Alan Cumming: interviews and nominations

Alan Cumming dares do all in 'Macbeth' on Broadway
The actor tackles 15 roles from the Shakespearean tragedy along with a mental patient in a story that frames the performance. He finds it 'terrifying' but relishes the chance to try something that's never been tried before.

  Alan Cumming outside the Broadway theater where he is playing 15 parts in "Macbeth" in Manhattan, NY.
(Jennifer S. Altman, For The Times / April 14, 2013)

Like world-class athletes, actors often measure their achievements by the degree of difficulty. Does a part require an unusual amount of range? An extraordinary number of man hours? Is it simply a matter of a chewy set of lines to get one's lips around?
By all these standards, Alan Cumming would be an extreme-sports medalist.
In a stage turn that will last nearly two hours, Cumming is set to play the part of Macbeth. Or, rather, the parts of Macbeth, as he tackles 15 roles from the Shakespearean tragedy, including the title character, Banquo, Duncan, Lady Macbeth and plenty of others (as well as, in a story that frames the performance, a disoriented mental patient reenacting the play).
Read more at LA Times

Alan Cumming -> Quoted
The celebrated actor talks about preparing for his one-man production of Macbeth.

After sold-out engagements at the National Theatre of Scotland and Lincoln Center Festival, Alan Cumming is bringing his dark, one-man production of Macbeth to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre for a limited engagement, opening April 21. Cumming says that even though he was drawn to the idea of a new production, he still finds performing the show somewhat daunting.

“I’m really excited to do it again. I feel like I wasn’t done with it… It’s the most challenging and most overwhelming thing I’ve ever done in my entire life,” says Cumming.Read more at Next Magazine

Alan Cumming nominated for United Solo uAward
United Solo, the world's largest solo theatre festival, has announced the nominees for its uAward, which recognizes those with outstanding achievements in popularizing the form of solo performance.
Alan is nominated for his performance in Macbeth (National Theater of Scotland, Lincoln Center, and Broadway.
The recipient of the special uAward will be announced at the United Solo Festival Closing Ceremony.
This year the Festival will begin Oct. 3 and conclude with the Closing Ceremony on Nov. 24 at Theatre Row. During its eight-week program, the Festival will present a variety of local and international performances. The producers are currently accepting submissions from all over the world. Artists and performance companies are invited to submit their solo shows now through April 22. More information can be found at the festival's website, www.unitedsolo.org.
Read more at Playbill  

Alan Cumming welcomes first Birks cinema fans
Hollywood movie actor Alan Cumming OBE extends a personal welcome to the first patrons of The Birks Cinema at the Golden Ticket event on Friday 19th April
Source: YouTube 
Also reported by BBC

Alan Cumming: 'Macbeth' photos, new movie projects, James Bond photo shoot

First Look at Alan Cumming in MACBETH on Broadway!

Now in previews at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Tony and Olivier Award winner and two-time Emmy nominee Alan Cumming's acclaimed one-man interpretation of Macbeth is set to officially open next Sunday, April 21 at 6 p.m.
Read more, and get a first look at the all-new production photos (including the one above), at BroadwayWorld

Macbeth review at ShakespeareSolved


New movie projects
From Los Angeles Times:

Alan Cumming has been pretty busy lately.

The Tony-winner and Emmy-nominee's role as slick campaign manager Eli Gold on "The Good Wife" continues to be meaty, with the series recently picked up for a fifth season. He's set to star in a one-man "Macbeth" that opens on Broadway later this month (more on that shortly). And now he has several film projects in the works.
Cumming tells The Times that he's come aboard to star in "First-Class Man," the long-developed Roger Spottiswoode film about an Indian prodigy who makes the move from his native country to Cambridge, England. (Cumming quipped he'll be playing the Indian boy, though given his "Macbeth" turn—he’s playing 15 different parts, including Lady Macbeth -- we wouldn’t be so sure he’s joking.)

Meanwhile, Cumming says he’s on board to start in the wartime Dutch drama “Dunes of Overveen,” an indie project co-written by gay activist David Mixner and the British expat writer Richard Grant, with the project seeking a director.

Read more at LAtimes


David White photoshoot
David White shoots Alan Cumming as James Bond

© DAVID WHITE  Alan Cumming in James Bond-themed fashion.

