reporting has been consistently recognized by his peers. He has won two national Edward R. Murrow awards; one for his reporting on the life and death of Breonna Taylor, and another for his coverage of the Trump Administration's asylum policies on the US-Mexico border. The Columbia Journalism Review honored him with a laurel for his investigation into disability benefits for injured American veterans. The American Bar Association awarded him the Silver Gavel for exposing the failures of Louisiana's detention system after Hurricane Katrina. He was the first recipient of the American Judges' Association American Gavel Award for his work on U.S. courts and the American justice system. And at age 25, Shapiro won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for an investigation of methamphetamine use and HIV transmission.

An occasional singer, Shapiro makes frequent guest appearances with the "little orchestra" Pink Martini, whose recent albums feature several of his contributions, in multiple languages. Since his debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009, Shapiro has performed live at many of the world's most storied venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York, The Royal Albert Hall in London and L'Olympia in Paris. In 2019 he created the show "Och and Oy" with Tony Award winner Alan Cumming, and they continue to tour the country with it.

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