If Alan Cumming’s understudy had been ready to go on in “Cabaret,” Logan Clingan’s life might have turned out differently.

It was the winter of 2014 and Clingan and their sister had taken a bus six hours from tiny Emporium, Pennsylvania, two hours north of State College, bound for Broadway.

“I was a theater kid through and through and my Broadway show that I was going to got canceled. Broadway shows never get canceled. But it got canceled because it was one of the previews and the understudy wasn’t prepared yet,” Clingan says.

With no show to see, brother and sister wandered down 45th Street to Schmackary’s to drown their Broadway cancellation sorrows in a cookie.

“We stumbled in here and the people behind the bar were so energetic that it really took me out of this really sad place,” Clingan says. “I was like, ‘This is the place that I’m gonna work when I’m older.’ And that’s what happened.”

Schmackary’s is ‘The Official Cookie of Broadway’

Clingan is now store manager of Schmackary’s, which bills itself as “The Official Cookie of Broadway.”

• Broadway shows order cookies by the dozens to celebrate openings and milestones.
• Broadway stars and shows set up collabs, with special cookies named in their honor.
• Fans flock to the shop at 362 W. 45th Street before and after shows as part of their theatergoing rituals.

Schmackary’s, which opened in 2012, is baked into Broadway at this point.

Did you know? A secret kitchen makes all the dough

The storefront isn’t huge and the kitchen where the cookies are baked is relatively small, but Schmackary’s has a secret underground kitchen where all the doughs are mixed.

It’s in the basement of a neighboring restaurant, across Ninth Avenue and down toward 44th Street and down an elevator.

When the dough is ready to bake, three or four times a day, Clingan says it is placed in carts, sent up the elevator, up the block and around the corner, a “crazy journey” with a delicious result.

Broadway stars take turns ‘behind the bar’

Broadway stars are regular customers at Schmackary’s and sometimes will raise money for charities by spending time “behind the bar,” which is what Clingan calls working behind the counter.

The store manager concedes they still gets starstruck, like when “Law & Order: SVU” was filming in the neighborhood and Clingan couldn’t resist asking for a selfie. (They obliged.) When longtime soap star Susan Lucci walked it, Clingan was definitely starstruck, and original Elphaba Idina Menzel was “actually, like, one of the sweetest human beings I’ve ever met.”

Schmackary’s does collaborations with companies and authors and Broadway and Off-Broadway shows (such as “Book of Mormon” and “Spring Awakening”) and they did a collaboration with Menzel.

“She and her sister did a children’s book series, and they partnered with a few local Broadway organizations and she did a cookie based on it,” Clingan says. “She came and she was delightful.”

If Broadway was a Schmackary’s cookie, what flavor would it be?

If Broadway was a cookie, Clingan has evidence to suggest it would be a Funfetti one.

“It’s kind of like a celebration in itself, but also knowing how many Broadway stars says it’s their favorite cookie,” Clingan says. “At one point we talked about creating a selection that are all the Broadway stars’ favorites and we reached out to a lot of the ones that we had collaborated with and ones that had worked behind the bar, and we said ‘We can’t do 12 cookies because all of them said the same one.’”

But Schmackary’s is always trying new things, Clingan says.

“I think this year so far we’ve come out with six new flavors, so we’re always adding new things. One of my favorite ones is the cereal one, called the Cereal Killer.”

It takes him back to the first Schmackary’s cookie he ever had, a Lucky Charmed cookie.

Clingan says Schmackary’s team members are encouraged to have a great time while they’re working and to take every opportunity to cheer someone up if they’re having a bad day.

It happens.

Look no further than that 2014 day when a theater kid from Pennsylvania had his life changed because the understudy wasn’t ready.

Available this week …

The Schmackary’s website lists all the current flavors, for store pickup or nationwide ordering.

This week, they are: Funfetti, The Classic (chocolate chip), The Hummingbird, Chocolate Cookie Crunch, Pick of the Patch, Peanut Butter Cup, Big Apple Crisp, Sweet Corn, Turtle Snaps, Schmacker-doodle, Lucky Charmed, Mom’s Oatmeal Raisin and a mystery cookie.

Check out the current flavors here.

And keep up with all things Schmackary’s on the Instagram feed.

Quick Q&A with Logan Clingan of Schmackary’s

What’s your favorite cookie?

“My favorite would be one called the Ginger Rogers. It’s like our take on a gingerbread but it has white chocolate inside and a glaze as well. It’s only available in November and December because it’s more of a Christmas cookie, but we always bring it back in July too for Christmas in July.”

Which is the hardest cookie to make?

“The hardest to make is one called the Monkey Business. It doesn’t stay together very well. It’s delicious. My roommate says anytime it’s here, she wants one. It tastes like chocolate chip banana bread but the bananas have to be a perfect level of ripe so they have to wait for the perfect time to make the dough and then on top of that when it’s being scooped it has to be scooped a certain way.”

When is Schmackary’s busiest?

“Our busiest times are definitely before a Broadway show and then after a Broadway show. It’s become a tradition in the Broadway community that people come in and they’ll either try to grab their cookie to sneak it into a show or it’ll be like a post-show treat where people will run to get here before we close at 11. If it’s a three hour show, we do see people running to get here in time.“

What is the biggest cookie order you ever filled?

“For Certified Nurses Week, we partner with Sloan-Kettering hospitals and that’s usually, I think, about 3,000 cookies.”

Do you ever get sick of cookies?

“I really don’t. Because we rotate our cookies every 15 days, and we have over 100 different cookie flavors, just when you get tired of one flavor, another flavor that you like moves back in.”

Contributing: Athena Caasi, Crystal Diaz, Dasiel DeJesus and Khloe JeanBart