New York City-based portrait, celebrity photographer David White has added some new images from a recent shoot with actor Alan Cumming. White photographs Cumming every year and this year was an updated James Bond theme for the 50th year anniversary of the legendary 007.  White used the Bond 007 theme for inspiration to showcase up-and-coming fashion designer David Hart. Hart's clothes are inspired by the Cold War spy era  Styling was by Cynthia Altoriso.  See even more of David White's work at his site.
Source (including photo): Photo District News
(Alan features in all three portfolios)

Alan Cumming: Shakespeare CD, 'Macbeth' ticket offer, awards ceremony hosting

• Shakespeare

Alan Cumming performs Shakespeare's "Greatest Hits" on new CD, The Head That Wears a Crown
"To be or not to be" and "Now is the winter of our discontent" are included on this 22-track CD of Shakespeare's most famous speeches.

 

Cover art for The Head That Wears a Crown, courtesy of GPR Records

Combine your favorite audio book with your favorite NOW CD, add a dash of Alan Cumming, and you've got the most sophisticated thing ever to happen to long car trips. Tony and Emmy Award winner Alan Cumming (Cabaret), the Shakespearean man-of-the-hour who is currently preparing to open his one-man rendition of Macbeth at the Ethel Barrymore Theater this month, is also preparing to release a 22-track CD of Shakespeare's most famous speeches entitled The Head That Wears a Crown. Produced by GPR Records, the CD contains selections from As You Like It, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Henry V, Henry VIII, King Lear, Macbeth, Richard II, The Tempest, Titus Andronicus, and Twelfth Night, chosen by Cumming personally. The digital release is set for April 3, with a full release scheduled for April 26.
Read more at TheaterMania

• Macbeth

Rush Ticket policy announced for Alan Cumming's Macbeth on Broadway

 

photo courtesy of Playbill

Producers have announced a "$30 Under 30" rush ticket policy for the new one-man Broadway production of Macbeth starring Tony Award winner Alan Cumming, which begins Broadway previews April 7 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Individuals under 30 years of age with a valid ID indicating their birth date will be able to purchase one ticket at the Barrymore box office for day-of performances to the production that will officially open April 21.
Read more at Playbill

Alan Cumming guest stars in the season finale of "The Outs"
The Outs, a critically-acclaimed and crowd-funded web series about friends, lovers and exes in Brooklyn, is wrapping up with Alan Cumming guest starring in the finale episode. Adam Goldman, the show's creator, spoke to BuzzFeed via email about the finale and how The Outs got started.
Read more at BuzzFeed

• Drama League Awards

David Hyde Pierce to Host Drama League Awards; Honorary Co-Chairs Include Alan Cumming, Nathan Lane & More
Read more at Broadway

James McAvoy: 'Trance' video review, Olivier Awards nomination for Macbeth

Trance - video review
In an excerpt from this week's Guardian Film Show Henry Barnes, Peter Bradshaw and Andrew Pulver head deep into James McAvoy's noggin with Danny Boyle's new psychological thriller. McAvoy plays am amnesiac criminal who has forgotten where he's hidden a priceless Goya and recruits a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) to help him find it. Trance also stars Vincent Cassel as a ruthless gangster
Watch the video review at The Guardian

Olivier Awards 2013
Stars of the silver screen Helen Mirren, James McAvoy and Rupert Everett in competition for top theatre gongs

The nominations for the 2013 Olivier Awards were announced at The May Fair hotel earlier today, and Mirren was instantly installed among the favourites to secure the best actress award for her latest turn as the Queen in The Audience.
She will come up against Scott Thomas, star of The English Patient, for her performance in Old Times, Billie Piper, who was in The Effect, and Hattie Morahan for A Doll's House. The Audience was also nominated for best new play, and Stephen Daldry is in the running for best director.
Another production to open in recent weeks was Macbeth at the Trafalgar Studios, and  it was nominated for best revival as well as a nod for film star McAvoy in the lead role.
He will face Everett, for his role as Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss, as well as Mark Rylance for Twelfth Night, Rafe Spall – recently seen in Life of Pi – for Constellations and Luke Treadaway, who starred in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Read more (including full nominations list) at The Independent

Also reported by Hollywood Reporter and others

Alan Cumming: backstage at Macbeth, and new audiobook role

The Cumming Attraction: Backstage at Macbeth with Alan Cumming, Episode 3: The Underpants Giveaway!
From Broadway.com:

We always knew Broadway.com video blogger Alan Cumming was “kind of a rock star!” The "Scottish play" headliner chats with Chris Noth (kinda), gets his first Macbeth injury, has a fabulous fashion show and gives away undies.

