It?s not often that a Tony and Emmy award-winning actor seeks a different creative outlet that keeps him on the road.
But that just what Mandy Patinkin, who won the awards for his work in “Evita” and “Chicago Hope,” has done as he embarks on his latest concert tour.
“My soul needs to live the songs and the words particularly,” said Patinkin from the set of television?s “Criminal Minds.” “These extraordinary [song] writers, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Stephen Sondheim, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, I just live for them. They are my complete food source.”
He even brings their tunes to the set sometimes, remark his co-stars.
“It?s just heaven,” Paget Brewster told TV Guide of her work on Criminal Minds. “I get to dance with Mandy Patinkin in between takes, and he sings in my ear.”
Patinkin?s love of music began during his childhood on the south side of Chicago where he spent many hours in the synagogue, singing in the boys? choir.
“Music was a huge part of my life,” Patinkin said. “I loved that cry from the cantor and all the sounds in the synagogue.”
Although Patinkin attended the Juilliard School in New York, he studied only acting. But then theater roles in Shakespeare and musicals beckoned, and Patinkin began to sing publicly. Offers of album deals and concerts soon followed.
“We have been doing this for 18 years,” Patinkin said. “We have the same sound guy, lighting guy, sound man. We have been doing this forever, and love it more than ever.”
Renowned pianist Paul Ford accompanies Patinkin in his stage concerts and on his recordings. The two met while working on the Pulitzer Prize-wining musical “Sunday in the Park with George,” for which Patinkin received a Tony nomination.
While Patinkin insists he hasn?t tired of acting he and Ford, the original pianist for “Sunday in the Park with George” and a host of other Broadway productions, are now enjoying culling the hours of musical material they?ve developed to present to concert audiences.
“All I can say to the audience is we love to do this. Please come,” said Patinkin.
