Jersey Boys Blog

BroadwayWorld.com’s Kelly Cameron has posted a rare sit-down with the four actors who bring Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons roles to life every night in Toronto. Quinn Vanantwerp (Bob Gaudio), Jeremy Kushnier (Tommy DeVito), Michael Lomenda (Nick Massi), and Jeff Madden (Frankie Valli) talk candidly about their individual experiences auditioning and becoming a part of JERSEY BOYS.

Here’s a preview of this great interview:

Jeremy: Well, I’ll start off as I’ve been with the show the longest. I started in the Chicago company. My first experience auditioning for the role was two years ago just this past month when I auditioned over ten times. The first was for the National Tour, and for that one I got right up to the final call and then didn’t get cast. Then I auditioned for the Chicago Company and I got the role. I don’t know what it was like for the rest of you guys, but for me, the dancing was always the hardest. They have a lot of these singer/actor guys who can play instruments and then they tell us to get in a room and dance, its hilarious! The second dance call-back they made us all do the Frankie split, I think that was a joke of Sergio’s (Sergio Trujillo, the choreographer). They even made the guys auditioning to be Gyp DeCarlo do it. We even had to do the hip-hop combo that opens the show. But then again, the original Bob Crewe on Broadway was also the Dance Captain, so you never know!

It was really hard. The big thing is that Des (Des McAnuff, the director) really wanted there to be a seamless transition between actors/musicians, he really wanted it to be a band on stage. For every audition we had to bring in a guitar, we didn’t have to be great musicians but we did have to know how to play. There are a lot of musicians up there on stage each night.

Jeff (to Jeremy): How often would you say you are actually playing during the show?
Jeremy: I play about 60% of the times when I’m holding the guitar, sometimes I’m lazy or there is too much dancing so I don’t. Sometimes the guitars are just coming on or off too fast and I just don’t have time. But if a person picks up and holds a guitar, you can tell if they have ever played before. We’ve seen some Frankenstein’s in our time…guys where you can just tell they have never played.

Jeff (directed at Quinn): Your audition story is pretty much the opposite isn’t it?
Quinn: Yeah, I was a last minute replacement. I first auditioned for the tour, and I didn’t get that part. When I did get the role for the Toronto production, I started rehearsals two days after I was hired and it was right around Christmas. I only got to do one run-through with the Toronto Cast and it ended up only being half a run-through.

Jeff: Yeah, something happened and we weren’t even able to finish it. So our first show with Quinn in it was literally our first full run-through with him.
Quinn: I started after only about fourteen days. Nine were spent rehearsing and then a few breaks for the Christmas holidays. I went out there for the first time that first night in Toronto and it was great. That first meeting of “Cry for Me” when Bob (Quinn’s character) first meets everyone was so eerily real, because the four of us had never really sung together. There is a lot that is very real about this whole experience for me. I have a line in the show that says “So now I’ve got everything a 22 year old could want. A slew of hit records and a brand new convertible” and it’s weird, because that’s very much …

Jeremy: Your life!
Quinn: Exactly. It’s basically my life. I’m 22 and I feel like that’s exactly what’s happened to me.

Jeremy (to Michael): What was your process like? You and Jeff are the only two to have auditioned in Canada so it would have been a different experience.
Michael: Two years ago they came up to audition for a Bob for one of the productions. At the time I didn’t know which Bob they were looking for. I went and auditioned for that and I think it was one of the top ten worst auditions I’ve ever had. I remember leaving and thinking that the door on this opportunity had closed on me for sure. And then a few months later I got a call saying they wanted to see me again.