See more episodes at Broadway

There's a short Macbeth article at Huffington Post

Armistead Maupin audio book series features Alan Cumming

Tony Award winners Alan Cumming, Frances McDormand and Cynthia Nixon are among the actors who read the work of "Tales of the City" novelist Armistead Maupin in a new audio book series from Harper Collins.

Maupin, best known for his San Francisco-set series "Tales of the City," is celebrated in the new six-part audio book series from HarperAudio, which was released March 26. Each of the works is presented in unabridged form.
"Tales of the City" and "Further Tales of the City" are read by Good People Tony Award winner McDormand; "More Tales of the City" and "Significant Others" are read by Wit and Rabbit Hole star Nixon; Cumming (Macbeth, Cabaret) reads "Babycakes"; and Emmy Award-winning "Will & Grace" and The Best Man star Eric McCormack reads "Sure of You."
Read more (and listen to an excerpt) at Playbill

Alan Cumming: tickets on sale for Macbeth on Broadway

Tickets now on sale for Alan Cumming's One-Man Macbeth on Broadway

Alan Cumming in 'Macbeth

Tickets are now available for Alan Cumming's one-man take on Macbeth. The Shakespeare classic will begin previews at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre on April 7, with an official opening set for April 21. John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg co-direct the reimagined tragedy.
This Shakespearean thriller tells the story of an isolated patient deep within a clinical psych ward. Cumming will play every role, while the production will utilize various multimedia in this one-man adaptation of the time old drama.
The production will feature set and costume design by Merle Hensel, lighting design by Natasha Chivers, sound design by Fergus O’Hare and production design by Ian William Galloway.

Alan Cumming is capturing all his Macbeth adventures in his new Broadway.com video blog The Cumming Attraction. Check out the first episode (which includes a cameo by Liza Minnelli!) below.

Source (including photo and video): Broadway

James McAvoy: interviews

James McAvoy: 'Esquire UK' Feature April 2013 

 

James McAvoy shows off his piercing blue eyes in this brand new feature from Esquire UK‘s April 2013 issue, featuring cover girl Rachel Weisz.
Here is what the 33-year-old Welcome To The Punch actor had to share with the mag:
On being a geek at heart: “I am a nerd but I don’t dive head-first into any fiefdom of nerdiness, except for maybe Star Trek.”
On his new film Welcome to the Punch: “Don’t get me wrong. I love British cinema, but there’s also a place for ostentatious, balls-out entertainment.”
On the skill of playing audiences: “Big year, really, for me, in terms of getting to play somebody that challenges the audience more than I have done in the past. As an actor, you’ve got to try and make the audience like you, even if you’re doing bad things. I quite like that dynamic.”
The full interview appears in the April issue of Esquire UK, on newsstands now, and is also available as a digital edition!
Source (including photo): Just Jared

James McAvoy on Macbeth and Welcome to the PunchJames McAvoy in new film 'Welcome to the Punch'. Picture: Contributed

His new life role as a dad took James McAvoy off our screens for a while but now he’s back, busy and doing as much ‘growing up’ as his two-year-old son.
Stroking a dagger-shaped (and faintly ginger) beard, James McAvoy is ruminating on the odder, insider-y aspects of his career – the foibles of friends, the strange relations with your family, the quirky casting choices, the methods of collaborators.
Read more at Scotland on Sunday


Listen again: James McAvoy on heat radio

From HeatWorld Radio:

This week on heatworld Saturday we were joined by the lovely, handsome James McAvoy. He stars with Mark Strong in new cops & robbers movie Welcome to the Punch which is out in cinemas next Friday. Lucie Cave went along to a posh hotel to chat to James about all things filmy, beardy and manly.

