Bob Gaudio is Songwriter, keyboard player and backup vocalist.
Four Seasons’ Bob Gaudio discusses ‘Jersey Boys’ – Interview by Angie Fenton with the legendary Bob Gaudio! Here’s a preview to the interview:
Bob Gaudio was watching “The Deer Hunter” when the idea for something that would eventually take form as the Tony-winning show “Jersey Boys” started to take shape.
In one scene of the 1978 war drama starring Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken, several of the cast members drunkenly sing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” a song Gaudio penned with Bob Crewe and performed by Frankie Valli in 1967.
“It left such an indelible vision in my mind seeing them singing, half smashed no less, a song I had composed. It was a tremendous impact and the first beginning thought that our music has another place other than radio,” said Gaudio, 67.
Years later, the project evolved into a musical documentary that tells the triumphant story of how Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi became the Four Seasons, a 1960s rock ’n’ roll band that achieved international success. The group ranks among the best selling music acts of all time and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
“It wasn’t easy,” said Gaudio, but when people began to hear the story behind the music of the quartet, “we saw it could be as important as the music.”
“I think ‘Jersey Boys’ is really pure joy,” Gaudio said. “It’s uplifting, it’s inspirational. It’s got its ups, it’s got its downs. You wind up rooting for the boys.”
On Broadway, Jersey Boys grossed $1,035,256 and had a 95.8% attendance rate for the week ending July 18, 2010. The 25 shows on the boards grossed $20,126,661, climbing nearly 5% from the previous week.
Below are the Top 10 Grosses from BroadwayWorld.com for the week ending July 18, 2010.
1. Wicked $1,681,570
2. The Lion King $1,624,092
3. The Addams Family $1,272,985
4. Promises, Promises $1,202,446
5. Mary Poppins $1,138,802
6. Billy Elliot: The Musical $1,109,921
7. Jersey Boys $1,035,256
8. Memphis $953,528
9. The Phantom of the Opera $937,474
10. Mama Mia! $915,829
Singer, actor and Iowa native Kevin Worley of ‘Jersey Boys’ talks with Des Moines Register reporter Sophia Ahmad on July 14, 2010 at the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines.
Jersey Boys The Top 30th longest-running show on Broadway
Jersey Boys Cracks the Top 30 Longest-Running Broadway Shows!
Another Jersey Boys Broadway milestone! As of July 11, 2010, the 2006 Tony Award-winning Best Musical has become the 30th longest-running show on Broadway, with 1,929 performances!
Jersey Boys has now surpassed some of the long-running and critically-acclaimed shows on the Great White Way, including La Cage aux Folles, Aida, and South Pacific and will soon be closing in on hits such as Pippin and Smokey Joe’s Cafe.
Congratulations to Jersey Boys Broadway on their latest milestone!
On Broadway, Jersey Boys grossed $938,983 and had an 88.7% attendance rate for the week ending July 11, 2010. The 29 shows on the boards grossed $19,380,905, climbing slightly under 4% from the previous week.
Below are the Top 10 Grosses from BroadwayWorld.com for the week ending July 11, 2010.
1. Wicked $1,650,562
2. The Lion King $1,634,367
3. The Addams Family $1,249,291
4. Promises, Promises $1,179,139
5. Fences $1,175,626
6. Billy Elliot: The Musical $1,096,207
7. Mary Poppins $1,022,398
8. Jersey Boys $938,983
9. Memphis $890,626
10. The Phantom of the Opera $824,412
Long-anticipated improvements at the Kentucky Center, concentrated in the 2,400-seat Whitney Hall, are continuing this summer, with most of the current phase to be completed by July 28 to accommodate the three-week run of “Jersey Boys.” Jersey Boys will perform through August 15, 2010 in Whitney Hall.
Even as that Broadway hit runs in the evenings, plans call for reupholstering Whitney Hall’s seats between midnight and 8 a.m. daily. The purple seats, last re-covered in 1997, will be redone, with some in burgundy and some in gray.
“You won’t be able to tell we were in there” working overnight, when people come to see the show, said David Holland, center spokesman.
The center at Sixth and Main streets, which opened in 1983, received nearly $9million from the 2008 General Assembly for upgrades. Some facilities that were state of the art a quarter-century ago had become obsolete or nearly so, officials said.
The work, begun in 2009, is being spread over three summers to avoid any major inconvenience for performers and patrons. This summer “we have been careful not to cancel or move a single show,” Holland said. At the same time, there has been significant activity in the center, with Music Theatre Louisville scheduling two-week runs of three shows in the Bomhard Theater and “Jersey Boys” to play from late July to mid-August in the Whitney.
