Broadway Legend Mandy Patinkin Brings a Lifetime of Stories to the Broward Center

Uttering the name Mandy Patinkin conjures countless images of projects from a prolific, half-century career. Some think of his theater work in Sunday in the Park With George or Evita. Others think of his turns on the small screen, be they Homeland, Chicago Hope, or Criminal Minds. Many will never forget his classic line reading in The Princess Bride: "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." And still, for others, it's all about how overwhelmingly handsome he looks emerging from a swim in Yentl.

No matter the origin of one's admiration, Patinkin's versatility will be on full display when he brings his Being Alive concert tour to the Broward Center on Thursday, February 6. New Times spoke to the performer over the phone ahead of the Fort Lauderdale show.

Asked about the tour's title, a nod to Stephen Sondheim's Company, Patinkin says he wanted to strike a different tone after his last tour and the ensuing pandemic. "I turned to my piano player, Adam Ben-David, and said, 'I feel like getting back on the road.' Our previous concert ["Dress Casual"], from 2016, was a little political and a little dark, and I said, 'I want to have fun, I want to welcome me back, and I want to welcome the audience back.'"

And so began the journey of "Putting It Together," so to speak. The show comprises many of Patinkin's favorite Broadway songs and standards. He says the duo went back and forth on which songs to include. "It's all about telling stories, so you see how the story flows best — it's about the figurative journey."

As they toyed around with the setlist, Patinkin was asked if the show would just be named "Mandy Patinkin in Concert." Instead, he opted for "Being Alive" — the Company showstopper had already made the cut.

"When we started," he explains, "the songs I chose didn't have any direct theme other than 'connecting with Mandy.' They mean something to me, and that's the connective material. That's what I look for: a story that I want to tell myself, my audience, my children, my grandchildren, my wife, my friends."

He advises against looking online for the fixed setlist. "There's a flow that I really like, but that doesn't mean on occasion I don't change things," he notes. "I never commit to anything because people will drive or fly sometimes to see the concert and maybe I won't do the exact song they've read about."

"I need the flexibility to adapt to whatever happens in my day and my community and the world; changes take place all the time," he expands. "It's why I love the concert modality more than anything else I do. The feedback is instant. The audience is listening and informing the performers [on] how to act. We do it all for the audience."

Patinkin says that feedback can inform how the live show evolves as the tour continues. The first part is figuring out which stories to tell, he says. The second part involves deciding which new stories stay one-offs and which ones live on to be workshopped with crowds. "I'll try [a story] again and, three or four shows later, it's so fucking long and I just ruined it. Then you have to bring it back to the kernel it was birthed at or get rid of it because I tend to elaborate, and it grows like a beanstalk. And we all know what happened with that beanstalk."

It's possible some Fort Lauderdale anecdotes may enter the mix after his visit to South Florida, to which he has a personal connection. Patinkin ensured the show date aligned with his grandson's birthday. "They're going to have a party on the weekend...and all the little boys are into tractors, so we're having a tractor party. I'm also taking him to school and going right to the airport. If it didn't work out, I would have been bummed [at the show]. Now I'll be very happy! And I'll be talking about it, you know?"

Though he's not the writer of these stories — the acting roles, the songs — Patinkin always finds a way in.

"There's a lot of darkness in me, and why I love Sondheim and Shakespeare is that they were brilliant at turning darkness into light," he says. "If I could write, I would, but I'm just the mailman for these gifted human beings. My privilege is to bring light to whatever it was they left us. Even if it had dark motifs, my joy is to show a hopeful, optimistic, positive, empathetic, kind possibility within the lyrics. Music itself is the greatest story of all."

Mandy Patinkin. 8 p.m. Thursday, February 6, at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; 954-462-0222; browardcenter.org. Tickets cost $39 to $75 via ticketmaster.com.