When Club Cumming first opened its doors on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, it quickly became something rare in modern nightlife: an intimate, old-school cabaret space where drag, dance, comedy, crafting, and community coexist without competition. Now, the six-part documentary series Club Cumming, currently streaming on WOW Presents Plus, brings cameras inside the beloved venue, offering a real-time look at the performers who call its small but mighty stage home.
Among them are go-go dancer and drag performer Michelle Wynters, whose classical ballet training adds unexpected elegance to her high-energy sets, and drag icon Brini Maxwell, whose polished retro charm helped shape the club from its earliest knit nights. In this conversation, the two performers reflect on how they found their way to Club Cumming, what makes its energy so distinct, and why working under Alan Cumming’s generous mentorship feels less like show business – and more like family.
How did you both become involved with Club Cuming and what do you think makes it different from other nightlife spaces that you’ve performed in?
Michelle: I started working at Club Cumming, I’m going to say around 2019, 2018. I was starting as a go-go dancer on Friday nights for a different event party and it was fun. I did it in full drag – breastplate and all – before my life really changed and it was interesting. It was a fun experience because it was like once every month. I was already known in nightlife for over 10 years as a drag artist and go-go dancer, so people already knew who I was, so it was definitely an interesting thing. Being at Club Cumming was really lovely because I don’t think I’ve seen a club or an event space like Club Cumming that is so intimate in terms of the spacing, but also very old school cabaret, which I love the aesthetic. It felt very lovely.
What ended up happening was Darren, the lovely manager, noticed me go-go dancing on a Friday night and then said, “Hey, how would you feel if you danced on a Saturday night?” and I said, sure. So, I did it one night and then I completely packed the room. People were so excited to see me dance.
The thing is about how I go-go dance is I that I actually incorporate classical ballet because I’m also a classically trained dancer, so that throws people off – in a good way – to see someone doing contemporary and some ballet in go-go dancing and doing it in heels, it’s very intriguing for the eye. So, it ended up that Darren started having me be there once every two weeks on Saturday and then it became once every three weeks. Then he just asked, “Do you want to do this every Saturday?” And I said, sure, so it just ended up with me being there every single Saturday since then. I think my life changed in a way because I was able to reconnect to my drag roots. When I transitioned, I stopped doing drag, so it was nice to go back okay, how can I see Michelle Wynters now as a fully realized character, but also as the woman that she is? And what did that look like?
Brini: Back in 2017 when the bar was being conceived of by Alan and Darren and the group, they wanted to do a knit night because Alan had a good experience with knitting and people had said, oh, you need to do a knit night if you’re opening a bar. The person who was booking the bar at the time, Daniel Nardicio, had just organized an event with Michael Musto, called Duets. Michael was doing duets with all these different people, and I thought that would be a lot of fun to do, so I contacted Daniel and said I wanted to do a duet with Michael, so he put us in touch and we did a duet together – and that put me top of mind when they were putting this knit night together because I had this television show of domestic skills and things like that and they brought me in to host the Midnight, and then after the pandemic everything shifted to just a little bit more of a general crafting night where we did all sorts of different things. I’ve been there since pretty much the beginning.
What was your reaction when you found out the club was going to be the focus of this documentary series?
Michelle: I was shocked. I did not think it was going to get picked up, if I’m being honest. I’m just like, oh my goodness. This is all new for all of us and seeing how this turns out, it was just like, oh my God, will it get picked up? Will it not get picked up? And then when it got picked up, I was like, oh my goodness. This is really happening – what was an idea that was pretty much up in the air of what could be has become a physical entity. And that in itself was like that moment of oh my God, we are really doing this. We’re filming, we are getting to know each other in real time, which was even more interesting. Pretty much everything that you are seeing, especially in these episodes are happening in those real-time moments, like meeting Brini and getting to know her and seeing what she does.
Brini: I thought it was a delightful idea. And, same as Michelle. I didn’t know if it was going to go anywhere, and it didn’t for a long time. They were trying to figure out what the show was going to be and they were testing different ideas and looking at different people and because we put our little packages together and had our little interviews like a year earlier. It took them a while to figure everything out and the process was a lot of fun and there were unexpected little benefits to it and delightful new people to meet, so it’s good.
There’s such a wide variety of performers and there’s so many eclectic things, like you said, like knitting night and things like that, how would you describe the energy of Club Cumming to someone who’s never stepped inside the doors?
