Des McAnuff directs the successful story of the Four Seasons, but he was initially more than reluctant. His first reaction was: “No thanks” to Jersey Boys.
Jersey Boys Director Des McAnuff
Jersey Boys performances begin Wednesday May 02 and run through May 20, 2012 at the Music Hall Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri and reporter Robert Trussell interviewed director Des McAnuff, who states that when it came to directing the show, his first reaction was: No thanks. Here’s a preview:
“I’ve gotten myself into all sorts of trouble over this,” McAnuff said with a laugh by phone during a rehearsal break in Stratford, Ontario. McAnuff is in his final season as artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
“You know, initially I didn’t see it,” he said. “But Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, the book (script) writers, were very persistent. There was no book at that point. There was a kind of treatment or an outline. And the way this got resolved was they basically invited me to the party and we came up with an outline together.
“I was so enamored of that treatment that I put ‘Jersey Boys’ into production before we had a script. They were writing the book at the same time I was designing and planning the show. So it was a somewhat eccentric way of launching a new musical.”
McAnuff knew he didn’t want a traditional approach.
“Because it was a musical about a band, I wanted to resist a more conventional approach to musical theater,” he said. “And they (Brickman and Elice) were not resistant to this at all. I think the reason we have such a success has everything to do with the brilliant book that they wrote. And that’s their book. They did the writing. I did not do the writing on this project. I helped in a sense design the superstructure dramaturgically with them, but the writing is very much Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.
Read the complete interview {Via KansasCity.com}
Jersey Boys performances begin Wednesday May 02, 2012 and run through Sunday May 20, 2012 at the Music Hall Kansas City, 301 West 13th St. Get $10 OFF on Jersey Boys Kansas City MO Ticket Orders of $350 or more by using code #SpringSavings at Checkout!
