The Boy Wizard of Broadway
Remarks by Paula Wallace at SCAD aTVfest on February 3, 2018
Ladies and gentlemen! SCAD family and esteemed guests! Willkommen! Bienvenue! And welcome … to the third and final night of SCAD aTVfest! What a weekend. The Super Bowl is tomorrow, but I think the greatest television event of the year is happening right here in Atlanta! Could I invite aTVfest sponsors, members of the SCAD Ruskin Society, and SCAD Board of Trustees present tonight to please stand and be recognized?
Before we light the fuse on this thing, I want to thank the stellar SCAD team who makes the fireworks happen. They’re like ninja warriors! They’re backstage, in the booth, hiding in the hallway, around corners, probably under your seats, making sure every magic moment unfolds as precisely as it should. Please give it up for our brilliant SCAD events and festivals team!
And thank you to SCAD aTVfest mastermind Christina Routhier and fearless leader of SCADFILM, Leigh Seaman. Georgia is now the world’s №1 location for film and TV production, and SCADFILM — based right here at SCAD Atlanta — is the world’s preeminent program for film and digital media professionals and students. Leigh, are you here? Can you stand up? If you want to lead a master class, give a talk, teach or take a workshop, please see Leigh! She can make it happen!
Speaking of making it happen, let’s show some love to the shining stars of SCAD, our students and dream-slaying alumni. Students and alumni, please stand!
I’ll tell you who loves our SCAD students: Alan Cumming. Alan has visited the SCAD Savannah Film Festival on many occasions — in person and in pictures, such as last year’s Battle of the Sexes. Legend has it that during one of his visits to SCAD, two film students boldly approached and politely begged him to be in their student film. As the story goes, Alan agreed. I’m going to assume they made an A on that film!
Alan, thank you for sharing your talent with our students. You possess genius and kindness in equal measures.
When he first appeared on the New York stage in 1998, the world knew it had seen a new species of actor. The kind who wins a Tony Award … for his first musical. Not his first musical on Broadway, mind you. His first musical ever! It’s not fair! He’s the boy wizard of Broadway!
That legendary performance as the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret is easily one of the great stage performances in the history of musical theater. In the years since, Alan Cumming has done it all, playing a Jane Austen suitor, a Bond villain, a god, as well as the God, and the Devil, and the Pope, and a Smurf. He’s a classic song-and-dance man and a madman and, if necessary, an X-Man.
Students, pay attention! There’s something special about an actor who can do a film with both Stanley Kubrick and the Spice Girls. A new species, indeed! He’s an actor, director, producer, singer, dancer, comedian, documentarian, photographer, novelist, memoirist, children’s book author, Officer of the British Empire, human rights activist, animal rights activist, refugee advocate, and nightclub owner.
This talented Scot continues to make history next month, when Instinct premieres on CBS. In the series, Alan plays a former CIA operative and professor who teaches the psychiatry of psychopathic behavior — say that three times! — and is the first drama on any major network with a lead character who is gay. Thank you, CBS.
Alan, SCAD loves you, our students adore you, and they learn mighty lessons from your career. The single, unmistakable through-line in every Cumming performance is joy. The man loves what he does, and he does it all. Any role. Any genre. Any medium. Please help me welcome 2018 SCAD aTVfest Icon Award honoree, the master of every ceremony, Alan Cumming!
