This month, Athens will be visited by a famous folk-rock duo.
As part of Ohio University’s Performing Arts and Concert series, The Simon and Garfunkel Story will be performed at the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium Wednesday, after its success in London’s West End, the same theatre where Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera were performed. The show’s U.S. tour is played by actors Taylor Bloom and Ryan M. Hunt.
The performance centers around the duo, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who have won 10 Grammy awards and were also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
Original film footage of the duo will be displayed as the actors provide audiences with performances of Simon and Garfunkel’s classics.
The show has been seen by more than 250,000 people in the U.K. and Europe, and has now debuted a tour in North America, spanning across 45 locations, according to the show’s press release.
Bloom has been writing, acting and playing music since he was 11, and it is now a passion that he has brought forth as a career.
“The story we're telling is of young idealistic artists, offering their best to the world and finding terrific achievement and success as a result,” Bloom said in an email. “As a young artist, this is just the sort of story I like to tell!”
Bloom said he is excited to be performing as Paul Simon and the show will be his first tour, he said.
On the other hand, Hunt has been performing in shows since he was 12, and has performed in musicals such as Mamma Mia and Roger and Hammerstein's Cinderella. Hunt grew up listening to Simon and Garfunkel. During his audition, he brought the casting director to tears when singing Bridge Over Troubled Water.
“Taylor and I have done many hours of singing in my living room in New York City in preparation for this show. As I've mentioned, we sing 27 songs in this show and that is a huge amount of singing for any actor/singer to have to do in one given show,” Hunt said in an email. “We have stepped up to the challenge of this show and, in my opinion, I think we are doing very well!”
Some students here at OU are also interested in checking out their favorite hits from Simon and Garfunkel and see them come alive on stage.
“I would like to go because I have heard their song Sound of Silence many times before, and I just think it would be very cool to see it live,” Jordan Vanichek, a junior studying meteorology, said.
In his email, Hunt said he hopes audience members will leave with an appreciation for the music of Simon and Garfunkel.
“Hopefully, every audience member leaves having had a great evening in the theatre, no matter what they know of Simon & Garfunkel and their music,” Hunt said in his email.
