Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson are taking “A History of Paper,” the two-person Scottish musical they starred in this summer, to Stage 42 in Manhattan for a 13-week off-Broadway run from Feb. 12 to May 16, 2027, The Hollywood Reporter reported in an exclusive Thursday, Nov. 5, and Dundee Rep Theatre and Pitlochry Festival Theatre confirmed it the same day. Cumming said he’s thrilled to bring it “from my home country of Scotland to my adopted home in New York City.”
“This is one of these rare shows that transcends its own story and manages to touch an audience in a really visceral and beautiful way,” he said. “And it utterly belongs in New York City.”
Tickets go on sale Nov. 17 at Telecharge, and the run is the New York stage debut for Henderson, Moaning Myrtle in the “Harry Potter” films. “I never imagined it was possible to have the opportunity to step onto the New York stage,” she said.
(Tilda Swinton heads off-Broadway the same month, with “Man to Man” at the Lucille Lortel from Feb. 21, Gayety reported.)
How Alan Cumming Found ‘A History of Paper’ in Edinburgh
The musical tells a couple’s love story through the paper their life together leaves behind, “from letters, menus and train tickets to shopping lists and postcards,” the announcement said. It won a Fringe First Award in Edinburgh in 2024.
“I fell in love with this musical when I saw it at the Traverse as part of the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024,” Cumming said on Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s website. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it and felt so connected to its narrative, especially as an adopted New Yorker.” When he and director Andrew Panton asked Henderson to sing through some of the songs with him, “suddenly it became a deep and rich and heart-wrenching memory play, as two older people looked back at their lives together,” he said.
Oliver Emanuel wrote it as a 2017 BBC Radio 4 play, and he and composer Gareth Williams began adapting it at Dundee Rep in 2019. “Olly came to my house at the start of 2023 and we had a full read-through of the script,” Williams told The Scotsman in 2024.
Emanuel died Dec. 19, 2023, at 43, The Scotsman’s obituary said, and Williams finished the show with dramaturg Lu Kemp and Panton, Dundee Rep’s artistic director. “Every step of our creative journey has been a celebration of Olly through his beautiful words and Gareth’s stunning score,” Panton said in May, PA reported.
Cumming and Henderson, Finally Sharing a Stage
Both were in Scottish Television’s “Shadow of the Stone” around four decades ago, but the Pitlochry run was their first time onstage together, PA reported. Cumming, now Pitlochry’s artistic director, said Thursday he’d long dreamed of a “theatrical exchange channel between Manhattan and our theatre in the hills.”
“This is the first show to do so and I couldn’t be happier to be doing it alongside Shirley, who I first worked with over forty years ago!” he said.
They played Pitlochry from Aug. 9 to Sept. 12, then Dundee Rep from Sept. 16 to 19, and critic Joyce McMillan gave the Pitlochry run four stars in The Scotsman.
“Cumming has undeniable star quality when you see him on stage,” Simon Thompson wrote for WhatsOnStage. “Alongside Cumming, Shirley Henderson is just as good, a down-to-earth foil for his airbound romanticism,” he added.
Cumming, who won a Tony as the Emcee in “Cabaret” and, in September, a third straight Emmy for hosting Peacock’s “The Traitors,” has talked openly about being bisexual. “I knew I was bisexual when I was married the first time, as did my wife,” he told People in 2024.
‘A History of Paper’ Tickets, Stage 42 and Run Time
Sonia Friedman Productions, Jerry Goehring and Pemberley Productions are co-producing with both theaters, and it’s the first show from either one to transfer off-Broadway, the announcement said. “Some stories ask us to lean a little closer,” Panton said.
Stage 42 is the Shubert Organization’s house at 422 W. 42nd St., and the show’s website takes sign-ups for early ticket access. In Pitlochry, it ran 1 hour and 10 minutes with no intermission, for ages 12 and up, and the theater promised it would “have you calling your mum on the way home.”
Peacock’s celebrity season of “The Traitors,” with Cumming hosting and Bianca Del Rio in the cast, is due in early 2027. “I couldn’t be more excited to bring our beautiful show to New York City audiences,” Panton said.
