Jersey Boys Natl Tour Production in Baltimore Tonight through February 27th!
February 2nd, 2011The JERSEY BOYS national tour production will be playing tonight through February 27th at the Hippodrome Theatre and Baltimore Sun reporter Tim Smith has a fantastic preview interview with JB co-author Marshall Brickman and original Four Seasons member Bob Gaudio. Here’s a sneak peek:
The first time he was asked to consider working on a musical about the 1960s pop/rock sensation Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Marshall Brickman declined.
“I still wake up screaming sometimes, thinking how my life would have been different had I stuck with saying no,” he said by phone from his New York home.
That initial reluctance could have derailed the project that turned into “Jersey Boys,” the multiple Tony Award-winning, international monster hit that landed this week at the Hippodrome.
“I was not that into their music,” he said. “When I was growing up, it was Bob Dylan, nonelectric stuff. And I was a folk music player. … That was my kind of background. But Rick handed me a double CD of Frankie Valli, and it really grabbed me.”
So did the back story of the Four Seasons, which Brickman and Elice heard in 2002 from Valli, the lead singer with the distinctively developed falsetto, and Bob Gaudio, an original member and the group’s main songwriter.
“I think Frankie would concur that when Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman came on board,” said Gaudio from his Nashville, Tenn., home, “is when we first thought we could be right about getting this onstage.”
To read the full article, visit BaltimoreSun.com