Source (including photo): Heatworld


James McAvoy - Interview


After a couple of years off, James McAvoy has the leading role in three big British films in 2013. First is the American-style London cop thriller Welcome to the Punch, opposite Mark Strong, then he teams up with Danny Boyle for the action movie Trance, and later this year he leads the starry cast of Filth, based on the notorious Irvine Welsh novel. Meanwhile, he's been getting rave reviews in the title role in Shakespeare's Macbeth on a London West End stage before he rejoins the X-men for the super-sequel Days of Future Past.
Read the full interview at Contact Music

Alan Cumming: Macbeth video blog, XMen rumours, Liza Minelli's birthday gig

The Cumming Attraction! Macbeth star Alan Cumming is Broadway.com’s newest video blogger

Alan Cumming in 'Macbeth

Double, double, toil and trouble…Things are about to get creepy at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre thanks to Macbeth star Alan Cumming, and the Tony winner will share the spooky experience as Broadway.com’s newest video blogger! The acclaimed actor is bringing his one-man adaptation of the Scottish Play to Broadway on April 7, and he’ll document all of the offstage happenings (and possible scary visitors!) in his brand new video blog, The Cumming Attraction.

Set in a psychiatric ward, Cumming’s dark and frightening one-man Macbeth revisits the Shakespearian tragedy in the mind of a lone patient. The actor plays every role, using multimedia to reinterpret the Bard’s classic text.

The first episode of The Cumming Attraction will premiere on March 15! Get a taste of what to expect from Cumming by watching him discuss the revival below!

Source: Broadway.com


James McAvoy reveals Alan Cumming will be coming back to X-Men

Read the Heatworld interview here

or will he?

'I Haven't Been Asked To Return As Nightcrawler'
Actor Alan Cumming has ruled himself out of the latest X-Men movie, insisting he won't be available to reprise his Nightcrawler character.
Read the Contact Music interview here


Liza Minnelli celebrates her 67th birthday alongside Alan Cumming as they perform one night only gig in New York

Read more at Daily Mail

Also reported by Laredo Sun and many others

James McAvoy: 'Macbeth' review, 'Neverwhere' teaser, 'Welcome to the Punch' trailer, 'Crow' update

Macbeth

photo source: Express

A review of James McAvoy's Macbeth has been published by The Express


Neverwhere
From Radio Times:

James McAvoy in Neverwhere teaser trailer: "I'm not going mad. Am I?" 
Listen to a snippet of the upcoming Radio 4 drama starring McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch and Christopher Lee
James McAvoy introduces us to his Neverwhere character Richard Mayhew in this brand new clip from the BBC Radio 4 drama.
Adapted from award-winning author Neil Gaiman’s novel, Neverwhere sees Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world beneath London following an act of kindness.
“I helped a girl called Door, now something strange has happened and it's like I'm falling through gaps,” laments McAvoy in the clip. “I need to get back…my life. I’m not going mad. Am I?!”
As well as McAvoy, Neverwhere features an all-star cast including Benedict Cumberbatch, Anthony Head, Bernard Cribbins and Christopher Lee.

Read more and listen to the trailer at Radio Times 


Welcome To The Punch
Official trailer

Source: YouTube
Photos  - FanCarpet has some new photos from Welcome To The Punch here.

The Crow
From Digital Spy:

James McAvoy dismisses 'The Crow' rumours
James McAvoy has dismissed rumours linking him with the lead role in the proposed remake of The Crow. The X-Men: First Class star described the reports as "rumour mill" but did not rule out appearing in the film should he be approached. 

Read more at Digital Spy

James McAvoy: Macbeth reviews, and 'Neverwhere' cast photo

James McAvoy in Macbeth, Trafalgar Studios, review
Macbeth, starring James McAvoy, packs a powerful punch says Charles Spencer.

