Jersey Boys 5 Seasons Ready for Paris Las Vegas!
March 2nd, 2012Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review-Journal recently had lunch with the FIVE guys who play the Four Seasons in JERSEY BOYS Las Vegas (Travis Cloer, Graham Fenton, Jeff Leibow, Deven May, and Rob Marnell), who are all excited about the show’s opening at Paris Las Vegas this coming Tuesday, March 6! Here’s a sneak peak:
One of the opening lines of “Jersey Boys” states a central theme: “You ask four guys how it happened, you get four different versions.”But if you have lunch with five guys (because two share the role of Frankie Valli), you find little to argue about. If they see eye to eye, it’s because most of them have worked together a long time now in the Broadway hit. So long that when Rob Marnell stepped up from the chorus to play Bob Gaudio, life mirrored his character, the final but most crucial ingredient of the Four Seasons.
The choreographer told him, “OK Rob, you know the steps, but really start checking in with these guys. And seeing even more how much you can match them.”
“Naturally they’ve been doing this so long they have that vibe going and have that band vibe established,” Marnell says. “It’s one thing I’m trying to tune into and one of the challenging things about being a newbie.”
Cast and crew used a six-week break to reautomate the stagecraft and adapt the choreography for a Paris stage that’s 12 feet wider. “What’s been great for us is we’ve had the luxury of having all of our creative team here,” says Travis Cloer who rotates the role of Frankie Valli with Graham Fenton. Along with the technical cues, “They’ve been saying to us, ‘Think about it this way. Play it this way.’ So for me, it feels like a completely brand new show.”
Adds Jeff Leibow, who opened the Palazzo run as Nick Massi, “We’ve all had to adapt when new people come along … but never do we get this kind of attention. Where the creative team is saying, ‘Now that we’re here again, let’s re-evaluate.’ ” It’s rare with an established, much-franchised hit to “revisit all the information that’s underneath what we do.”
Click HERE to read the whole interview.
