The Royal Alexandra Theatre Presents An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, 2/9-2/14

David Mirvish is delighted to present An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.

Finally appearing together again after their Tony Award® winning performances in Evita, Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin bring their critically acclaimed theatre concert to The Royal Alexandra Theatre for 6 performances only, from February 9 through 14.  Tickets are now on sale.

Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin are two of Broadway’s most venerated performers, having both won a Tony Award® for their performances in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s groundbreaking Evita in 1980. Since then they have both starred in film, television, the concert stage and back to Broadway.  An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin brings them together again – at last.   “…this show of their own invention gives them plenty of opportunity to dazzle,” raves Lawson Taitte of The Dallas Morning News.  “Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim divide the honors as the show’s principal composers, though there were tunes by songwriters as diverse as Vernon Duke and Antonio Carlos Jobim.  But no melody was sung for its own sake.  Everything had a dramatic context, however momentary, and was acted full force.  You had to laugh.  You had to cry.  Mr. Patinkin promised he and Miss LuPone would be doing this show for the rest of their lives.  We can only hope so.”  

The show is choreographed by fellow Broadway veteran and friend, Ann Reinking, who won a Best Choreography Tony Award® for the revival of Chicago.  An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin is accompanied on piano by Mandy Patinkin’s longtime pianist, Paul Ford.            

Patti LuPone swept the 2008 theatre awards winning the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress in a Musical and the Drama League Award for Outstanding Performance of the Season for her performance as Madame Rose in the critically acclaimed Broadway production of Gypsy.  Her most recent stage credits include her debut with the Los Angeles Opera in Weill-Brecht's Mahagonny, the world premiere of Jake Heggie's opera To Hell and Back with San Francisco's Baroque Philharmonia Orchestra, Mrs. Lovett in the Broadway production of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations;

Drama League Award for Outstanding Contribution to Musical Theatre), the title role in Marc Blitzstein's Regina, a musical version of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes at the Kennedy Center, a critically acclaimed performance as Fosca in a concert version of Sondheim's Passion, which was also broadcast on PBS' Live From Lincoln Center,  and a multi-city tour of her theatrical concert Matters of the Heart. She has also performed Matters of the Heart internationally, including runs at Australia's Sydney Festival and London's Donmar Warehouse. Miss LuPone also performs two other solo concerts Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda (with which she made a triumphant solo concert debut at New York's Carnegie Hall)  and The Lady With The Torch (which she also premiered at Carnegie Hall).

Her other recent New York stage appearances include the City Center Encores! production of Can-Can , the NY Philharmonic's productions of Candide and Sweeney Todd (NY Phil debut) and performances on Broadway in Michael Frayn's Noises Off, David Mamet's The Old Neighborhood, Terrence McNally's Master Class, in her own concert Patti LuPone On Broadway and three sold-out solo concerts at Carnegie Hall.  Beginning in 2000 she's appeared regularly in the Ravinia Festival's critically acclaimed Sondheim series, starring as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, as Desiree in A Little Night Music, Fosca in Passion, Cora Hooper in Anyone Can Whistle, Madame Rose in Gypsy and in two different roles in Sunday in the Park with George.  This summer she'll return to the Ravinia Festival to perform Weill and Brecht's The Seven Deadly Sins.

A graduate of the first class of the Drama Division of New York's Juilliard School and a founding member of John Houseman's The Acting Company, her subsequent New York credits include Dario Fo's Accidental Death of An Anarchist, David Mamet's The Water Engine, Edmond and The Woods and Israel Horovitz' Stage Directions and performances in the musicals Pal Joey for City Center Encores!, Anything Goes, The Cradle Will Rock, Oliver!, Evita (Tony and Drama Desk Awards- Best Actress in a Musical), Working and The Robber Bridegroom.

In London, she won the Olivier Award for her performances as Fantine in the original production of Les Miserables  and in The Acting Company production of The Cradle Will Rock.  She also created the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and recreated her Broadway performance of Maria Callas in Master Class.

Films include: City By The Sea, David Mamet's Heist, State and Main; Summer of Sam, Driving Miss Daisy, Witness.  TV includes: 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, NBC's Will & Grace (as herself), the Emmy Award winning PBS broadcasts of Passion and Sweeney Todd, PBS Great Performances' Candide, Oz, the TNT film Monday Night Mayhem, Frasier (1998 Emmy nomination), Law & Order, An Evening with Patti LuPone (PBS), and ABC's Life Goes On.  Recordings include: Patti LuPone  at Les Mouches, the 2008 Broadway cast recording of  Gypsy , The Lady With the Torch, Sweeney Todd (both the 2006  Broadway revival cast recording and 2000 live performance recording on NY Philharmonic's Special Editions Label); Matters of the Heart (cited as one of the best recordings of 1999 by both Time Out/NY and The Times of London, Pal Joey, Heatwave with John Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; Sunset Boulevard, and Patti LuPone Live.   www.pattilupone.net.

