Jon Lee starring as Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys London
Jon Lee begins his starring role as Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys next month Alternating with Ryan Molloy. Jon starred in four television series, a film and won two Brit awards and Record of The Year as part of the band, with record sales spanning over 13 million!
Here is the preview of the marvelous interview with Jon Lee by Jody Vodden.
Q. I bet it’s pretty hectic – how does it compare to the other roles you have played?
A. This role is for a year and because I am alternating with Ryan Molloy it means it doesn’t take up all of my time. I have the time to perform at the Savoy twice a month as well. When I was in Les Mis I was doing eight shows a week and it took up all of my time. Right now I have the best of both worlds, but I am still doing what I love.
Q. As your Jersey Boys debut draws closer how are you feeling?
A. My first night is the 18th March, which isn’t too far away now! It has come around so quick – I found out I had landed the part in November and now its February and I still have so much to do! I’m just fortunate enough to get the chance, I feel it is the best West End show of the time; it may not be my era but I was surprised at just how many songs I knew.
Q. Is it daunting to have the lead role as Frankie?
A. It is going to be great. I think I am kind of getting used to the idea now, but it never gets any easier, my nerves never go.
Q. What about Frankie as a character? As the Jersey Boys were known for being on the wrong side of the tracks until their rise to stardom as one of the most successful bands in pop music, how did you get a feel for the role?
A. Our backgrounds are so different, but I went to New York and got a real feel for it. People forget that the Jersey Boys are real people, Frankie is still performing today – all he really cares about is performing. He is an intense, dark character, and so driven. But this is, I guess, to his detriment in the show as everything in his life comes second to his career.
Q. You’re alternating the role with award-winning Ryan Molloy, how does that work out?
A. We work out a schedule every eight weeks and it changes all the time, sometimes I do more shows a week and then sometimes he does. I’m absolutely made-up with how things are going so far – I’m looking forward to getting started.
Jersey Boys, the 2005 Broadway musical history of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons makes a crowd-pleasing winter booking at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre. Much of this show’s appeal is due to its generous selection of songs that dwell in our collective unconscious. The moment you hear such pop hits as “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man” and “Working My Way Back to You”; it’s like listening to a vintage jukebox that just won’t quit.
The show literally does not miss a beat in adhering to that inspirational narrative structure. But the book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice is so smartly crafted to blend music and melodrama that it ensures “Jersey Boys” will play well in states other than New Jersey.
The story of young Italian-American guys from Jersey crooning their way to success in the early ’60s obviously includes such stereotypical figures as meddling mobsters, predatory floozies and slimy record company types. But Brickman and Elice supply their book with enough clever banter and good-natured spoofing to keep that story merrily chugging along.
The overall set design readily facilitates the use of video screens because it does not consist of much more than metal platforms, stairs and fencing that easily adapt to passing as everything from a family home to a concert hall. The musicians and vocalists are free to roam the mostly empty stage, with those overhead video screens providing colorful visual accents.
In a lesser show, the other members of the group might be bland and nearly anonymous. “Jersey Boys,” fortunately, provides fully realized characterizations for Nick Massi (Steve Gouveia), Tommy DeVito (Matt Bailey) and Bob Gaudio (Quinn VanAntwerp). This gives dramatic heft to the show when the chart-topping pop group threatens to implode owing to long-simmering disputes.
Many minor roles are played by cast members constantly called upon to change identities from one scene to the next. Even though many of these roles are cartoonishly scripted, they’re enacted with lively good humor.
The dozens of characters collectively take us from Jersey to Vegas and back again. There may not be any great surprises on this biographical trip, but there is a lot to enjoy along the way.
Hippodrome Performing Arts Center Review by Mike Giuliano – Via ExploreHoward.com
Jersey Boys, The story of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons will be visiting Miami’s Ziff Opera House At The Adrienne Arsht Center in March 2011. The Tour is limited to only three weeks from Wednesday, March 02 thru Sunday, March 20, 2011.
Jersey Boys at Miami FL
The cast of Jersey Boys – Matt Bailey (Tommy DeVito), Joseph Leo Bwarie (Frankie Valli), Michael Lomenda (Nick Massi) and Quinn VanAntwerp (Bob Gaudio) as The Four Seasons, with Jonathan Hadley and Joseph Siravo.
The ensemble of Jersey Boys includes Candi Boyd, Jared Bradshaw, Christopher Deangelis, John Michael Dias, John Edwards, Alayna Gallo, John Gardiner, Buck Hujabre, Denise Payne, Brian Silverman, Courter Simmons, Ryan Strand, Lauren Tartaglia, Kara Tremel, Mark Verdino and Kevin Worley.
The Miami engagement is part of the Broadway In Miami 2010-2011 season, presented by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, Broadway Across America-Miami and presenting sponsor Bank of America.
Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons: Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi. This is the story of how a group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American pop music sensations of all time. They wrote their own songs, invented their own sounds and sold 175 million records worldwide – all before they were thirty.
The Tony and Grammy Awarding winning hit musical Jersey Boys is on stage at the Hippodrome and will be rocking through Sunday, February 27, 2011.
Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons like is has never been told before.
The energetic and power packed musical tells the story of how a group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American pop music sensations of all time.
“The reason that this is so successful is for the first time a Broadway show is not a made up story,” says Quinn VanAntwerp (who plays Bob Gaudio) to WBAL’s Scott Wykoff. “It is a real story about four guys coming from the street corner and all their trials and tribulations to make one of the greatest American rock groups of all time.”
“The music is everywhere and you know the music and you don’t know this story,” Steve Gouveia, from the original Broadway cast of Jersey Boys who is in Baltimore playing the role of Nick Massi on stage at the Hippodrome. “Everybody knows the Beatles story and John Lennon and Yoko Ono and all that stuff, but no one knows Nick Massi’s story or Tommy DiVito’s story and how they tied in to making the Four Seasons what they were is fascinating.”
Jersey Boys musical – It’s a tale of young blue-collar guys in New Jersey who form a successful group with a string of infectious songs, from “Sherry” to “Oh, What a Night.” Mobsters and financial setbacks figure into their history, too, but, mostly it’s about making it — and hanging on to what they’ve got.