James McAvoy and Claire Foy in Macbeth at Trafalgar Studios. Photo: Johan Persson

James McAvoy, best known as a film actor, proves a commanding Macbeth, and the relationship with his wife is powerfully caught. The text makes it clear that the couple had a child who died in infancy and McAvoy and Claire Foy as Lady Macbeth suggest both an undertow of grief and the sense that their murderous ambition is some kind of sick compensation for their loss.
At the start it is Foy’s Lady Macbeth who leads the way, like a bossy schoolgirl who has set her heart on becoming head-girl. Unlike his morally blind wife, however, Macbeth knows what murder will cost, and initially at least, has a strong sense of what is right. McAvoy thrillingly suggests a man on the rack of his own guilty mind who learns that the only way to secure his position and silence his conscience is to become inured to atrocity with further killings.
He also does full justice to the haunting poetry of the last act in which Macbeth realises just what he has lost - not least himself and any sense of purpose or meaning in life. It is the reason that Macbeth is a genuinely tragic character and not just a serial killer.

Read more here
Source (including photo): Telegraph

More reviews at
The Independent
Metro
Contact Music
Herald Scotland
Entertainment Wise
London Theatre 

Macbeth-related interviews with James McAvoy at
London Evening Standard
Time Out


Neverwhere
First photo and air date revealed
An exclusive look at the first official cast shot for the Radio 4 adaptation of Neil Gaiman's fantasy drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch, James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, Sophie Okonedo and David Harewood

From Radio Times:

As anticipation mounts among fantasy fans ahead of the Radio 4/4 Extra co-production of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, RadioTimes.com can reveal the first exclusive shot of the star-studded cast, which reads like a who's who of cult TV and film.
Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch and X-Men's James McAvoy are joined by Game of Thrones and former Fades star Natalie Dormer, Doctor Who alumnus Sophie Okonedo and Homeland's David Harewood for the tale of London Below, an alternate reality beneath the capital where famous landmarks take on a life of their own.
Screen legends Christopher Lee and Bernard Cribbins also star in an adaptation that is being described as an "audio film".
The six-part series begins with an hour-long episode at 6pm on Saturday 16 March on Radio 4 and continues with five 30-minute instalments stripped across the week on Radio 4 Extra from Monday 18 March.
More photos and news to follow in the coming weeks...

Source (including photo): Radio Times

Alan Cumming: Macbeth preparations in New York

image source: Broadway World

BWW TV: Chatting with Alan Cumming about his one-man Macbeth!

From Broadway World:

Direct from acclaimed, sold-out engagements at The National Theatre of Scotland and the Lincoln Center Festival, Tony and Olivier Award winner ("Cabaret") and two-time Emmy nominee ("The Good Wife") Alan Cumming will return to Broadway this spring in a one-man interpretation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Cumming just helped intsall the marquee at the Barrymore Theatre and BroadwayWorld was there to chat with the leading man about the show. Check out what he had to say below!
Produced by Ken Davenport, The National Theatre of Scotland's Macbeth will play a strictly limited 73-performance engagement at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street).
A tour-de-force performance directed by Tony Award winner John Tiffany ("Once") and Andrew Goldberg ("Black Watch"), this Macbeth is set in a clinical room deep within a dark psychiatric unit. Cumming is the lone patient, reliving the infamous story and inhabiting each role himself. Closed circuit television cameras watch the patient's every move as the walls of the psychiatric ward come to life in a visually stunning multi-media theatrical experience of Shakespeare's notorious tale of desire, ambition and the supernatural.
For more about the production, visit www.macbethonbroadway.com.

Source (including video interview, and the above image): Broadway World

Many photos of the marquee installation here

Alan Cumming: solo Macbeth and 'Cabaret' news

Alan Cumming to stage ambitious solo project on Broadway

Scottish actor Alan Cumming is taking his ambitious solo performance of William Shakespeare's Macbeth to Broadway. The Good Wife star will not only be playing the titular role, but every other part in the play himself, from the three witches to Lady Macbeth.
To explain the multiple personalities being dramatised on stage, the play will be set in a psychiatric unit with Cumming playing a patient who re-enacts the tale of bloody palace intrigue.
Tony Award-winner John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg will direct the production, which opens at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 7 April (13) for a limited 73-performance run.
Cumming previously staged his unusual solo show at the National Theatre of Scotland and the Lincoln Center Festival in New York last year (12).
He says, "Performing Macbeth last year was the most challenging and fulfilling experience of my career by far, and so I am both honoured and daunted to do it again in my adopted hometown of New York City."
Cumming last appeared on Broadway in his Tony Award-winning performance as the Emcee in Cabaret in 1998, while he also previously starred in The Threepenny Opera and Design for Living.
Source: Express