Mandy Patinkin In his 1980 Broadway debut, Mandy won a Tony Award for his role as Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita and was nominated in 1984 for his starring role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Sunday in the Park with George.  In 1991 he returned to Broadway in the Tony Award-winning musical The Secret Garden and in 1997 played a sold-out engagement of his one-man concert, Mandy Patinkin in Concert, with all profits benefiting five charitable organizations. Mandy’s other solo concerts, Celebrating Sondheim and Mamaloshen have been presented on Broadway, Off-Broadway and have toured the United States.  Other stage credits include The Wild Party (Tony and Drama Desk nominations), Falsettos, The Winter's Tale, The Knife (Drama Desk nomination), Leave It to Beaver is Dead, Rebel Women, Hamlet, Trelawney of the ‘Wells,’ The Shadow Box, The Split, Savages, and Henry IV, Part I.  Feature film credits include: Everyone’s Hero, Choking Man, Pinero, Elmo In Grouchland, Men with Guns, Lulu on the Bridge, The Princess Bride, Yentl, The Music of Chance, Daniel, Ragtime, Impromptu, The Doctor, Alien Nation, Dick Tracy, The House on Carroll Street, True Colors, Maxie, and Squanto: Indian Warrior. Mandy won a 1995 Emmy Award for his critically acclaimed performance in the CBS series ”Chicago Hope”, recently starred in the CBS series “Criminal Minds” as FBI profiler Jason Gideon and in the Showtime Original Series “Dead Like Me” as the reaper Rube Sofer.  His other television appearances include the role of Kenneth Duberstein in the Showtime film “Strange Justice,” playing Quasimodo opposite Richard Harris in the TNT film presentation of “The Hunchback,” and a film version of Arthur Miller's “Broken Glass” for BBC/WGBH-Boston.  In 1989, Mandy began his concert career at Joseph Papp's Public Theater.  This coincided with the release of his first solo album entitled Mandy Patinkin.  Since then he has toured extensively, appearing to sold-out audiences across the United States, Canada, London and Australia, performing songs from writers including Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Randy Newman, Adam Guettel and Harry Chapin, among others.  In 1990 he released his second solo album entitled Mandy Patinkin In Concert: Dress Casual on CBS Records.  His 1994 recording, Experiment, on the Nonesuch label, features songs from nine decades of popular music from Irving Berlin to Alan Menken.  Also recorded on the Nonesuch label is Oscar & Steve and Leonard Bernstein's New York.  In 1998 he debuted his most personal project, Mamaloshen, a collection of traditional, classic and contemporary songs sung entirely in Yiddish. The recording of Mamaloshen won the Deutschen Schallplattenpreis (Germany’s equivalent of the Grammy Award). In 2001, Nonesuch Records released Kidults, a collection of beloved songs, designed – as the title suggests – for the kid in every adult.  And, in 2002, Nonesuch Records released Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim, a figurative journey through Sondheim’s music and lyrics. In October 2007, Mandy debuted his newest concert with dear friend Patti LuPone and they begin touring their show An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin beginning March, 2009. Mandy resides in New York City with his wife, actress and writer Kathryn Grody, and their two sons.

Paul Ford was the original pianist for the Broadway productions of Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, the Off-Broadway production of Assassins, and most recently the revival of Pacific Overtures and the Tony award winning revival of Assassins.  His other Broadway credits include Curtains, 110 in the Shade (revival), Tom Sawyer, High Society, The Rink, Rags, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, The Secret Garden and Falsettos.  Mr. Ford was the pianist for a number of concerts under the baton of Paul Gemignani including: the acclaimed Follies concert at Lincoln Center; the Carnegie Hall concert performances of A Sondheim Tribute, Anyone Can Whistle and South Pacific with Reba McEntire; A Little Night Music with the Philadelphia Symphony; Gypsy with Patti LuPone and the Chicago Symphony; and episodes of PBS’ “My Favorite Broadway.”  He accompanied Mr. Patinkin in Mandy Patinkin: Dress Casual at the Public Theater and on Broadway, both the Broadway and Off-Broadway engagements of Mamaloshen, Celebrating Sondheim, and continues to work with him on all of his recordings and national/international tours.

Ann Reinking received the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Chicago. Choreography credits include the national tour of Applause, Chicago for Encores! NY City Center, "Bye-Bye Birdie" for ABC-TV, Legends for the Joffrey Ballet Chicago, Nilsson/Schmillson - Seattle's Spectrum Dance Theatre, Threepenny Opera- for the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Chicago starring Bebe Neuwirth and Juliet Prowse for the Civic Light Opera of Long Beach (L.A. Drama Critics Award), Suite to Sondheim for Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pal Joey for the Goodman Theatre of Chicago (Jefferson Award). Theatre credits include Roxie Hart in Chicago (Encores! NY City Center), national tour of Bye-Bye Birdie opposite Tommy Tune, Bob Fosse's Dancin' (Tony nom.), Sweet Charity (revival), Roxie Hart in Bob Fosse's Chicago; Pippin, Coco, Maggie in Over Here! (Theatre World, Clarence Derwent and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Goodtime Charley (Tony nom.), The Unsinkable Molly Brown.  Feature Film credits include All That Jazz, Annie, Micki and Maude, Movie, Movie.

Tickets for Patti & Mandy are now on sale.  Prices range from $28 to $110 for these 6 performances on Feb 9 through 14.  Tuesday through Saturday the show will be at 8 PM; Sunday matinee at 3 PM.  The Royal Alexandra Theatre is located at 260 King Street West, Toronto.  For tickets, call Ticketking at 416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333 or visit at www.mirvish.com.