Nick Cosgrove playing as one of the Jersey Boys, two performances each week at the Bank of America Theatre through June 3, 2012. Cosgrove in the role of Frankie Valli, he performs on Tuesday nights and at Wednesday matinees in the current national tour of the Jersey Boys in Chica.
Nick Cosgrove in Jersey Boys at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre
The 24-year-old actor, with a four-octave vocal range, talked with suntimes.com about playing to the hometown crowd.
Q: How did you decide that a life in theater was the road you wanted to take?
A: I sang before I could talk, and I didn’t talk until I was 3. But then I started watching “Sesame Street” and my mom got me these Disney DVDs and suddenly I was singing all over the house. Then I started singing in church at Our Lady of Ransom in Niles and cantoring when I was in second grade. I was so short I couldn’t even reach the podium. But I liked singing in front of people. The first time I officially performed in a play was at Maine South when they were having auditions at my grammar school for third-graders [to play the kids] for “The Will Rogers Follies.” I played the youngest one, Freddie Rogers. That led to a talent show at my grammar school where I dressed up in a pinstriped suit and sang Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”
Q: So Sinatra’s music was a big part of your childhood?
A: I grew up hearing Sinatra. My mom loved him. My Grandpa Cosgrove would listen to Sinatra and then hear me sing and he would call me The Voice. We’d listen to “Mob Hits,” Tony Bennett. I was listening to oldies and Etta James.
Q: You portray Frankie Valli twice a week. How similar is your voice to his, which is just so distinctive — and high?
A: (Laughs.) Growing up I was a boy soprano. Then my voice changed, but it’s always been a very high tenor voice. I was trained classically as a singer and it’s been such a huge help with my vocals. In college I started singing more pop and getting my voice the kind of training that really helps in this show, but I wasn’t necessarily working on a falsetto. That was just ingrained in my voice since I was a kid, so it just comes naturally.
Q: Was it hard for you to be the guy with the soprano voice in high school?
A: (Laughs.) Actually, it was cool because I had so many different interests. I was president of student council, taught dance class, was a Phys Ed counselor. So in some ways I kinda made it cool to do theater and sing and be in musicals and be a physical education champ. I got picked on by some jocks, but then I actually beat them out for a Phys Ed award.
Q: Were you a fan of the Four Seasons before you joined this show?
A: I knew a lot of Frankie’s music growing up, like “Can’t Take My Eyes off of You” and all the covers of that, especially Lauryn Hill’s version. But I love what they call “the big three”: “Sherry,” “Walk Like a Man,” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” It’s just a dream role to sing 27 songs in two and a half hours. “Jersey Boys” is why I went into musical theater. I saw the play in Chicago when I was in high school and from that day I said that’s what I want to do with my life. So in a way, Frankie Valli is like my Mama Rose (from the musical “Gypsy”).
Q: You and other “Jersey Boys” castmates got to sing
the National Anthem at
Wrigley Field in April. What was that like, and why is that song so hard for singers to perform?
A: That was just beyond awesome. I grew up a Cubs fan, so it was just a dream come true. I do love the Sox, too. I just don’t know why people have so much trouble with the song. I got to sing it as part of a group so it was cool. Singing it solo? Maybe they’re just nervous because it’s the words that throws them. There’s really nothing to the melody that’s difficult.
Q: What are some of your favorite haunts in Chicago?
A: I’m gonna definitely go to the Shedd Aquarium because that jellyfish exhibit is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I love Navy Pier so I’ll be going there. And hopefully catch some theater, if I have time.
Read the complete interview {Via Suntimes.com}
Jersey Boys will play at Bank of America Theatre through June 03, 2012. Get $10 OFF on Jersey Boys Chicago IL Ticket Orders of $350 or more by using code #SpringSavings at Checkout!
Jersey Boys, the musical story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is back in Chicago at the Bank of America Theatre.