Producer Kevin Davenport has blogged about it here (above image is from there)

Cabaret continues
After a 40th-anniversary screening of her classic movie musical “Cabaret” on Thursday night, Liza Minnelli and Alan Cumming were already going over their upcoming stage show. “They were in a corner conferring about their show at Town Hall,” said a spy at an Empire Hotel after-party for “Cabaret.” Minnelli, who won a Best Actress Oscar for the movie, and Cumming, who won a Tony Award for Rob Marshall’s Broadway revival, are teaming onstage March 13 for Minnelli’s 67th birthday. Earlier at the Ziegfeld Theatre, Minnelli, Joel Grey, Michael York and Marisa Berenson spoke about the film with Turner Classic Movies’ Robert Osborne, in advance of its Blu-ray release.
Source: New York Post 

James McAvoy: 'Macbeth' rehearsals, new 'Trance' poster

Macbeth Rehearsals (pics)

More at James McAvoy Central



Let James McAvoy hypnotize you with a new poster for Danny Boyle's 'Trance'

Star James McAvoy is central to the eye-straining U.K. one-sheet, which boasts the ominous words "Don't Be A Hero" in plain white text across the middle. So what does it all mean? Guess you'll have to wait and see when the film hits U.S. shores sometime later this year.
"Trance" synopsis:

'Trance,' directed by Oscar®-winning filmmaker Danny Boyle ('Slumdog Millionaire,' '127 Hours') and co-written by Oscar®-nominated long term collaborator John Hodge ('Shallow Grave,' 'Trainspotting') is a seductive and enigmatic thriller starring James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson.

Fine art auctioneer Simon (McAvoy), in league with a gang led by underworld boss Franck (Cassel), plots the audacious theft of a masterpiece by Goya from a major public auction. When Simon double-crosses the gang during the robbery, Franck retaliates violently and knocks him unconscious.

In the aftermath of the heist, Simon sticks stubbornly – and perhaps shrewdly – to his claim that the violent trauma has left him with no memory of where he stashed the artwork.

Unable to coerce the painting’s location from Simon, Franck and his associates reluctantly join forces with a charismatic hypnotherapist (Dawson) in a bid to get him to talk. But as they journey deeper into Simon’s jumbled psyche the boundaries between reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur and the stakes rise faster and far more dangerously than any of the players could have anticipated.

Read more at Hitfix 

James McAvoy: 'Welcome to the Punch' premiere, and win a VIP trip to see Macbeth

Win a VIP trip to see James McAvoy in Macbeth at Trafalgar Studios

BAFTA winner and Golden Globe and Olivier nominee James McAvoy will star in Shakespeare's Macbeth at Trafalgar Studios. The play opens next month. Guardian Extra members can win two top price tickets to see the play plus an overnight stay at The Cavendish London in the West End. The competition closes on 10 February

James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland, Atonement), will star in Macbeth, director Jamie Lloyd's inaugural production in a season of work for Trafalgar Transformed at Trafalgar Studios in London's Whitehall. Lloyd directed the Old Vic's production of The Duchess of Malfi and The Pride at the Royal Court.

The production will see Shakespeare's darkest tale play out in a dystopian Scotland brutalised by war. Under a toxic fog, Macbeth begins his tormented struggle for power fuelled, by ambition and paranoia.
 
One Guardian Extra member can win a pair of top price tickets to see Macbeth. The prize also includes an overnight stay, including breakfast, at The Cavendish London, a luxury hotel located in the heart of the capital's West End. The tickets are valid for performances Tuesday to Friday from 18 February to 28 March 2013.

Click here to enter this competition.

Macbeth will be staged at Trafalgar Studios from 9 February until 27 April. To book tickets, call 0844 871 7632 or visit the website booking page here.

Source (including image): The Guardian 

Welcome to the Punch 
The Daily Record reports that Welcome to the Punch (James McAvoy, Peter Mullan) will première at the Glasgow Film Festival next month.
Read more here

James McAvoy to play West End Macbeth

From Last King of Scotland to another Scottish king: James McAvoy to play Macbeth
Last King of Scotland and Atonement actor James McAvoy is to make an appearance at London's West End playing the title role in Jamie Lloyd's Macbeth.

