'Liza & Alan at the Crown': Anatomy of a Blockbuster

The Crown & Anchor has scored what can only be described as the cabaret coup of the summer, if not several summers, when it presents Liza Minnelli and Alan Cumming in two shows at the Paramount on on Aug. 4.

For such a small town, Provincetown has always done well by the theater. What had been for hundreds of years a site of one of the earliest landings by Europeans, then a center for whaling and cod fishing first became known to the wider world when a young playwright name Eugene O'Neill hooked up with the Provincetown Players. O'Neill went on to success in New York, the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Most scholars and critics consider O'Neill the greatest American playwright in history, followed by another young buck who cut his teeth in Ptown, Tennessee Williams. Marlon Brando hitchhiked up the Cape to woo Williams for what would become his star-making performance in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Now add to the illustrious roster of legendary talents who have trekked to the tip of the Cape the ultimate living gay icon and with the reigning out-gay king of Broadway.

It goes without saying that the shows sold out within a matter of hours -�but if you're in town, hang around the box office in case there are any no-shows, because, after all, hopes and dreams are what makes theater tick. For those lucky enough to have nabbed tickets, they'll get an impromptu, original version of the performances two years ago on Fire Island.

The Crown & Anchor engagement is the latest re-boot of the now legendary 2012 Minnelli/Cumming pairing that played that other gay beachside mecca a few hundred miles south of the cape - - Fire Island.

Bored with seeing drag queens performing Liza Minnelli, the event's producer/promoter Daniel Nardicio thought, "why not just GET Liza Minnelli?"�

"The community responded in a big way," Nardicio said. "Of course it was easy when I announced the evening with Liza and Alan Cumming, because as Alan describes it, Liza coming to Fire Island is like a Papal Visit."

"It was a seminal Fire Island moment," fashion designer Michael Kors told the New York Times. (That's "seminal" as in a defining historical event, not the splooge that makes babies.)

Cumming may be best known to most Americans for his recurring role on "The Good Wife." But his first love has always been the theater. It was his pivotal role as the sinister emcee in revivals of "Cabaret" that made him an above-the-marquee name. Cumming managed to make audiences and critics in both London's West End and on Broadway forget Joel Grey. He won a Tony, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Award.

"He's unbelievable," Nardicio told EDGE. "He's unstoppable. Alan has got so much going on. He's my inspiration. He's always working on something, always honing his craft."

For Minnelli, the performance was a comeback of sorts in a career that one could almost say has been nothing but a series of comebacks. Like her mother, Judy Garland, Minnelli's life is one of triumph and tragedy. She overcame serious physical disability to play an engagement at the Palace on Broadway, where she defied the odds and gravity with her trademark high kicks and belting vocal style.

In Cherry Grove, Minnelli proved her mother's daughter. Garland was known for the legions of gay fans; in fact, many believe that her funeral on New York's Upper East Side was one of the catalysts for the riot at the Stonewall Inn, several miles to the south in Greenwich Village later that night.

Those in the audience still marvel at Minnelli's almost mystical connection with her gay fans. But for Minnelli --�and Cumming -- the major inducement was their shared commitment to LGBT youth. The proceeds of the Fire Island shows went to the Trevor Project, which works to prevent suicide among LGBT teens.

And now, lucky Provincetown.

Nardicio credits Rick Murray, owner of the Crown & Anchor, for doing much of the leg work to bring two such notables to town. "He called me," Nardicio explained. "We got Alan from his night off" from another revival of "Cabaret," once again at Studio 54. Nardicio brought the two together for a show in New York's Town Hall, but he told EDGE that in Ptown, "It will be more like the Fire Island show."

There will be only a few accompanists, not the big band from Town Hall. And there will undoubtedly be much more of the impromptu batter that had the crowds in Cherry Grove roaring their approval. Nardicio also credits Minnelli's right-hand man and technical director, Matt Berman, with helping persuade her to perform in relatively tiny Fire Island in the first place.

As if Minnelli and Cumming weren't enough excitement, the night before, another Broadway diva, Carol Channing, will appear with Tommy Tune, the lanky hoofer, director, singer and actor. The two will appear at Town Hall Auditorium.

Channing will be forever associated with Lorelei Lee, the gold-digging main character in "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" (Marilyn Monroe in the movie version). Tune, the winner of nine Tonys, directed and choreographed eight hit Broadway shows, and starred with Twiggy in "My One And Only."

As for Nardicio, he's busy preparing a show for yet another Broadway legend, Patti Lupone, and Bridget Everett, a cabaret singer whom Nardicio describes as "a real up and comer." She's also, like Nardicio's other discoveries, a sexy plus-sized woman who's not only not ashamed of her body, but likes to show it off.

Then again, everything about Nardicio is larger than life - or a D cup!