Jersey Boys, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi, young blue-collar gentlemen of the Garden State, working their way back to you, have returned to Chicago’s Bank of America Theatre for a nine-week stand.
Jersey Boys, coming on top of the initial Chicago run of a mere two-and-half years. And when you’re running that long in Chicago, where international tourists are thinner on the ground, you’re reaching a pretty hefty percentage of the local population.
So if you were one of the 1.3 million people who saw the theatrical story of Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi during that 2007-10 engagement, and I bet you are, and you are contemplating another go-around with the sweetie who loves you, a big juicy steak on the town, and some bonding time with the big-ticket “Bye Bye Baby” boys, you’ll want to know if the national tour compares sufficiently favorably with the dedicated Chicago company not to let you and yours down.
Joseph Leo Bwarie, the current Frankie, is one of the premiere Frankies of the franchise, for this show, soon to also be a movie, is most certainly now a franchise. Especially when you see Bwarie alongside the apple-cheeked Preston Truman Boyd, who plays Gaudio, you think at first that you’re suddenly watching “Sons of Jersey Boys,” but baby-faced Bwarie is deceptive in the early scenes, because he knows how to show some steel and take command of the show. Bwarie, whose fine performance is enough to merit a return for fans of this show (note that he does not perform matinees), doesn’t rely on tricks so much as, simply put, a beautifully clear and pure voice. I was struck by how many people around me were closing their eyes when he sung, even though he is very easy on the eyes. Not all Frankies have provoked that desire to lose oneself in the vocals.
Other notable performances here include John Gardiner as an especially irritating DeVito, which I intend as a compliment, and Michael Lomenda as an especially strange Massi, ditto. The tempestuous scenes between Valli and his first wife, Mary Delgado (scenes that terrified the creators of this show) pop better here than I’ve ever seen them, thanks to a very shrewd and concise performance from Kara Tremel, a Jersey girl of distinction, even though it’s tough for a girl to get a look-in with this gig.
Read the complete review by Chris Jones, Theater critic {Via WGNRadio.com}
Jersey Boys performances at Bank Of America Theatre (formerly Lasalle Bank Theatre) continue through Sunday June 03, 2012. Buy Jersey Boys Chicago IL Tickets, Get $10 OFF on Orders of $350 or more by using code #SpringSavings at Checkout!
The wait is over in Chicago! Broadways smash hit musical, Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is now scheduled to play at Chicago’s Bank of America Theatre April 2012. The Jersey Boys national tour will play in Chicago, IL opening Thursday, April 05 through June 03, 2012.
Jersey Boys Musical, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons: Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi: 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.
Jersey Boys Bank of America Theatre Schedule:
Tuesdays – 7:30 PM
Wednesdays – 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM
Thursdays – 7:30 PM
Fridays – 7:30 PM
Saturdays – 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM
Sundays – 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM
No 2:00 PM Matinee on Wednesday April 11th
Special Matinee on Thursday April 5th – 2:00 PM
Sunday June 3rd – 2:00 PM Show only
Jersey Boys musical will run from April 05, 2012 and continue through June 03, 2012 at Bank Of America Theatre (formerly Lasalle Bank Theatre). Buy Jersey Boys Chicago IL Tickets Online. Use Code AFF$10 to Get $10 OFF on Orders over $350!
Jersey Boys is coming back to Chicago. The current national tour of the hit musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons has been booked for nine more weeks in Chicago, back at the Bank of America Theatre begining Thursday, April 5, 2012 and playing through Saturday, June 2, 2012.
The prior Chicago company of the show played here for more than two years and 951 performances during its premiere engagement here, which began in 2007 closed in Jan. 2010. The show is directed by Des McAnuff, with a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, and music and lyrics by Bob Gaudio and Bob Crewe.
Jersey Boys will run through June 2, 2012. Buy Jersey Boys Bank of America Theatre Tickets Online. Use Code AFF$10 to Get $10 OFF on Jersey Boys Chicago IL Ticket Orders over $350!