He will appear in the inaugural production of a season of work at the Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall called Trafalgar Transformed.
McAvoy was last on stage in 2009 in the Olivier-nominated production Three Days of Rain at the Apollo Theatre.
His upcoming film appearances include Danny Boyle’s Trance, Welcome to the Punch, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Filth (2013), and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).
The actor recently dropped out of the as yet unnamed Wikileaks film after work commitments conflicted.
Lloyd’s production of the Shakespeare play will be set in a dystopian Scotland brutalised by war as Macbeth begins his tormented struggle for power fuelled by ambition and paranoia under a toxic fog.
Lloyd said "We hope to welcome new and diverse audiences to the West End and I am very excited to engage with schools and other groups via a series of bespoke workshops and masterclasses.”
All tickets will be £15 on Mondays, half of which will be made available through an outreach scheme targeted towards schools and first-time theatregoers.
The other half will be released monthly to the public on the first day of each month, starting on 1 February 2013, and will be available online or at Trafalgar Studios box office. Additionally, day seats will be available at £10 for all performances, Tuesday through Saturday.
The production will run from 9 February to 27 April.

Source: The Independent

Also reported by What's On Stage, The Stage, Broadway, Express, and many others

Audiobook Review: Macbeth, performed by Alan Cumming

Review by Alyssa at The Reader’s Refuge
Overall Rating: 4/5

Macbeth is one of the greatest plays ever written, and it is my personal favorite of Shakespeare's works. This rendition is different in that it's the story of a man in a psychiatric unit who channels the story of Macbeth. This play is uniquely suited to this type of portrayal due to Macbeth's transformation and corruption. He only gets worse, which can be mirrored by a mentally insane person having an episode.

Alan Cumming does a brilliant job in narrating. While I don't think it comes close to what this portrayal must have been like on stage, he is still a great narrator. Unfortunately, there is nothing that suggests the context of a man in an insane asylum channeling Shakespeare's characters; either the listener has to imagine it for herself or simply take it as a reading of the play. Cumming does a good job in giving each character individuality, and the parts with the witches gave me the chills -- the editing is perfectly done so that his voice echoes three times to match the characters.

I do think that only those familiar with Macbeth can get much out of this. Any work of Shakespeare is hard to understand as an audiobook, especially with only one person narrating. Those unfamiliar with the story of Macbeth are likely to get confused. Likewise, any people out there who can't understand a Scottish accent may have trouble following along. But for those who are familiar with Macbeth and don't have a problem with understanding accents, you will love this.

Source: The Reader's Refuge

Alan Cumming: outstanding actor award, Macbeth audiobook, Goodspeed Tribute

Alan Cumming named Outstanding Actor at OUTFEST
Tony Award winner Alan Cumming has won the Grand Jury Award at Los Angeles' Outfest for Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film for Any Day Now.

The film, which received the Audience Award for Outstanding Feature Film, features Cumming as a gay man who, along with his partner, takes in an abandoned, mentally handicapped teenager.

Cumming won the Tony Award for his performance as the Emcee in Cabaret. His many other stage credits include Design for Living, The Threepenny Opera, Elle and Macbeth. He currently co-stars on CBS' The Good Wife as Eli Gold, and appeared in the television movie of Annie. 

Source: Theater Mania 

 

Alan says on his blog:

I just got back from LA where I won the Best Actor award at Outfest for Any Day Now. The movie also won the audience award, as it has at every festval it has screened at: Tribeca, Proveincetown and Seattle. I also won the Best Actor at Seattle. I am really proud of this film and so excited that it will be released late 2012.

The blog also includes this Red Carpet interview with Alan Cumming at the screening of his new film Any Day Now:

 
Read more at Alan Cumming's blog

Alan Cumming Talks Macbeth, Audiobooks
Simon & Schuster Audio earlier this month released the audio edition of Alan Cumming’s amazing solo interpretation of Macbeth.

And now, in the following behind-the-scenes video, Cumming himself talks about his performance, how his interpretation of Macbeth came to be, and the recording of the audiobook.

