Ravinia 2021 - Issue 1

7:30 PM TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2021 ALAN CUMMING and ARI SHAPIRO † HENRY KOPERSKI, music director Och & Oy! A Considered Cabaret Alan Cumming ( Cabaret , The Good Wife ) and Ari Shapiro (NPR’s All Things Considered , Pink Martini) both transport audiences to other worlds through their stories; now they’re joining forces in song through this evening of tunes and tall tales. † Ravinia debut Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of Sponsor The Fisher and Marks Families, in memory of James and Roslyn Marks . PAVILION ALAN CUMMING A graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Alan Cumming began his career in television and comedy, but quickly made his big break in theater as Slupianek in Conquest of the South Pole at Edinburgh’s Tra- verse Theatre. The production was reprised at the Royal Court in London’s West End, and Cumming earned an Olivier Award nomina- tion for Most Promising Newcomer. He then began working with the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre Studio, and the Royal National Theatre, with which he won an Olivier Award for his portrayal of The Madman in Accidental Death of an Anarchist . Cumming has also portrayed Valere in La Bête ; the title roles of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet , the latter earning him a TMA Award for Best Actor and a Shakespeare Globe nom- ination; and the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret , the vehicle of his Broadway debut that earned him Tony, Outer Critics’ Circle, Drama Desk, and Theatre World Awards. His other Broadway credits have included Design for Living and The Threepenny Opera , and he has appeared off-Broadway in Elle and The Seagull . In the lead role of The Bacchae with the National Theatre of Scotland, Cum- ming opened the 2007 Edinburgh Festival and appeared at London’s Lyric Theatre and New York’s Lincoln Center. He returned to Hamlet at the Tramway in Glasgow in 2012 and brought a performance of all its roles to Broadway the following year. Since his film debut in Ian Sellar’s Prague , Cumming has been active in Hollywood with credits rang- ing from Goldeneye and the Spy Kids trilogy to independent films like Titus , The Anni- versary Party , and Any Day Now . The host of PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery! , he played Eli Gold in seven seasons of CBS’s The Good Wife and starred in CBS’s Instinct in addition to having guest roles on Broad City , The L Word , and Doctor Who , among other TV series ap- pearances. Alan Cumming made his Ravin- ia debut in 2015 with Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs and returned in 2018 with Legal Immigrant . ARI SHAPIRO Ari Shapiro has been one of the hosts of NPR’s All Things Considered since 2015, reporting from above the Arctic Circle and aboard Air Force One, filing stories from dozens of countries and most of the United States, and covering conflicts in Iraq, Ukraine, and Israel. Born in Fargo, ND, and raised in Portland, OR, Shapiro graduated from Yale Universi- ty and began his journalism career as an in- tern for NPR’s Nina Totenberg. He was NPR’s Justice Correspondent for five years during the George W. Bush Administration, cov- ering debates over surveillance, detention, and interrogation following September 11, 2001. Shapiro subsequently became NPR’s White House Correspondent during Presi- dent Barack Obama’s first and second terms, and he was embedded with the Mitt Romney campaign during the 2012 presidential race. He later traveled the world covering a wide range of topics for NPR as its International Correspondent based in London. In addition to listeners around the world, honors have followed Shapiro’s reporting career, includ- ing the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize at age 25 for an investigation of methamphetamine use and HIV transmission. He was part of an NPR team that won an Edward R. Murrow Award for coverage of the Trump Adminis- tration’s asylum policies on the US–Mexico border, and the Columbia Journalism Review honored him with a laurel for his investiga- tion into disability benefits for injured Amer- ican veterans. The American Bar Association awarded him the Silver Gavel for exposing the failures of Louisiana’s detention system after Hurricane Katrina, and he was the inaugural recipient of the American Judges’ Association American Gavel Award. On a different mi- crophone, Shapiro is a sometime guest singer with Pink Martini, first appearing live with the group at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009 fol- lowing an impromptu recording session for Splendor in the Grass . He has since guested on their albums Joy to the World (2010) and Get Happy (2013) and sung with the group at L’Olympia in Paris, Royal Albert Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Ari Shapiro is making his first appearance at Ravinia. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 57