Alan Cumming may have won a Tony for singing Broadway hits like “Money” and “Willkommen” in Cabaret, but don’t expect him to perform them again anytime soon.
“I could die happy never being in Cabaret again,” he exclusively told Parade for the March 2 cover story. “People always want me to sing songs from Cabaret. The number of times I’m hosting, and people say, ‘Wouldn’t it be a great idea if you sang “Willkommen”?’ I was like, ‘Nope. No. Never.'”
Cumming, who recently won two Emmy Awards for his work as the host and a producer of the Peacock reality TV hit The Traitors, rose to prominence back in 1998 when he won the Tony Award for playing the Emcee in a Broadway revival of Cabaret. He later reprised the role in the 2014 revival of the same Kander and Ebb musical. After two lauded stints as the Emcee, however, he’s ready to move onto a new set of songs.
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“Cabaret is such an incredible show, a beautiful piece of work,” he said. “And I thought our production was incredible. It’s been so good to me, and sort of changed my life really. It was a great thing I’m very proud of. It’s funny. I think I’m a moving-on kind of person always. I feel a bit embarrassed by resting on my laurels.”
Especially in the age of TikTok, Cabaret seems to be haunting Cumming. “I don’t know, it’s something about, especially ‘Willkommen’ or ‘Money,’ he said. “Because of TikTok, I was sort of trending because they were using the recording of me singing ‘Money’ for all these things about Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. It was just horrifying for me to hear it so many times when I would doomscroll.”
If you would like to hear Cumming perform a song from Cabaret, you’re better off requesting the songs not traditionally sung by the Emcee.
“The other night, I sang at the Carlyle Hotel for this Michael Kors party, which was such fun,” he remembered. “I actually sang two songs from Cabaret, but they’re not the songs I sang. I actually sang ‘Mein Herr’ and ‘Maybe This Time’ in my show, and I sang those the other night. It’s so funny because they’re Sally Bowles songs, so I don’t mind singing those, and I feel like I’m doing my Cabaret duty a wee bit by doing that, but it’s my slant on it.”
Safe to say, Cumming will not be heading back to Broadway for a third stint in Cabaret.
Related: Alan Cumming Is the ‘Worst’ at Keeping Secrets — So the ‘Traitors’ Host Is Ready to Spill (Exclusive)
