On Wednesday night, the Tryon Festival Theatre bustled with liveliness. Musical theater fans packed the house to participate in “An Evening with Mandy Patinkin & Nathan Gunn.” 

As the lights dimmed and the audience simmered down, accompanists Julie Gunn and Adam Ben-David entered the dark stage, each sitting at a grand piano. Moments later, the men of the hour made their entrance. 

The audience cheered wildly as Mandy Patinkin, Tony Award winner and movie star, and Nathan Gunn, esteemed opera singer and professor in FAA, came into view.

Without pause, the singers nodded to their accompanists and leaped into the show with a skillful rendition of “Agony,” a famed musical theater piece from Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.” 

The chemistry built over the two performers’ years of friendship was apparent from the start of the night. The two men leaned into the goofy, self-centered characters of fairy tale princes, overflowing with bravado. However, just before the final lyric of “Agony,” Nathan Gunn and Patinkin sang different words. 

“I forgot the words,” Patinkin sang to Nathan Gunn with a mischievous smile. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

This moment, possible only in live performance, was the first of many instances during the show in which the performers displayed their personalities and fun-filled friendship. 

The audience did not just passively watch a show. As promised by the title, Patinkin and Nathan Gunn took part in “An Evening” together with the audience. They welcomed fans present to participate in the beauty of friendship and live performance. 

“I just love that they were so comfortable with each other,” said audience member Martha Moore after the performance. “It was just … They were having fun! And we were getting a chance to peek in at it.”

Moments after opening the show, Patinkin sang “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin and welcomed Jordan Gunn, cellist and daughter of Nathan and Julie Gunn, on stage to join the pianists in accompaniment. 

His heartfelt rendition of the piece was contrasted by his comedic interruptions of the song to ask Jordan Gunn about her recent engagement and experience performing with her parents. 

Throughout the evening, the two men tossed the spotlight back and forth. They exchanged solo pieces, accompanied one another with vocal harmonies and sang joyful duets. 

“I think there will be a lot of fun surprises,” said audience member Betsi Freeman when asked what she hoped to see onstage. “I have no idea what to expect in terms of repertoire.”

And fun surprises there were. For Nathan Gunn’s first solo performance of the night, he entered in a long, curly black wig, pirate hat and hook hand to portray Captain Hook in “Captain Hook’s Soliloquy” from Leonard Bernstein’s “Peter Pan.” 

In addition to classic musical theater pieces, Nathan Gunn performed some popular classics, including Frank Sinatra’s “I’ve Got the World on a String.” While performing, he and Patinkin chased one another around the stage and performed an impromptu dance break, including a kickline, to bring the piece home. 

Patinkin gave a solo performance of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as well as a rendition of “Maria,” from Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” in Yiddish. 

The audience laughed along with the two men as they put on unique characters and made jokes with the instrumentalists, and also fell silent during the more dramatic, intimate moments of the evening. The energy in the auditorium was palpable as the audience drank in the rich voices and emotional performances of the two stars. 

But there was one iconic thing that many of the Patinkin fans present were hoping to see — “The Princess Bride.”

“I am not a stargazer, but I love Mandy Patinkin,” said Brad Mehrtens, professor in LAS and FAA. “‘The Princess Bride’ was such a formative movie for me … I just can’t get over how cool it is that I get to see him perform.”

The penultimate song of the night was a piece from Patinkin’s 2019 album, “Diary: December 2018.” During this retrospective piece, Patinkin took a key moment to pause and assume the fencing position of his iconic “The Princess Bride” character, Inigo Montoya.

“I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life,” Patinkin said.

The audience roared with cheers and applause, seemingly thanking the performer for years of entertainment and cherished memories.

The final piece of the evening was “Sunday” from “Sunday in the Park with George,” for which musical Patinkin originated the role of the protagonist, George Seurat. He and Nathan Gunn finished the performance hand in hand before Patinkin stepped forward and delivered an iconic line from Sondheim’s musical.

“White: A blank page or canvas,” Patinkin said. “His favorite. So many… possibilities.”

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