Brini: I think Club Cumming is extremely welcoming – at least it is on my night – but I think that it is on really all nights. I think that it’s a place where people don’t feel like there’s a lot of competition in the air. This show is really about the community that is built up around the club, but it’s not just the community of the general people who perform at the club. It’s also the community of all the people who come to the club as well and I think that’s a real unique thing in nightlife in New York or really anywhere.
Michelle: Yeah, it’s like what Daphne was saying in the trailer, especially when she described Club Cumming. In a way, it’s like a modern Kit Kat club in a cool way – heavy on community, but also, like how Brini says, it’s not a competitive environment. You’re getting to know everybody. Everybody is so friendly but you’re also seeing various styles of queer art that are presented to you, which makes it more exciting because it’s not just somebody who is lip syncing…there’s somebody who is crafting, who is also an amazing costume designer as well. There’s somebody who’s a dancer, there’s somebody who sings, and there are comedians, there’s so much variety and so much talent, especially on that small, beautiful stage. You walk in, you just feel warmth. That’s the best way to put it.
The show highlights this kind of a tribe under the guidance of Alan Cumming. What does it mean to you professionally and personally to work with him?
Michelle: I love Alan. Alan is such a sweetheart. I actually knew his husband Grant for many years because Grant used to – and I think he still – volunteers at the Hetrick-Martin Institute as an amazing art teacher and mentor. I learned a lot in terms of my artistic style from Grant. When I met his husband, Alan, at first I didn’t even think to my head like, oh my God, this is Alan Cumming. He just introduced him to me as like, this is my husband, Alan. I’m like, oh, cool. Nice to meet you. Yeah, let me talk to you about my life. But it didn’t register in my head like, oh, this is the Alan Cumming – and I think that’s also what he liked. He just wanted to talk to me like an average person and just have a conversation with me. And I think when I started to do that more, I started to get to know him more and it started to feel more authentic. It felt more comfortable.
I really felt like I was just able to have a conversation with Alan and it was a great way to get to know him – and I think he’s such a wonderful person. He gave me great advice as a performer and how to work with my anxiety, especially being on stage because I still get anxious being around a lot of people on stage and speaking on the mic. He’s a really good person to be around and just have deep conversations with.
Brini: Alan has such a generosity of spirit that is he’s willing to help people and to give back to the community. I was teaching at an acting school that has since shut down. But back in 2023, Alan agreed to come and speak to the students in an organized setting where we set up an entire program to have him share his insights with people who would like to become actors like he is.
He sat down and gave us an hour and a half with me interviewing him, and it was such a wonderful gift that he gave to the students. I think it was really valued by them. That sort of thing is just what Alan does. If he is able to help you out in some way, he will and I really feel very grateful that my life is mixed up with his in a little way.
The show follows all of the people at the Club Cumming chasing their goals. What are you both manifesting for 2026?
Michelle: I think what I’m manifesting for myself this year in 2026 is to be more social. I think in 2025 I was in this like tunnel vision – especially with what’s going on in the world right now – of just trying to protect myself and protect my energy as much as I can and, in that process, I isolated myself. I think this year I started to actually challenge myself to go back out more and be social and also be there for people who do need some support, who do need some trans love, who do need somebody to just make them feel safer to be around and just have conversation with.
But also, for myself as well, remembering that having community is really helpful and is really grounding, especially in a time like this with what we’re going through. When we have community together and we’re all lined up together, it helps ground us together and reminds us, especially as queer people, that we are always strong. We are able to handle and conquer anything. If we’re able to conquer Stonewall, if we’re able to handle a lot of things that came our way, we’re able to handle this this test of humanity right now.
Brini: Yeah, that’s a very good point. As I was saying, I was teaching at that acting school and I had done that for, I don’t know, 12 or 14 years, something like that and that job came at a time, shortly after my first television show had been canceled, which was around 2007. And so, when the school announced that they were shutting the doors in August of last year, it was a bit of a shock, but it was also an opportunity to come out of my shell and to stop hiding and to start doing something artistic.
To that end, I’ve been working toward a career in content creation, and I have been creating new videos and things like that. So, in 2026, I really hope to take that to the next level and I’m hoping that’s I’m going to find more success in that and I think that Club Cuming is certainly a part of that.
Watch Club Cumming on WOW Presents Plus. Keep up with Brini Maxwell and Michelle Wynters on Instagram.
