{"id":26560,"date":"2017-11-03T03:59:27","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T10:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=26560"},"modified":"2017-11-04T14:01:11","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T21:01:11","slug":"jersey-boys-at-queen-e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/11\/03\/jersey-boys-at-queen-e\/","title":{"rendered":"Jersey Boys at Queen E."},"content":{"rendered":"

The Four Seasons of Jersey Boys<\/em> sings \u201cSherry.\u201d (photo from Broadway Across Canada)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The multiple-award-winning Jersey Boys<\/em> comes to Queen Elizabeth Theatre Nov. 14-19. The musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons was written by Jewish community members Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.<\/p>\n

Elice spoke to the Jewish Independent<\/em> by phone from New York. He and Brickman were friends well before they became writing partners on the musical and other projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe became friends somewhere in the \u201990s, 1997-\u201998, around there, and Jersey Boys<\/em> didn\u2019t present itself as an opportunity until 2002, although we didn\u2019t really do anything about it until the very end of 2003,\u201d said Elice, noting that the day prior to our interview, Oct. 17, marked the 13th anniversary of the very first production of Jersey Boys<\/em>, which opened at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2004.<\/p>\n

When Elice was asked to write the musical, he asked Brickman to collaborate with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had spent a couple of decades in advertising and I was no longer doing that,\u201d he explained. \u201cI was working at a movie studio in California and a former client called \u2013 this was right after Mamma Mia!<\/em> had opened on Broadway \u2013 and he said, \u2018Hey, I have the rights to the Four Seasons\u2019 music.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, Elice thought he meant Vivaldi\u2019s \u201cFour Seasons.\u201d After setting him straight, the former client asked, \u201c\u2018Well, would you be interested in doing the Mamma Mia!<\/em>\u00a0[concept] with the music of the Four Seasons?\u2019 And I said, \u2018No, somebody already did that, somebody already did Mamma Mia!<\/em>\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But Elice agreed to have lunch with Valli and Bob Gaudio, principal songwriter of the Four Seasons, and he called Brickman.<\/p>\n

He and his friend \u201chad been flirting with the idea of maybe writing something together,\u201d said Elice, \u201cwhich we assumed would be a screenplay because I was working at a studio and Marshall is, of course, an Oscar-winning screenwriter of some renown; I mean, he\u2019s a legend. And I said, \u2018Suppose we were to write a Broadway musical?\u2019 And he said, \u2018I\u2019ve never written a Broadway musical.\u2019 \u2018Well, neither have I! But no one\u2019s going to pay us anything, so we\u2019ll just be wasting our own time and maybe we\u2019ll have some fun. Let\u2019s go to lunch and see what these guys are like.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

During lunch, they asked Valli and Gaudio what it was like growing up in New Jersey, said Elice. \u201cThey started to tell us these jokes and anecdotes that were so, by turn, hilarious, tragic, stunning, but all of them engaging and compelling. We found ourselves leaning forward like anyone would when being told a really good story. And we said, \u2018Hey guys, if you wanted to do this, if you wanted to do your warts-and-all life story, life of the group, that would be something that would be interesting because, look at us, we\u2019re on the end of our seats. Other people would probably respond similarly, too.\u2019… And they said, \u2018OK, go ahead, knock yourself out. If we like what you do, then we\u2019ll give you the gig.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Valli and Gaudio liked the first few scenes that Elice and Brickman wrote, so the writers began shopping the musical around. \u201cThe stars were in alignment,\u201d said Elice, \u201cas we wrote in the show.\u201d The perfect producers, a director and venue were all lined up. \u201cThe only thing we didn\u2019t have was the show,\u201d he said. But, within a couple of months, he and Brickman had completed a script and, by August 2004, the production was in rehearsal in Southern California.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd audiences loved the show from the very first performance,\u201d said Elice. \u201cWe were always there in the back with our pads, ready to edit and make changes and do all the things in previews you\u2019re supposed to do, but the show was really solid. Fundamentally, the show didn\u2019t change. We improved certain things about it but there was no big surgery to be done on anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

He attributed the success to the music, which \u201cunderpins all our lives,\u201d and to the fact that the group\u2019s story is \u201ca compelling one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s always the secret to good theatre,\u201d he said. \u201cTell a good story with characters the audience cares about.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also credited director Des McAnuff with being \u201ca great visionary and a great field marshal for the project. He created this rocket ship that we all got on. It was a super-happy experience that could have amounted to nothing, and it ended up changing all of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Rick Elice, left, and Marshall Brickman, co-book writers of Jersey Boys. (photo by Joan Marcus)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Part of the happy experience was writing with his friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWriting for the theatre is like talking something into existence,\u201d said Elice. It\u2019s much harder to talk something into existence when you\u2019re talking mainly to yourself, working as the sole writer, he said. \u201cWhat I love about working with Marshall is that he taught me that, before you do anything, you take very long walks together and talk and talk and talk and talk, until you know how the characters sound, you know how to voice them, you know what happens, you\u2019ve argued about plot and story and then, at some point, you have nothing left to do but sit down and actually write it. But the writing itself, the act of writing, is a product of extensive thinking and arguing and talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were no rules or a specific format for how the collaboration worked, said Elice. \u201cIf he wanted to write a scene, he would; if I wanted to, I would; then we would swap. And then, eventually, we were together combing through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elice said that he and Brickman weren\u2019t involved in the making of the film version of Jersey Boys<\/em>, which was directed by Clint Eastwood. \u201cGenerally, what the theatre offers that the film doesn\u2019t offer is the live event,\u201d said Elice.<\/p>\n

He explained, \u201cThe existence of theatre ought to have ended by now \u2013 there are many, many other things to do. The theatre is expensive, it only happens in certain places at certain times of the day, it\u2019s not convenient, it\u2019s not particularly user-friendly as a medium, and yet it still exists. It\u2019s actually doing better now than it did last year and, the year before that, it did better than the year before that, etc. So, why is that the case? Because, I think, we\u2019re hardwired as a species \u2013 you and I and everyone around us \u2013 back to the days when cave-dwellers sat around fires and told each other stories. We like the idea of sitting in the dark and being told stories and experiencing them with other people sitting in the dark at the same time, experiencing the same story that will never be told in exactly the same way because it\u2019s never the same. While the material may be the same, the performing of it is different, the audience is different, the chemistry in the room is different \u2013 everything changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach performance of a live event is a unique performance \u2026 and somewhere in there, somewhere in that unique experience, is something that\u2019s thrilling for us,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd what Des does specifically with Jersey Boys<\/em> is to create a variety of roles for the audience because you\u2019re not just sitting watching a show \u2013 you\u2019re also the audience in the saloon, you\u2019re the audience in the recording studio, you\u2019re the audience at the concert, you\u2019re the audience at the stadium. And there\u2019s alchemy that happens with Jersey Boys<\/em> on stage, where the audience, I think, really forgets that they\u2019re watching actors playing these four guys and begins to believe that they are the Four Seasons and we are the people watching them. And so, the audience responds like they would at a rock concert, and not like they would do politely at a Broadway musical.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cIt also happens to be a feel-good show and, as the world winds its way, a feel-good experience doesn\u2019t feel out of sorts, because the rest of our days, we\u2019re constantly facing greater challenges individually and collectively\u2026. There are problems, there are bad things, so, you go to the theatre and feel good, it feels like a nice gift to give people.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Oct. 17, Jersey Boys<\/em>\u2019 13th anniversary, a new company started rehearsals for another run of the show, said Elice. He dropped in to say hello to everyone and let them know of the significance of the day. \u201cIt\u2019s a little like teaching,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re a teacher, every year, the students stay the same age and you keep getting older \u2026 and I feel a little bit that way about Jersey Boys<\/em> companies. I show up on the first day of rehearsals and, at the first production [in 2004], I was the same age as everybody in the show, and now I\u2019m this old guy, because so many years have gone by but, of course, we\u2019re still telling the story of a boy band, so you\u2019ve got a cast in their 20s, and that\u2019s a misty distant memory for me now.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to Jersey Boys<\/em> in Vancouver, visit ticketmaster.ca<\/a> or call 1-855-985-5000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Four Seasons of Jersey Boys sings \u201cSherry.\u201d (photo from Broadway Across Canada) The multiple-award-winning Jersey Boys comes to Queen Elizabeth Theatre Nov. 14-19. The musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons was written by Jewish community members Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. Elice spoke to the Jewish Independent by phone from New York. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[4785,7525,7524,7527,3036,7526,6208],"class_list":["post-26560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-broadway-across-canada","tag-franki-valli","tag-jersey-boys","tag-marshall-brickman","tag-music","tag-rick-elice","tag-theatre"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}