VIDEO: JERSEY BOYS Celebrates 1000 Performances in New York City
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The Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award winning musical Jersey Boys celebrates its 1000th performance at New York City’s New World Stages today, Sunday, January 9, 2022.
To mark the milestone, cast members from the New York, London and US Tour productions of Jersey Boys sent their congratulations. Check out the video below!
Jersey Boys stars Jonathan Cable as Nick Massi, Aaron De Jesus as Frankie Valli, CJ Pawlikowski as Bob Gaudio and John Rochette as Tommy DeVito. The production also includes Dianna Marie Barger, Ben Bogan, Candi Boyd, Tristen Buettel, Wade Dooley, Alex Dorf, Andrew Frace, Natalie Gallo, John Gardiner, Wes Hart, Joey LaVarco, Austin Owen, Michelle Rombola, Paul Sabala and Kit Treece.
Jersey Boys is written by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crewe, directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Des McAnuff and choreographed by Tony Award-winner Sergio Trujillo. The production includes Music Supervision, Vocal/Dance Arrangements & Incidental Music by Ron Melrose and Orchestrations by Steve Orich.
Jersey Boys is the behind-the-music story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. They were just four guys from Jersey, until they sang their very first note. They had a sound nobody had ever heard… and the radio just couldn’t get enough of. But while their harmonies were perfect on stage, off stage it was a very different story – a story that has made them an international sensation all over again. 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.”
Jersey Boys opened in New York on November 6, 2005 and by the time it closed there on January 15, 2017, it was the 12th longest running show in Broadway history, passing such original Broadway productions as 42nd Street, Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Producers. Blessed by awards all over the world, Jersey Boys has been seen by over 27 million people.
The design and production team includes Klara Zieglerova (Scenic Design), Jess Goldstein (Costume Design), Howell Binkley (Lighting Design), Steve Canyon Kennedy (Sound Design), Michael Clark (Projection Design), Charles LaPointe (Wig & Hair Design), Steve Rankin (Fight Director), Richard Hester (Production Supervisor), John Miller (Music Coordinator), Tara Rubin Casting / Merri Sugarman, C.S.A.
Jersey Boys is produced at New World Stages by Dodger Theatricals, Joseph J. Grano, Kevin Kinsella, Pelican Group, Latitude Link, Tommy Mottola.
Tickets are on sale at the New World Stages box office or by visiting Telecharge.com. Group sales (ten or more) are available through Dodger Group Sales at 877-536-3437.
A limited number of $30 tickets will be sold via a digital lottery powered by Shubert Ticketing through the Telecharge Digital Lottery platform, which provides theatergoers wide access to affordable tickets through multiple social media networks. Available performances will be posted ona??https://jerseyboysnewyork.com/lotterya??as early as 12:00 AM Eastern Time two days before the performance and close at 3:00 PM two days before the performance.
Up, up and away… Lottery Festival of Ballooning takes flight in summer 2022
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For the second year in a row, the New Jersey Lottery is returning as the title sponsor of the 39th annual New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning — the largest summertime hot air balloon and music festival in North America.
Gigantic, colorful balloons will fill the skies July 29-31 as the three-day festival returns to Solberg Airport in Readington. Besides balloons, there will be concerts, family entertainment, and attractions, fireworks, and food.
In 2021, a record 175,000 people attended the festival after it was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The New Jersey Lottery brought a great new fan experience to the Festival and was a huge win for all with lots of fun and excitement, and we’re thrilled to continue our long partnership and launch another great event this summer,” Festival Executive Producer Howard Freeman said.
While the 2022 concert lineup at the festival has not yet been announced, in 2021, Barenaked Ladies, Styx, Max Weinberg’s Jukebox, and Laure Berkner were the headlining acts.
Over the years, The Beach Boys Jonas Brothers, Meat Loaf, Joan Jett, Peter Frampton, Demi Lovato, Third Eye Blind, and Hall & Oates have all performed on the Main Stage.
The New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning has been named the premiere family entertainment attraction in New Jersey by the USA TODAY Network and the top festival in the state and one of the Top 50 festivals in America by MSN Lifestyle.
To learn more about this year’s upcoming festival or to purchase tickets, visit www.balloonfestival.com.
17 Broadway Shows We Can’t Wait to See in Spring 2022
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Bruce Glikas/Getty Images
Broadway was one of the hardest-hit industries during the pandemic, and despite more than a few roadblocks, the fall 2021 season proved surprisingly triumphant. It represented both a return to form and a peek into what American theater could look like in the future, complete with a record-breaking number of shows by Black playwrights.
As 2022 begins, new problems have arisen: The omicron variant has closed some shows temporarily and others permanently, but cast and crew members are rolling with the punches, as understudies have gamely stepped into the spotlight to ensure that the show will go on. The next few months will bring a thrilling spring season that includes plays by Broadway favorites (David Mamet, Thornton Wilder, Neil Simon), one-of-a-kind theatrical experiences (like The Little Prince) and a full roster of A-list performers, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Billy Crystal, Daniel Craig and Debra Messing. Here’s your guide to all the plays and musicals beginning performances in the next few months. And remember, before you book a ticket: All theaters in NYC are requiring proof of vaccinations.
ON STAGE NOW
Check out our fall season guide to learn about other new shows, including The Music Man, starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.
