Happy New Year! I trust you all enjoyed the holidays and are looking forward to accomplishing all your goals and aspirations for 2007.
I've had a hectic start to the year getting my Simon and Garfunkel show up and running. It's always difficult putting a show together over the festive season, but I'm very pleased to announce that we have officially opened, but more about that further down.
I will be reprising my role as Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar from April 2007 when the South African Production tours to Athens, Greece. Appropriately the season will run over the Easter period and I can’t wait to get to the Greek capital. I must confess to being a complete sucker when it comes to touring, having being bitten by the travel bug six years ago on our extensive tours of CATS. I now grab every opportunity of touring with both hands! There’s something so exciting about performing in different parts of the world and getting a glimpse of what life is like for other cultures and nations.
Check out the new pictures of the Jesus Christ Superstar tour to Cape Town and Johannesburg in the Gallery. World-renowned musicians Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel have had an amazingly creative, prolific and often tumultuous partnership since they first started performing together in the early 60's as Simon and Garfunkel. Simon's remarkable songwriting talent together with Garfunkel's angelic high tenor voice, created an unbeatable combination that turned folk-rock into a serious art form. Having expanded on Bob Dylan’s mould of folk-rock and that of his contemporaries, they created some of the genres most beautiful and moving songs. Songs that often remind us of pivotal moments in our lives.
Simon and Garfunkel are particularly well known for their distinctive close harmony singing inspired by the Everley Brothers and of course their much-publicized break-ups. Paul Simon's songs are full of deep, dark and lyrical images that reflect his personal perspective on the world. What makes his songs even more remarkable to me, is his frame of reference. One moment he is composing songs inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickenson and the next moment he is singing about baseball player Joe DiMaggio!
Simon and Garfunkel's music still has a huge influence on today's popular culture, with songs like 'America' and 'Only Living Boy In New York' featuring in the latest "super-cool" movies like 'Almost Famous' and 'Garden State'. One can also log onto the Internet at anytime and find people passionately arguing about the true meaning behind the lyrics of a Simon and Garfunkel song!
In my new show Old Friends, I tip my hat to this amazing duo together with an old friend of mine from drama school days, Jenny Stead. She is an amazing performer and an accomplished actress in her own right. The show is filled with a refreshing take on some old musical favourites, as well as some of their seldom-heard gems. In a case of life often imitating art, we explore and document the friendship and creative relationship between Simon and Garfunkel, and simultaneously explore Jenny and my friendship and working relationship over the past years since our days as Maties. We also reflect on the numerous productions we have accomplished together since then.
We all know that lovers, family or old friends working together in a creative process is probably not such a good idea, but when it works, like with Simon and Garfunkel, magic can happen. I hope that with my new show, Old Friends, audiences feel we have shared a little of that magic.
Thanks for logging on and chat again after Athens, Best Wishes Anton