Jersey Girls Are Cover Girls in Vegas!
June 12th, 2009
Leslie Goddard, Carly Thomas, and Lauren Tartaglia (Photo by John Gurzinski)
Yes, the Vegas Jersey Girls are cover girls in this week’s edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s “Neon”! Mike Weatherford has a fabulous interview with Leslie Goddard (Francine & others), Lauren Tartaglia (Mary Delgado & others), and Carly Thomas (Lorraine & Others), along with swing cast member Sarah Lowe!
The Palazzo musical is still named “Jersey Boys,” and most repeat customers of the Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons biography are there to swoon at the four male leads. But sit through the show a second or third time, and you might notice the women in the cast starting to look familiar.
Fact is, three women in each show play all of the female characters, about 50 if you count every little walk-on. Audience members slow to pick up on this shouldn’t feel bad. It took one crew member three months.
“I’ve heard people say in the lobby, ‘I don’t believe they only let three girls bow.’ So mad — like truly upset,” Tartaglia says.
The three women in the Las Vegas cast voiced several of the small roles in their auditions, but were cast for their most notable character. For Tartaglia, it’s Valli’s first wife, Mary Delgado, whom he marries before the group becomes famous and then is rarely home.
Thomas is most effective as Lorraine, Valli’s second-act love interest who also realizes she can’t free him from his grueling commitment to the road. And Goddard is Valli’s college-age daughter Francine, who died of a drug overdose.
But the three of them sing “My Boyfriend’s Back” as the Seasons’ opening act, the Angels. And each delivers laugh lines in bit parts.
And there’s no getting out of it. All three play hookers. “Our parents have all seen that,” Goddard says with a laugh.
Because they do eight shows per week, Sarah Lowe is one of the swings who has subbed for all three, thereby playing every female part in the show. A couple of times, someone fell ill during the show and she took on still more parts.
Visit Las Vegas Review-Journal for the full story on the multi-talented Vegas Jersey Girls!
