Join Brian Stokes Mitchell in Concert at The Suffolk in Riverhead

Brian Stokes Mitchell is Broadway’s treasure.

With his signature powerhouse baritone, he is a triple threat singer, actor and entertainer whom The New York Times called “the last leading man.” Mitchell’s career has been on a nonstop trajectory that started with a guest starring role on Roots: The Next Generations, then seven years in Trapper John, MD and numerous other television appearances that have landed him currently in the popular HBO series The Gilded Age. His impressive array of Broadway credits started with Mail (1988). He has appeared in Man of La Mancha, August Wilson’s King Hedley II, Ragtime, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Jelly’s Last Jam, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Shuffle Along. Mitchell received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in the revival of Kiss Me Kate and in 2016, he received the prestigious Isabelle Stevenson Award at the Tony Awards for his philanthropic contributions to the theatre community.

Upon talking with Mitchell, it is readily apparent how grateful he is for the incredible opportunities in his career that have taken him to Broadway, to the White House where he performed for sitting presidents, to television, film and to world stages. Now, for one night only, Mitchell brings his dazzling musical stylings to The Suffolk in Riverhead on August 16 for an unforgettable concert.

Mitchell’s positive spirit shines as he shares his passion for music, for performing and for what he hopes to bring to his audiences. “My favorite thing to do is concerts with the piano and in beautiful theaters like The Suffolk. It’s gorgeous! What a gem to have in the Riverhead community. For me, performing is about creating an energy in the theater that is fun, delightful, and gets us away from the problems in the world. I see the theater as a kind of place of worship, so when you leave it you should feel better than you did when you walked in. One of my goals when I perform is to bring us all together in this place of joyfulness and we leave the theater feeling positive and connected to everybody else. That’s my joy and it started when I was singing “The Impossible Dream” out my window during COVID.”

For two and a half months during the height of COVID, Mitchell treated passersby to his gorgeous voice as he sang, like Juliette on her balcony, out his Upper Manhattan window. Of that time, he says, “I was recovering from COVID so one day I just felt I think I can sing and I just started singing “The Impossible Dream” out my window. I was just gonna sing it one time, but then it turned into doing it every night for two and a half months. Huge crowds would show up and it went viral. Somebody taped it from across the street then all of the news outlets covered it and on weekends there would be like 1,000 people on the street that would come to hear me sing this song. What I realized was people needed to be connected to each other because we were still isolated. There was no live theater going on. Restaurants, movie theaters, everything was closed and it was an opportunity for people to be together experiencing live theater.”

An effervescence bubbles in Mitchell when talking about the uniqueness of live theater. “It’s this wonderful experience because that performance exists only in that way, on that day, in that time for the people that are there unlike a movie that’s going to be the same whatever day you see it. Live performance of any kind is like bespoke entertainment. The performer, if they’re sensitive, will feed off the energy of the audience so you never do a show quite the same way twice and an audience that you’re performing for is never the same twice.”

Mitchell is a master at performing multiple genres of music, so when asked what setlist he intends to bring to The Suffolk, he said, “It will be largely musical theater with songs people want to hear and expect like “Wheels of a Dream” from Ragtime but also I do songs from The Great American Songbook, jazz tunes and story songs. For me, a song is like a play. It’s got three acts: a beginning, a middle and an end. I like discovering my own personal attachment to a song. Sometimes I’ll perform it as the character would do in the show but sometimes I’ll sing it with my own personal life in it. Either way, I want people to feel like they’ve gone on a journey from beginning, middle to end.”

Mitchell has been praised for portraying the mood and character of each song. To that point he says, “There’s a way to sing a song, but there’s a way to be a song and to perform a song. There’s an art to it.”

He has been invited to perform at the White House for President Clinton and then President Obama. “It’s mind blowing and I’ve performed for other presidents on other occasions away from the White House like President Bush and President Carter. When I performed for President Clinton it was in the East Room of the White House and to see all of these politicians and world leaders and to have the president and the first lady of the United States sitting right in front of me, watching me, it’s kind of daunting, but it’s also like that Rogers and Hammerstein song with the line, I must have done something good to be able to be in such company.”

Philanthropic work is a major cornerstone of Mitchell’ life. He was chairman of the Actors Fund renamed the Entertainment Community Fund for almost 20 years and speaks passionately about the organization. “It helps out a broad range of professionals working in the performing arts and entertainment industries during times of natural disasters like floods or fires. We help people to live and survive. We also help dancers because they generally have a shorter career span than most people. We have a home in New Jersey that helps people with dementia or other issues. People can go online at the entertainmentcommunityfund.org to find out more and to donate.”

Around all of his concert dates, Mitchell is involved with other exciting projects. “The Gilded Age that I was shooting earlier this year is now airing on HBO and the show has been picked up for a fourth season so I’ll probably be back. I just did an amazing workshop on a new musical by David Yazbek who wrote The Full Monty and Geoffrey Lane and I have personal projects with my solo albums coming out. I put out a video on YouTube called Hope that I did with Jason Robert Brown and I’m working on more videos. I also have two albums coming out that I’m currently mixing.”

“What I hope to spread in my concerts is an upbeat message,” said Mitchell as a final thought. “It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we all work together and that’s what I especially love about the theatre and its spirit. We all get to collaborate in this unusual way at The Suffolk and in the theater.”

Join consummate entertainer Brian Stokes Mitchell for an unforgettable concert experience on Saturday, August 16 at 8 p.m at The Suffolk in Riverhead.

Tickets are available online at thesuffolk.org. The Suffolk, 118 E. Main Street, Riverhead. 631-727-4343

Barbara Anne Kirshner is a freelance journalist and photographer whose celebrity interviews, theatre reviews, features and human interest stories appear in major publications. She is author of the children’s chapter book, Madison Weatherbee The Different Dachshund, Madison Weatherbee The Musical and a host of one-act plays that have been produced across Long Island. Her children’s picture book, Life According to Lexington, is due out later this year.