The Jersey Boys is a hot new musical based on the lives of the members of the Four Seasons. The musical tells the story of how Frankie Valli and three other New Jersey youngsters skyrocketed their way to stardom as one of the most successful acts in history. This show has won awards and critical acclaim around the world. The Jersey Boys on Broadway have been causing a stir for years, picking up a handful of Tony Awards along the way – and now they’re on their way to Austin, Texas.
The Jersey Boys on Broadway
You can live – or relive – the rise of one of the biggest pop sensations of the 1960s. Feel the excitement as the past is revived on stage in front of your in the form of such classic hits as Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry and Walk Like a Man. This is an opportunity both for the younger generation to experience one of the greatest acts of the past, and for the older generation to let their hair down and let the memories of the 60s take hold for a night.
Jersey Boys, the Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award-winning hit musical, received rave reviews in Des Moines at the Des Moines Civic Center, where it opened Friday, July 9 (performances began July 7) and will play through Sunday, July 25. From Des Moines, Jersey Boys will play Louisville’s Kentucky Center for the Arts Wednesday, July 28 through Sunday, August 15.
Des Moines Register
The Des Moines Register’s Sophia Ahmad’s writes “Near the end of the first half, Jersey Boys actors portraying The Four Seasons dance with their backs to the audience. Singing at the top of their lungs, the quartet is greeted with wild cheers and applause at an imaginary stadium concert.”
Star 102.5 Radio
Star 102.5 Radio’s Luke Matthews raves “JERSEY BOYS is #1 with a bullet. I heard all of the hype. I had seen the glowing reviews. I had anticipated its arrival for months. JERSEY BOYS delivered on all fronts.”
Newton Daily News
The Newton Daily News’ Mandi Lamb raves “Dazzling the audience with more than 30 classic songs spanning 40 years of music from the legendary 1960s pop/rock band The Four Seasons, JERSEY BOYS is equally compelling in its story of the four men who emerged from the streets (and jails) of New Jersey to become one of the best-selling musical acts of all time.”
The cast of JERSEY BOYS is lead by Matt Bailey (Tommy DeVito), Joseph Leo Bwarie (Frankie Valli), original Broadway cast member Steve Gouveia (Nick Massi), Ryan Jesse (Bob Gaudio), with Jonathan Hadley and Joseph Siravo.
The ensemble of JERSEY BOYS includes Michelle Aravena, Candi Boyd, Christopher DeAngelis, John Michael Dias, John Edwards, Alayna Gallo, John Gardiner, Buck Hujabre, Denise Payne, Nathan Scherich, Brian Silverman, Courter Simmons, Ryan Strand, Kara Tremel, Mark Verdino and Kevin Worley.
Jersey Boys, winner of the 2006 Best Musical Tony Award®, the 2006 Grammy Award® for Best Musical Show Album, and the 2009 Olivier Award for Best New Musical, tells the story of Rock and Roll Hall of Famers The Four Seasons, and how four blue-collar kids became one of the greatest successes in pop music history. Jersey Boys concludes the 2009-2010 season when it rocks and rolls its way to Des Moines Civic Center debut in a limited three week engagement.
The Toronto production of the Tony-winning musical Jersey Boys will say “Bye, Bye Baby” to Toronto on Sunday, August 22, 2010, the date of their second anniversary, the date of the show’s second anniversary at that Canadian venue.
The Jersey Boys musical made its Toronto premiere as a limited engagement Aug. 21, 2008. After opening to rave reviews, Jersey Boys became a resident production on Dec. 12, 2008. It is now the longest-running musical in the history of the Toronto Centre for the Arts, Jersey Boys will play its final performance Sunday, August 22 at 7:30pm, which will be the Company’s 830th performance. Tickets to all performances are now on sale.
“We owe a huge thanks to the City of Toronto,” stated Aubrey Dan, president, Dancap Productions. “Toronto embraced Jersey Boys from the start and it was thrilling to see audiences celebrate this incredible story and timeless music. We are very proud of the accomplishments as we share this great success with the entire Company of Jersey Boys, our partner Dodger Theatricals from New York, our employees and the Toronto Centre for the Arts. We especially thank the audiences that came from all over the world who made it all possible.”
The current cast of Jersey Boys features Michael Lomenda as Nick Massi, Jeff Madden as Frankie Valli, Daniel Robert Sullivan as Tommy DeVito and Quinn VanAntwerp as Bob Gaudio with Gabriel Antonacci, Matthew G. Brown, Matt Cassidy, Jade Elliott, Élodie Gillett, Steven M. Goldsmith, Bryan Hindle, Victoria Lamond, Aaron MacKenzie, Adrian Marchuk, W. Joseph Matheson, Timothy Sell, Alison Smyth, Grant Tilly, Cleopatra Williams and Shawn Wright.
