I recently returned from New York City, the home of the world’s most outstanding Broadway musicals where I saw Idina Menzel in If/Then. Last summer I was in London, England, home of the famous West End live theatre scene and got tickets for the spectacular Miss Saigon. A year ago it was Toronto, thanks to Mirvish Entertainment’s thriving scene and Les Miserables.
Montreal gets Broadway
musicals in bits and pieces. Last summer The Lion King returned here for an
extended run at the Place des Arts. In December we had the fabulous Book of
Mormon. This week the Tony and Grammy Award winning
musical Jersey Boys is on tap for with
eight shows through January 11. What a treat! I attended Tuesday’s Montreal
premiere and it was a blast!
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| A scene from Jersey Boys The Musical. |
Jersey Boys won a Tony for Best Musical and a Grammy for
Best Musical Show Album in 2006. It is the true story of Frankie Valli and The
Four Seasons, a group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks who
became one of the biggest American pop music sensations of all time. They wrote their own songs, invented their
own sounds and sold 175 million records worldwide - all before they were 30. The
show features all their hits including Sherry,
Big Girls Don’t Cry, Oh What A Night, Walk Like A Man, Can’t Take My Eyes Off
You and Working My Way Back To You. I am 52 years old, so I was very young
when their rise to fame occurred. Nonetheless,
I grew up with each of these songs in my head. It didn’t hurt watching
the hit show Happy Days in the 70s. Basically, what Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons produced
were timeless and the appreciative Place des Arts audience ate every number up.
The lead cast members are Hayden
Milanes (Frankie Valli), Nicolas Dromard (Tommy DeVito) and Keith Hines (Nick Massi) and Toronto native Drew
Seeley (Bob Gaudio) as The Four Seasons, with Barry Anderson (Bob Crewe) and
Thomas Fiscella (Gyp DeCarlo). Ensemble members include Tommaso Antico, Jaycie
Dotin, Marlana Dunn, De’Lon Grant, Wes Hart, Bryan Hindle, Austin Owen, John
Rochette, Leslie Rochette, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Kara Tremel, Jonny Wexler and
Keith White. I thought Milanes was excellent as the lead and the loud ovation he got from the audience seemed to confirm that thought. The story of the Four Seasons is not all sugar and spice and the musical pulls no punches.
Gaudio
was a performing member between 1962 and 1972, after which he largely retired
from stage work while continuing to write and arrange their songs and to
produce and perform on their records. He
wrote the music for Jersey Boys
.
The national tour of Jersey
Boys opened in San Francisco on December 1, 2006. Eight years later it is still
going strong in cities across North America and the United Kingdom. The show is presently playing on a regular
basis in New York, Las Vegas and London.
“I grew up with these songs playing around the house,” Seeley
shared with me a few weeks ago. “My parents exposed me to all kinds of music
early on. I never realized they we all Four Seasons songs though. It’s incredible how
many hits these guys had! There are 30-something in the show, and there is a
slew more that they couldn’t even make time for. They need a ‘Jersey Boys 2 -
The Musical.”
Seeley, who only joined the cast last fall, is
pleased that the audience can count on lots of action on the stage. “It’s the kind of show where the audience is in it with us from
the start,” he explains. “People dance
and sing in their seats, it’s a real concert. But that’s not to say there’s no
story. I think what’s kept Jersey Boys going strong for 10 years now is the
fact that the book is as strong as the music. It’s a well-rounded,
awe-inspiring piece of theatre.”
Shows continue through
Friday, January 9 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, January 10 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday, January 11 at 2 p.m. and
7:30 p.m. For more information on Jersey Boys, go to www.JerseyBoysTour.com, www.placedesarts.com, www.evenko.ca or
call 1-866-842-2112. The show is two
hours and 35 minutes. Tickets are priced from $25 to $134 (taxes included).
According to Nick Farkas at evenko,which brings us the big Broadway shows, we might not have another musical here
in 2015, “but we have a lot in the pipeline foe 2016.”
Forever Plaid hits the Segal Centre February 1 to 22. The hallmark doo-wop musical will be showcased in a delightfully nostalgic and visually entertaining new production from the producers of Belles Soeurs: The Musical and Ain’t Misbehavin’ !
Ezio Carosielli has more fun planned for his Rialto Theatre
in 2015. “We just finished restoring
the façade and have installed a breathtaking lighting system,” he tells me. “For upcoming events we have Gino Vannelli returning
April 17 amnd 18; The Edwards Twins
on June 6, and a wonderful tribute to Frank Sinatra
on June 20. We also have our
regular monthly dinner/show of PastaNapoli and PastaOpera. The chef is an opera
singer so you eat between opera sets. It’s a must see.”
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| Idina Menzel |
Idina Menzel will be at Place des Arts on September 1 as part of her North American concert tour. I caught her solo show in Boston a few years ago and she really blows the audience away with her energy, charisma and of course that unique singing voice. She is hot on the heels of a remarkable year that included performing the smash hit “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen at the 86th annual Academy Awards and her triumphant return to Broadway in the musical If/Then, Menzel was the voice of Elsa in Frozen, the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. Ruben Fogel is the local promoter. For ticket info click here.
There is also plenty of
community musical theatre to experience. I am hoping the evenko team
surprises us with a few more musicals this year.
