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From the BroadwayWorld Vaults: Relive the Magic of AN EVENING WITH PATTI AND MANDY
May 17, 2024
In honor of Throwback Thursday, BroadwayWorld is celebrating the past with a new series that will take you back in time with some of our favorite vintage video features. That's right- we are opening up the BroadwayWorld Vaults to reminisce on shows are long gone from the Broadway-scene, but have left an indelible mark on the world of theatre as a whole. Today, we bring you a vintage video from 2011. Relive the magic of AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AND MANDY PATINKIN below!
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Broadway listen to the Broadway Bees
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Broadway makes you wanna move your beat. Everybody's happening to everything that's happening on Broadway Beets
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Broadway Beets, Broadway Beat. Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway Beat. Patty Lepone and Mandy Patty Patty Lapone and Mandy Batinkin are back on Broadway together
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for the first time since their Tony Award-winning roles in Evita. They're at the Ethel Barry Moore Theater for 63 performances only in an evening with
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Patty Lepone and Mandy Batinkin. And we're here on opening night to celebrate with them
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It's us, old friend. What's to discuss, old friend? Here's to us who's like us, damn few
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We were in Niagara Falls a couple of years ago, and Sunday in the Park with George was playing at a small community theater, and it was just at intermission, just in time to see the first act finale
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And the box office people, we were just walking down the street, and Patty said, he's the original star, and they wouldn't let us in
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You know, she didn't, the woman had no clue. But so we went on, but we thought maybe they'd let us in to see the first act finale, you know
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But no, but we've had lots of fun. great times. Look at us, Charlie
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Nothing's the way that it was. I wanted the way that it was
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Help me stop remembering them. Don't you remember? It was good
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It was really good. Help me out, Charlie. Make it like it was
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My son has, for half of the last decade, my son has had his birthday in a theater
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And this was, I think, the first opening night. And he turned 21 on the 21st, this golden birthday
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And we brought him up on stage, we had a fabulous sign made, and he thought the 18th was the best one
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because several people gave him a hundred dollar bill, or $25 bills, and they took him to
2:27
hustler and he got lap dances at 18 But he was on stage at the Barrymore Theater for this one Well I think this is better than the 18th the 21st Right and so yeah But just tell me what tonight meant you being back on Broadway with Mandy for the first time
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I know, that's a big thing. I mean, it's hard to describe
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There are really no words. He's my acting partner. He's my ballast
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He's my emotional rock. And I wish I was on stage with him every single time I was on stage
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I adore him. I love the structure of the show. Would you just talk about how that all came about it
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That just came about by Mandy and Paul Ford. I was doing noises off at the time, but that came about through Mandy and Paul
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And Mandy wanted to tell a particular story, and Paul helped him select and find the music, really, find and select the music
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I had very little to do with it. I'm just the girl singer with the band
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The show is seamless the way Mandy has put the whole thing together
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I have to agree with you. And it feels good. It really feels good
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And that's the best thing. You know, we're not uncomfortable up there. We're not uncomfortable in the show
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We're not uncomfortable with each other. I think this is the perfect theater
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Just talk about what it's like working at the Barrymore. It's unbelievable to open up and sing in this theater
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I'm hoping that the next thing I do is in the Barrymore. But it's, you know, to open up and sing, it comes back
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These old houses are great in that respect. You know, I mean, I would rather be in one of these houses than
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a new theater just because the sound comes back and you can relax you can I can sing
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I can pull back I I love it I'm having a great time you're doing 63 performances
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in New York because you've got to go back on the road again with the show is that yeah Kansas we got booked in Kansas last year we got on the car honor the contract
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exciting is it for you to travel this show across the country what that's been
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like it's being on the road I mean we do my solo shows Mandy does his solo shows
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then we get together and do this But it's just the road. You know what I mean
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It's the road. It can be fun and it can be a pain in the ass
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But it must feel great to be here back on Broadway again. Absolutely. I'll hold your hands dead just like..
