Happy Birthday, Mandy Patinkin! Five Fabulous Musical Moments from the Broadway Star

No excuse is needed to salute Mandy Patinkin with a clip package of great musical performances, but we came up with one anyway: November 30 is his 59th birthday! As the Tony-winning star enters his 60th year, he’s thrilling Broadway audiences anew in An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin. Last fall, Broadway.com saluted Patti with a video highlights feature, so it’s high time Mandy got the same treatment. Click below, and lose yourself in the musical performances of an incomparable theater star.

“Finishing the Hat” (Sunday in the Park With George)
As painter George Seurat in Stephen Sondheim’s 1984 musical, Patinkin introduced one of the finest songs ever written about creativity. It was a perfect match of actor and material, particularly Mandy’s pronunciation of “hat” at the end of a dozen lines, underscoring the precision necessary to make a work of art.



“Buddy’s Blues” (Follies in Concert)
After his triumph in Sunday in the Park, Patinkin was tapped to play Buddy Plummer in the now-legendary 1985 Follies concert at Lincoln Center. As usual, he held nothing back, infusing “Buddy’s Blues” with a brave mix of humor and heartbreak. More than 25 years later, Mandy is performing the song again in his Broadway concert!



“Father to Son” (Falsettos)
Because he loved the show so much, Mandy agreed to enter the 1992 Broadway cast of Falsettos as a replacement in the role of gay dad Marvin. While we all wait for a Patinkin Sings William Finn CD, savor this talk show performance of the touching apology Marvin sings to his son Jason (of the famous bar mitzvah).



“Bali Ha’i” (Something Wonderful Concert)
Mandy and Patti pay tribute to Rodgers & Hammerstein in their Broadway concerts with extended scenes and songs from South Pacific and Carousel. In this 1995 televised tribute to the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein, Patinkin gives an achingly beautiful rendition of Bloody Mary’s haunting “Bali Ha’i.” Come away…come away!



“No One Is Alone” (Touched by an Angel)
Slightly creepy yet irresistible: Suited up as Satan, Patinkin takes to the cliffs in 2001 to put his own spin on Sondheim’s Into the Woods ballad as TV “angel” Roma Downey grapples with her own internal demons. If the devil could sing like Mandy, we’d all give in to temptation.