Alan Cumming Performs In Westhampton Beach July 9

Over his multi-decade career, Alan Cumming has become a constant presence on both stage and screen.

With roles ranging from quipping campaign adviser Eli Gold on CBS’s “The Good Wife” to the manic emcee in two Broadway revivals of Kander and Ebb’s “Cabaret,” the Scottish thespian has established himself as one of the great modern character actors.

However, Mr. Cumming will be taking on a different kind of role at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Saturday, July 9—himself.

The show, titled “Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs,” is, according to Mr. Cumming, a “true cabaret.”

Joined by his longtime musical director Lane Horne and cellist Eleanor Norton, Mr. Cumming has been performing the show, filled with songs that he connects to on a personal level, since its debut at the Edinburgh Book Festival in Scotland last August.

“They’re all sentimental,” Mr. Cumming, from his new home in Los Angeles, said of the selections.

While many selections are emotionally charged—such as Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” and Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon”—some songs—such as Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” and Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated”—are more playful, yet sung with the same strain of sincerity.

Others, like “Ladies Who Lunch” from Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” are indicative of the Tony-award-winner’s Broadway ties.

And with the progression of each song, Mr. Cumming says he hopes audiences will learn more about the man behind the characters.

“The overall theme of the show is about being authentic and being true to yourself,” he said.

Mr. Cumming first took the plunge of bearing all with the release of his 2014 memoir, “Not My Father’s Son,” which tells of the openly pansexual artist’s complicated, and oftentimes tumultuous, relationship with his father as well as his experiences uncovering a dark family secret on a popular British genealogy television show, “Who Do You Think You Are?”

The cabaret, he said, is sprinkled with tidbits from the memoir and acts as an extension of that initial act of self-liberation.

“It’s a scary thing to do, this kind of show,” Mr. Cumming admitted.

Like writing the memoir, he said the show has been “a big leap to take,” but ultimately a rewarding one.

“It’s very freeing to get that amazing connection to an audience,” he said

Alan Cumming performs Saturday, July 9, at 8 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, 76 Main Street, Westhampton Beach. Tickets are $150, $180 and $200. Visit whbpac.org or call 631-288-1500.