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My mother will start to work. Beautiful, what's your... My father will be facing the farm
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She'll be a bad better... Beautiful, please don't worry. Well, maybe just a half a drink floor
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The name is my thing. Say, what's in the spring? Oh, cabs to be had out there
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I wish I knew... Your eyes are like the spotlight now. I'll take your hair
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Minds, no, no, no. Mind about moving, at least gonna say that I try
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Baby don hold out Oh but it cold outside I simply go Oh baby cold outside The answer is cold outside How lucky that you drop in
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Look out the window out that storm. It will be suspicious. My brother will be there at the door
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Waves upon a tropical show. My maiden aunts mind is vicious. Gosh, your lips are delicious
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Maybe just a cigarette more. I gotta go hold. Oh, if you freeze out there
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standing a cold, You've really been thrilled by my hand. How can you do that thing
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How can you do that thing? to me. Thank you. Thank you, love
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I mean, playing. We're very happy to be here. This is our home, so we're happy to be home doing it in New York
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Take me back to the beginning of how this show came about, Mandy. What I love about it, it's seamless
5:48
It came about, oh, I don't know, about nine years ago, a guy in Richardson, Texas
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wanted to each of us to come and do like 20 minutes, and I hate those kind of evenings
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So I said, you know, I'm not going to do that. And before I blew it off, I said to Paul Ford, my collaborator, piano player for 20
6:03
four years. I said, you think we can put together a story that, you know, has a, you know, a journey
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with two souls. And he said, yeah, so I asked Patty, was she game? She said, go ahead, doll, and we did it
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and we've been doing it for nine years on and off, you know, and so now we're home. So who chose all the material? Paul and I and myself. And then Patty, Patty would put her input in
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but we collected all of her repertoire and my repertoire, but then we looked at the ocean of material
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out there, which is endless, because we were trying to tell a story. And then we decided
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what we need at best for the story. So a lot of stuff we learned that we'd never done before
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And so it just found its way. It's a beautiful mix of music
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There's Sondheim, there's Kandar and Ebb, there's Roders and Hammerstein. The mix is so beautiful
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Oh, good. I'm glad you like it. Thank you. And talk about what it's like being back on Broadway together, first time since Evita
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It's just great. I just can't believe, you know, when I look at Patty, I'm 30 years younger. So, I'm back in time
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It's 30 years ago. I might as well be at the Broadway theater doing Avita
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You know, it's just a time. time stops. I get to be in this time tunnel for a second, you know, so I got to pinch myself
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I don't want it to go away. And I love the arrangements because it sounds like an orchestra, but it's the piano and the bass
7:17
Whose idea was that? Mine. Yeah, Paul Ford and mine. Why did you decide on that
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Well, I like the sparseness of it because if you have a whole orchestra on it, there's a lot of
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humanity up there, and it's a whole other kind of energy, and I want the focus to be on the
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words in the story. And so all my concert life has just been Paul Ford on an upright piano
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He usually plays an upright piano by himself But certain shows like the Patty Mandy show we use a grand piano when we have John Beale on the bass So different things you know I mix it up but I like it to be very sparse and contain because it then focuses everything on the words and I like to
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come and listen to the words too. You know, the experience I have is the comfort that I have
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being with the audience. You know, I'm not alone. I didn't grow up with this stuff, but the words
8:02
and stories talk to me. So to sit with other people who also feel like it talks to them, it's a
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comfort. We all listen to it together. I'm just the mailman. It just comes through me
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But I, you know, I didn't write it. These geniuses who wrote down what they wish for themselves
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and the world wrote it down and we get to be the beneficiaries of it
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Because Patty said the same thing. She goes, I'm the girl singer. Yeah, yeah. I'm the guy singer
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right? I'm the guy, male man. She's the lady male man. I just talk about the Barrymore. What a beautiful house to play. What is it like for you
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Oh, it's gorgeous. I mean, the acoustics are beautiful. It's just a magnificent house
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It's where Marlon Brando did a streetcar named Desire. So, you know, Ilya Kazan's production
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So it's pretty cool to be there. There's a lot of history there. But Patty was saying for a singer, it's a great house
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Those old houses, the way your voice goes out, it comes back. It's a beautiful feel for a singer
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Yeah, yeah. You can, you know, the most ironic house on all the Broadway to me is the music box theater
9:00
built by Irving Berlin, one of our great composers. It's the worst acoustics of any place I've experienced in my life
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You'd think that Irving Berlin would have built a great house. But this place, Barrymore, which the actor is named after a great actor, but the acoustics are gorgeous, they're glorious
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You know, you almost don't need any amplification. You really don't, but we do because we like it
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You don't need yzing. It is not so surprising that you feel very strange but nice
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Your hot girls, pitter-patter, I know just what's the matter because I've been there once or twice
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With your hat on my shoulder You need someone who's older I rubbed down with a velvet cloth
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There is nothing you can take To release the pleasant egg You're not sick, you're just alive
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I get single line there's no one there It is not so surprising
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I smell blossoms and the trees are there All day long I seem to walk on here
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I wonder why. I've been. I wonder why
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