LIFE IS A CABARET!
Star Alan Cumming brings his famous backstage parties to a new East Village club
ON a recent Thursday night, a bubbly man in a striped hoodie was stocking an East Village bar’s fridge with bottled beer and making sure his customers’ gin and tonics were topped off. He was clearly having a fabulous time, occasionally whipping out his phone to film the band onstage, or enthusiastically clapping along with the packed crowd.
The bartender was actor Alan Cumming, and the spot was his Club Cumming, the hottest new bar and outré performance space in town.
Although the club has been open for two months, Cumming, who resides in the East Village, has remained a fixture at the establishment that bears his name. On this particular evening, he walked in at 11 p.m., straight from the set of his new CBS drama “Instinct.”
“It’s like we’re endlessly throwing a party,” Cumming tells The Post.
That’s the perfect description for a venue that was actually born from partying. Cumming starred as the mischievous Emcee during the 2014 to ’15 run of “Cabaret” on Broadway, and the charismatic actor would throw raucous soirees in his dressing room, affectionately called Club Cumming, after the show. The same backstage neon sign that graced his dressing room now hangs above the stage of the East Sixth Street club.
“Then we started doing concerts together,” says Club Cumming co-owner and promoter Daniel Nardicio of the outrageous gigs where Cumming sang Miley Cyrus and Rufus Wainwright hits. “And we
would do Club Cumming afterward.”
“My ‘Club Cumming’ parties were always just, like, my parties I had,” Cumming says. “And it just became apparent that maybe we could do that in an actual bar.”
So, when the owners of the popular gay bar Eastern Bloc, Benjamin Maisani and Darren Dryden, wanted to reboot the bar’s concept earlier this year, Cumming and Nardicio joined them to give the decadent afterparties a permanent home.
The club kicked off with fanfare in September, when Cumming’s celebrity pals Emma Stone, who co-starred with him on Broadway in “Cabaret,” Paul McCartney and tennis icon Billie Jean King all made guest appearances. The bar’s been packing ’em in ever since.
“I call the place Café Carlyle meets CBGB, but way gayer,” nightlife chronicler and performer Michael Musto tells The Post. “It puts the spotlight back on offbeat culture and quirky performance, but also has the party spirit. So it’s a place where you can hang out and schmooze and, I think, even get picked up.”
On a recent night, the brazenly eclectic crowd was a diverse array of ages, races and genders. One man looked straight out of Lewis Carroll, with frizzy pink hair and a top hat. Another woman lounged on a red banquette, wearing a tight white jacket and sunglasses — indoors at 1 a.m. The usual tank-top-clad gaybar denizens were jamming by the stage.
“It’s definitely a cultured downtown crowd. But they come to party,” says Musto. “So, they’re sophisticated, but they like a raunchy joke. Which is good, because I’m rewriting some lyrics of standards.”
Musto regularly performs his “Michael Musto Duets” at the club, in which he sings with cabaret royalty such as Bridget Everett and Amber Martin. His next gig is Saturday at 9 p.m.
The talent is, like Cumming, a scrumptious blend of highbrow and lowbrow. One moment the guitarist of the Babes is handing out anatomically shaped lollipops. Then, a halfhour later, Lili Taylor is crooning a gorgeous rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.”
Nardicio says he’s committed to having the best possible artists on his small stage.
“In the gay world . . . it’s easier to book someone who lip syncs, or takes the easy route. And I was like, ‘No, I want live performances. I want legends like Justin Vivian Bond, who right f - - king now is singing with Amber Martin.’”
West Village resident Taylor Toth, 28, had come to see Billy Hough and Susan Goldberg perform a punky comedy act called “Scream Along With Billy.” Toth became a fan of the duo after seeing them at Grotta Bar in Provincetown, Mass., a little venue not unlike Club Cumming.
“Billy’s a staple in P-town. He plays at Joe’s Pub and draws a crowd,” says Toth. “But this is really bringing P-town to New York.”
For Cumming, his beloved bar has already achieved all his naughty nightlife dreams.
“Good people come here,” he says. “They come with an open heart, they come with curiosity and kindness, and, you know, willingness to drink.”
“It’s made me feel very good about myself as well — that I’m actually good at making other people have as much fun as I have,” he says. 505E.SixthSt.;Club CummingNYC.com