‘We will weather this storm’: Omicron wreaks havoc on Broadway
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At the curtain call, Hugh Jackman put his arm around Kathy Voytko, an understudy suddenly thrust into the role of leading lady Marian Paroo in The Music Man.
“Kathy, when she turned up to work at 12 o’clock, could have played any of eight roles,” Jackman, who plays Harold Hill in the musical, told the cheering audience. “it happened to be the leading lady. She found out at 12 noon today and, at 1 o’clock, she had her very first rehearsal as Marian Paroo.”
Voytko had stepped up on 23 December because Sutton Foster tested positive for the coronavirus. But then, on 28 December, Jackman himself announced that he had Covid-19 with mild symptoms and could not go on stage.
Regarded as Broadway’s hottest ticket with a top price of $699 a seat, The Music Man is also a barometer of the uncertainty that prevails in the era of the Omicron variant, more contagious but apparently less deadly than previous waves. New York theatre is not closed, its leaders are at pains to point out, but it is not wholly open either, and cast lists on any given night can be something of a lottery.
Last month, shows including Aladdin, Freestyle Love Supreme, Hamilton, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Lion King and Tina were forced to cancel performances. The musicals Ain’t Too Proud, Diana, Jagged Little Pill, Trevor and Waitress, and the play Thoughts of a Colored Man, decided to shut down earlier than planned because of infections and weak ticket sales.
The fresh surge is cruel timing for Broadway, which reopened with fanfare – and vaccine mandates for cast, crew and audiences – in September after a record 18-month closure because of the pandemic. For a while it seemed the triumph-over-adversity, show-must-go-on spirit was unstoppable. Then Omicron came like a kick in the teeth.
Gabriel Stelian-Shanks, artistic director of the Drama League, the only creative home in America for stage directors, recalls: “We weren’t really sure what was going to happen but things were looking good. Audiences were returning. Shows were reopening. We had found a way to do it safely. And as that got into September and October, we realised we were having theatre that was not a superspreader event.
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster in The Music Man. Photograph: Joan Marcus
“We were feeling very good about it and then, at Thanksgiving, we all learned the word Omicron and the speed and rapidity with which we had to learn how this is different. It almost feels to me like a different epidemic in terms of its incredible ability to be contagious. Omicron is so new that the question for us is: how do we manage a surge?”
New York state recorded more than 85,000 new coronavirus cases on the last day of 2021, its highest single-day total since the pandemic began. The Omicron variant has the potential to rip through a cast, orchestra and crew of 200 people.
Stelian-Shanks says: “Omicron is a numbers game in many ways about infection and the number of people who have to be in close quarters versus those who don’t. We’re seeing some of those shows simply fall to a probability no one expected. We’re not seeing deaths, we’re not seeing severe hospitalisations, but we are seeing enough infection where we can’t continue with certain performances.”
But most shows remain open and at least some of those that do not were struggling and likely to run out of steam even before Omicron. The mood is very different from the dawn of the pandemic in March 2020, when Broadway felt like a ghost town, its playhouses dark and restaurants empty.
Stelian-Shanks adds: “I’m deeply pessimistic about January but if we look a little further down the road to spring and summer, the picture is a lot rosier. That is, of course, assuming that the medical experts are right and that Omicron’s going to burn very fast through the population.
“If we’re still dealing with Omicron in May then who knows? But I can’t find anyone who isn’t telling me that we’re in a radically different picture with Omicron by the end of February.”
Aware of these predictions, some producers have responded by temporarily closing shows in January and February, typically the leanest months to bring in audiences, with a view to reopening in March.
Mrs Doubtfire, a new musical comedy at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, will take “a hiatus” from 10 January to 14 March. Kevin McCollum, its producer, estimates the cost of the hibernation will be around $500,000, whereas trying to keep the show running through the same period would mean a loss of at least $3.5m.
Broadway’s Mrs. Doubtfire, shut down due to a Covid-19 outbreak in December Photograph: MediaPunch/Rex/Shutterstock
“I had to close and then reopen,” McCollum explains. “The good news is we have a very tight group of people who have been working on the show for three years and everybody knows how good it is. I am taking also the calculated risk that we’ll have our company back ready to go in March and of course people need jobs. This is the best thing I can do to create long-term employment.
“I think I used the metaphor of trying to plant a sapling in a hurricane. You have to get out of the way of this tsunami of Omicron and come back and replant when everybody is ready to go out again. And that’s what I’m doing for Mrs Doubtfire.”
Big musicals need full houses to turn a profit but the pandemic has smashed international tourism as well as domestic consumer confidence, with many people wary of buying an expensive ticket that they might need to cancel at the last minute.
Mrs Doubtfire was making $175,000 a day in ticket sales after opening but, once the wave of Omicron-related closures took hold, that dropped to $50,000. The cost of daily Covid-19 testing at the theatre for a full company and staff of 115 people went from $18,000 a week before Omicron to almost $60,000 a week after.
And the cancellation last month of 11 performances of the show, based on the 1993 film starring Robin Williams, due to coronavirus infections among cast and crew turned an expected $1.5m earning into a $1.5m loss.
McCollum, whose previous credits include Rent and Avenue Q, muses: “We are an industry that is used to being at constant risk and those of us who toil in the theatre have maybe a chip missing: we are resilient against all odds. So it’s painful but that’s no reason not to get up and try again.
“The cliche is there is no people like show people and in times of true disappointment we are there for each other. