The Clubhouse Podcast

iTunes Exclusive Episode Jersey Boys

April 9, 2017 Season 6, Episode 89

Rob, Chad, and Don Ford review the touring production of Jersey Boys at the Winspire Opera House in the Dallas Fort Worth area. The multi-Tony award-winning musical tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons through four acts structured as four seasons, featuring performances by Aaron DeJesus as Frankie Valli, Matthew Daily as Tommy DeVito, Keith Hines as Nick Massey, and Drew Seely as Bob Gaudio. The hosts praise the fluid transitions, minimalist set design, strong cast performances, and effective use of music and lighting throughout the production.

About this episode

Key takeaways

  • The story moves at a breakneck pace with fluid transitions between scenes, enhanced by on-stage musicians and minimal set design
  • The cast performs the role of Frankie Valli with two different actors due to the physically and vocally demanding nature of the role
  • Keith Hines as Nick Massey earned special recognition for his comedy and character work
  • All music used in the production is from Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons catalog, with songs chosen to advance the story rather than serve as standalone performances
  • The production uses back screen technology to incorporate actual footage from performances, blended with live cast action on stage

Q&A

Did you know that Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons performed 'Oh What a Night'?

One host stated he had not known this despite hearing the song many times, and that it is one of his favorite songs in history

When were Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame?

According to the story presented in the musical, they were inducted in 1990

Is there a pit orchestra in this production?

No, all music is either played on stage or just off stage

Would you see this production again and where would you want to sit?

All three hosts said they would see it again, with seating preferences ranging from center soundboard to anywhere in the building, as the acoustics and sightlines work well throughout the venue

Read Transcript

The following is a sooner orgator production. The following is a sooner orgator production. The following is a sooner orgator production.

The following of this day is a couple of thousands before coming to the wild. The following are the following, the following of this day is a sooner orgator production. The following is a year before coming to the wild.

and or members. If you're hearing the sound of my voice it means the following conditions have been met. It means at least once in your life you have listened to the clubhouse podcast live on you stream every Sunday night 70's from for Pacific.

You're one stop shop for all things sports and entertainment, but it also means you subscribe on iTunes because it is time for another I don't have a voice for an upper register right now. It is the 169th one of these. Welcome.

My name is Rob. I am the executive producer of the clubhouse podcast and I can't really talk about December in 1963 because I was negative 10. But I'm not alone for this particular edition.

Joining me across the desk as he tends to do is my co-host and a man who is also not available in December of 63. He was in the third grade. So you have to take that with a grain of salt.

He is Chad. Welcome sir. I was waiting for that second sucker punch to come swinging.

Sometimes I have to do it. There's like there's a requirement in my contract. It's a long story.

Also joining us is the official fact checker of this show and a man who only can sing like Frankie Valley when he wears really really tight pants and none of us want to see that. You may know I'm his fun. Don't go.

It is my name. I'm Don Ford. I'm going to call him Don Ford.

Welcome sir. What's this contract stuff? I don't even have a contract.

Oh, there's a reason you don't have a contract. Give you a little artistic freedom. That's the rest of us don't have.

Whatever we do one of these, it is to review something. This is no exception. For this particular edition, we're reviewing a stage production.

The multi-tony award winning production, Jersey Boys, has made its way to the Dallas Fort Worth area. This is a touring company. So if you don't live in the Dallas Fort Worth area, don't stop.

Keep listening because this may come to a town near you. Very, very soon. It is this story as you probably have figured out by now of Frankie Valley in the four seasons.

Starting off, what's kind of cool about the way they tell the story is, it's told from different points of view, but not at the same time. We start with with Tommy DeVito, played by Matthew Daily in this particular production, trying to get something off the ground in one day he hears a young man by the name of Frankie Castalucio. He Swedish played by Aaron DeHate the Jesus or DeHate Zeus.

I can't figure out which one it is because I've heard it said both ways. Who's voice is so different from anything he's ever heard, but he's got to get this kid taken care of. So we take some under was winning.

They start playing around together and they become a group with a bass player named Nick Massey played by Keith Hines. And as time goes on, they hook up with Bob Gaudio played by Drew Seely and then becomes Frankie Valley in the four seasons. Well, they come the four seasons that a lot of that comes later on.

What are an interesting about the way this is told? Instead of four acts, it's told oddly enough in four seasons, clever how they did that. Very well played like that.

There's there's crime, there's betrayal, there's seduction. It's like a musical godfather, really. Without all the killing.

So Donald, I'm going to start with you. Yeah, but before we start. Oh, what do we have to think, Cindy Evans, everybody at ATT and a WinSpere Opera House.

Thank you so much for forming art center. It's such an amazing facility. And it's not just for WinSpere.

It's it's a whole era. It's just gorgeous, but we wrote the WinSpere Opera House for this, which is an unbelievable room to see a show in. And the chandelier was shaped like a Christmas tree.

Yeah, which was awesome. Yeah, totally. Because it reminds me of record this.

It is Christmas time. Yeah, but thank you so much, Cindy. You're some beautiful room.

Great seats, wonderful presentation, Don. What did you think about the storyline? Actually, I liked it.

Did you really? Yeah, if you go my right review at www.theclubhouse.com, that's kind of our website. Theclubhouse.com.

I put on there that the plot when it comes down to it is kind of simple because it's just the story of a band making it. But on the other hand, it kept me interested because they put so much into it. Okay.

You know what the story is about? It's about the band. Right.

What it comes down to it. But how I thought it started slow a little bit in the beginning. But then how it started to gain steam and from then it never stopped.

I was really interested in the storyline. Chat. I'm right there with you.

It was fascinating to see this as an outside to looking on the inside and seeing that it wasn't all as I put in my written review at www.clubhouse.com. That's so well. We're having difficulty with the website today.

Because there's too much of a mouthful that driving right by that block. Yeah, you go right on a head. It's in now it's completely lost by train of thought.

We're talking about the storyline. How is kind of simple? It's just so that you're going to go with you.

That is not all about wine and roses. Great. It's there are many, many bumps and many, many pitfalls along the way that along with all the success comes all the trappings of fame.

Great. And that it's not a pretty picture. For me, be prepared that this story moves quickly.

That does. There's you don't get a lot of time to breathe. Which I think for a story like this is necessary.

Because there's a lot going on here. There's a lot of story to tell. And you're trying to do it without turning this thing into an epic or drama instead of a music.

Right. And of course, all of the music is music from Frankie Valley in the Four Seasons. There's nothing.

We don't venture away from anything. But the music they use helps tell the story. It's not just, oh yeah.

And then we did this song. Like the songs that they perform at the times they perform them help apply to the story that's being told. Which I thought was really, really well done.

Oh, currently I agree 100%. One thing I wanted is that I didn't know that dated what. Oh, what a night.

Really. Yeah, I did not. I heard it a million times, but I never really knew who did it.

Which is one of my love it. I love which is one of my wrong. It's favorite songs in the history of ever, much less favorite song of theirs.

Like they did that one. And it's been done a lot of times. I mean, I remember when it was a chart, it charted what late 80s early.

Yeah, late 80s. Right around when they got inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame, which is as far as the story tells. Yeah, they're inducted in 1990.

Yeah. And just everything in this works so well from you. Well, also what impressed me and chart will go back to you on this.

The transitions between scenes. We've seen a lot of productions in the last couple of years. I don't know that I've ever seen transitions as fluid as I have in this one outside of maybe dirty dancing.

That was, that I can see that. That's the bar that I think we said earlier. Or Phantom of the Opera.

But even with Phantom, there was some little moments where you were kind of like, okay, we're doing a transition. It was like everything was constantly moving here. Even the drummer.

Like the drummer was moving. Yeah. There's like two drummers.

Right. Yeah. Because you had sometimes where the music was being played off stage.

There's no pit orchestra in this. Everything is either played on stage or right off stage. It's just, it absolutely knocked me out.

How fluid this whole thing was. Because when you have a almost breakneck pace in the story like this, things can get clunky if you don't have everything in lockstep. And this production really did done.

I'm sorry. I mean, we'll go to you and then we'll go check. Yeah.

And we talked about the music and the singing now. We're talking about the transitions and how fluid. Oh, yeah, totally.

I guess I thought Phantom was one of the best though. But on this one, I love the lighting. I loved how, like you're saying the props went in and out fast.

They really really felt like you're going from scene to scene to scene on this. And the backdrops with the props, even though it was not a huge set like Phantom, it was still done perfectly. I thought.

Yeah. That's what I like whenever you can take, take some, so little and make so much out of it. Because it was, it was a relatively minimalist set design.

There wasn't a lot of clutter on stage. I mean, they, and they didn't really have to use up kind of like what we saw at Christmas Carol at the, at the Wally where they had to use every little inch of that real estate. They weren't really bound by that at the windspir.

So they were able to open things up a little bit more. And, you know, they can do walk-offs and walk-ons and it's more realistic. That we're, and it, it always kind of intrigued me how the majority of the times, whenever an actor was leaving a scene, they always take the spiral staircase upstairs and took the cat walk-off stage.

Or they went the other way, where they took the, there was a left and then the cat walk across to. Yeah, they didn't really do a lot of ground levels. Right.

There were a couple of stages, but not very much. But mostly like what you have saying, one of my favorites was how they, how they're able to use the back screen and do the at solubin. Yes.

We're, they run American bands, they were, you actually have the actual footage from the show, inner cut with actual camera shooting of the cast on stage. Yes, I, that's a great point out that was a great thing to really cool that back screen. How they did it.

Very good use of technology and lighting here. Yeah. Uh, it knew exactly what it had to be and it was that speaking of things that had to exactly be what they were.

Let's talk about this cast. Playing the four seasons, we talked about them earlier, Drew Seely, Aaron did Jesus or Jesus putting a who you are, Keith Hines, Matthew Daily. Now, Frankie Valley could be two different people depending on the, the showing you see.

You could also see Miguel Jacqueen, Moreland. I really hope I didn't kill that too badly. But there are two different guys playing Frankie Valley because I think that's such a physically demanding role.

And Miguel's kind of limited, though. I mean, he says on air, he's, but sort of say Matt Naze Sunday, Matt Naze Sunday evening. Right.

If you, if you want to understand how demanding this role is vocally and physically, you got to have two people play it. You know what I mean? I, I thought these guys all four rock solid all the way through chat.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Not a bad performer among them.

I got to say that the last shot of the first act, where they're actually facing the other way. Yeah. The audience is technically backstage.

That was an amazing shot. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. One of the rules killed it. One of them was one of the issues with the life of the stage lights.

One of the basic rules in, you know, plays and stuff is you try to never have your back to the audience. Right. And they flat out did it, but it works.

Well, they, they did it for a reason. Yeah. And I stand in it work.

Because that's one of the sins I remember from, you know, classes and high school and stuff like that. He's always trying to face the crowd regardless, but how they're just flat to the back, but that scene worked doing gorgeous. Yeah.

What else? And the acting, my shout out, believe it or not, is a guy who, who played Nick Massey, Keith Heinz. Right there with you.

Right there with you. That's really great. It's going to start a new band.

I guess it's a new group. I mean, he just when he goes, his comedy and style made that character. I, he made him love the character and he made him love the comedy that he added to it.

I thought he's my, which I put in my written view at the clubhouse podcast.com. That is our website. Thank you.

I put in there. He's my shout out role. But I'll tell you for me, and I don't know that I've ever been able to say this.

I don't have one. You don't have a shout out role? No, everybody in this production was so strong.

Well, I'm not doing play. I'm playing anybody. But that's what I say.

There's nobody that I can tell you, pull the head of the pack. You know, Frankie does what he does. He has to be the leader.

So there's an expectation there. That's an expectation. I was not an English major.

But there's this whole cast from top to bottom is so strong that I can't give you a stand out in my personal opinion. This was so great. So well done.

Like my eyes were glued the entire time. You know, I, I did look at my watch a couple of times for a completely different reason. That was not related to the production.

Yeah, I wonder what we were a little bit on a time schedule. Yes, you guys were. But I mean, everything worked out.

So, you know, no complaints. But this production was so amazing. What?

I want to add to the scene. I mean, Dave, he suits how he played Frankie. He crushed it.

And I put again in my review that. I put that it's kind of like, is it real? It's a memory.

It's kind of thing when we had about it. But this is recording because these guys sounded spot on. Yeah.

I was expecting Frankie Valley to come out with a microphone of picking from behind the curtain like, fool, Jeff. This got crushes it. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that's just him, but the whole band, but the whole band.

But that guy's voice is not an easy voice to mimic. Oh, no. And I will tell you this.

I have not seen the film directed by Clint Eastwood. Seeing the musical makes me, I've got it on my DVR. I've had it there forever.

I now and more motivated to watch the film at the scene, the musical. And that's hard to say because a lot of people are like, once you've seen the stage production, you really don't want to see the film version. I want to see the film version or do now.

Because I think the film version probably goes deeper into some topics that maybe the the musical doesn't have the time to go into. Very interested to see the film. And this may make the film a more of a disappointment after seeing that.

That's possible. I can't say that it's not possible. It's strong.

It's, I just, I can't say a good enough good things about this. Anything else we want to add before we get to the final analysis? Not at all.

This was really a remarkable process. Yeah, the last thing for you to find a lot. Again, we thank you so much for this whole year to Cindy and everybody at the pack or it couldn't be, it didn't be so packed and in the performance center.

There's so good. This whole year how they intrigued us incredibly. We have to thank them and happy holidays all those people there.

Thank you so much. The way we do the final analysis on this show. We don't give you thumbs up thumbs down.

We don't give you letter grades, numbers one to ten. We don't do anything like that. Our audience, who will be affectionate or virtually in the impair?

We think they deserve more than that. So it's going to be two questions. Question number one is would you see this production again?

If the answer is no, then we're done here. If the answer is yes, it's a little bit different than when we do movies because I want to know where you want to sit versus how far you're willing to go because it's kind of the same thing with kind of different. Don, would you see this again?

Oh, definitely. How far you're willing to go? I would do right in that section right from the soundboard like the center of the center.

Yeah, it's center of the floor and again, we're not complaining about where we're going to be at all. Yeah, we thought they'd see it. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, yeah, it's like that point clear.

But I'd say probably a couple of rows and why were we sent for any that one time? Okay, but three four rows before this. Yeah, same thing exact same thing.

I would see this again. I don't care if I'm sitting in the fourth balcony. To me, there's not a bad place to sit to see this particular person.

Oh, no. Get in the building anyway, you can. And with that performance area, that center there, the acoustics aren't credible.

I mean, no matter where you sit, you're going to get great music. You're going to hear it incredibly, no matter where you're at. Anything else for we do the plug gentleman?

Now that we're good. All right, then let's do the plugs. This is our website, the aforementioned www.theclubhousepodcast.com.

Find out everything you need to know in some stuff you don't. Please like our Facebook page. Look up the clubhouse podcast on Facebook with the word podcast on the end or it's something completely different.

Follow us on Twitter at clubhouse show. You can follow me on Twitter if you'd like. I am at yes, that Rob Urban that has spelled ERV.

I am at chat in PG69. I'm at fondong. Go and you can email me at Don at the clubhousepodcast.com.

Email Don for information on how we can come to a live show at your particular establishment. We love doing live remote shows. We do.

You can email me if you'd like questions, comments, concerns, tell me to go out and say and I am Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com. I am chat at theclubhousepodcast.com. Sure, the parker is on Pinterest because we are morally obligated to say that.

And I would venture to say jewels well. I'm a kind of great time with this as well. Yes, he did.

Our normal show every Sunday night, seven Eastern for Pacific is your one-stop shop for all things sports and entertainment. Or just keep subscribing on iTunes because you get everything. So until next time, for Don, for Chad, for the Empire, I'm Rob.

Clubhouse is closed. Brittany Palmer, you could really put her in the search light. It'd be awesome.

The preceding was a sooner or later production. Why? Because I have to.

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