June 9, 2006

Q&A’s With Director Des McAnuff

June 9th, 2006

BroadwayWorld’s Robert Diamond spoke with Jersey Boys’ Tony Award-nominated director Des McAnuff. Here’s a sample of what McAnuff had to say:

Q: Back to the present then, has the Jersey Boys amazing success so far given new hope to the world of ‘Jukebox Musicals?’

A: I think that the term “originated” back in the early 90s before Mamma Mia! There was another show in Britain that strung together a bunch of pop songs with a very weak narrative and I think that that’s originally what it meant. To me, it meant an invented story.
Jersey Boys though is a biography. Once upon a time we would have used the houghty-toity phrase ‘history’ when we wrote about kings and queens. You can argue that celebrity has become royalty in our country so on some levels this is a history. It’s a story that really happened and it involved a narration and I think in a very sophisticated way. I think for anyone to say that the show isn’t sophisticated means that they’re either mean-spirited, or they need to work on their perceptive skills.

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