Source: Publishers Weekly 

Alan also spoke to the "CBS This Morning" co-hosts about playing every role in the production of Shakespeare's Macbeth at New York City's Lincoln Center Festival, and his role in the CBS drama The Good Wife. Watch the video at Metacafe 


Goodspeed Musical's Annual Gala

Alan Cumming will present Tony Award-winning actress Kristin Chenoweth the Goodspeed Award for Outstanding Contribution to Musical Theater at Goodspeed Musical's annual gala.

The fund raising event, which supports the theater's education programs, will be held Saturday, Aug. 11 at The Riverhouse at Goodspeed Station, 55 Bride Road in Haddam, across the river from the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam.

Read more at Courant.com 

New York Review: Macbeth

By Toby Zinman
For the Inquirer

An outrageous, exhausting, thrilling tour de force: Alan Cumming’s one-man Macbeth is both true to Shakespeare’s play and true to Cumming’s vast talent. The actor’s range, from sweetly smarmy Eli Gold on The Good Wife to sexy, fierce Dionysus in The Bacchae to the arch, flirty introducer of “Mystery! Masterpiece Theatre,” Cumming is an astonishment—surely one of the best actors working today.

The contemporary theatre loves to update/reimagine iconic plays for our times; often, with Shakespeare, this means merely the reductive trivializing found in yet another “relevant” Macbeth in modern dress to make a political comment (pick a country, any country) indicting the evils of tyranny, ambition and profound moral error. But in this production, the contemporizing premise is entirely believable as well as tantalizingly elusive: a man enters a grim locked-down psychiatric facility—institutional green walls, a narrow cot, a wash basin, a bathtub; there is a window through which a doctor and an orderly can observe him. In silence, they take his clothes, his wedding ring (a particularly chilling detail, given the play), and help him into loose white t-shirt and pants and slip-on shoes. His hair is standing straight up, as though it is horrified.

As they leave him, he finally speaks: “When shall we three meet again?” And we’re off.
Cumming then proceeds to play all the play’s characters, changing his voice, his posture, his manner in some dazzling quick-changes. His Lady Macbeth (playing on the gender issues of the play itself, “unsex me”) is particularly fine when the couple are in bed, and he flips from top (Lady M) to bottom (M), with the wonderful, wait-for-it moment when he asks about her planned murder of King Duncan, “If we should fail,--“ and she replies, expressing disdainful incredulity, taking off her clothes, “We fail.” Even better is when, emerging naked from the bathtub, he shifts between the two of them by merely changing the position of his towel.

A wheelchair becomes a throne, an apple signifies Banquo, and three high monitors show Cumming’s face at grotesque angles to represent the witches. A superb moment is Cumming’s gorgeously heartbreaking Macduff and another is the terrifying conversation he has with his reflection in the bathroom mirror with, “Who’s there?”

And that is the great question, not only within the play as we watch a great warrior turn monster turn madman, but within the production. Is this unnamed man a criminal using the play as a self-flagellating exercise in guilt? Or an actor obsessed with the play (this may have yet another layer in the reality of Cumming’s career—professional debut was as Malcolm twenty-seven years ago). Or a suicidal lunatic whose torment (“sleep no more”) is the tormented/tormenting play?

It helps to really know the play before you go since it has been condensed and the Scottish accents are very thick and prickly. It would also have been better to see it in a more intimate venue—the Rose Theatre keeps nearly everyone too far from the stage. But why cavil: this is a major theatrical experience.

Source: Philly.com

Photo posted by Alan Cumming on Twitter

Alan Cumming's Macbeth is available on CD

Simon & Schuster has released an audio recording of Tony Award winner Alan Cumming's one-man performance in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, which began a limited run at Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center on July 7 as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, after a recent production at the Tramway Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland.

The production, which is co-directed by Tony Award winner John Tiffany and Emmy Award winner Andy Goldberg, is set in a psychiatric ward.

Cumming won the Tony Award for Cabaret. His many stage credits include The Threepenny Opera, Design for Living, and The Seagull. He currently stars as Eli Gold on CBS' hit series, The Good Wife, for which he received an Emmy Award nomination.

For more information, visit www.simonandschuster.com.
Source: Theater Mania

 

The CD is also available at Amazon (and probably other retail outlets).

Alan Cumming - blog updates

Alan Cumming has blogged at the end of the first week of performances of Macbeth, with photos and videos.

Read more at Alan's blog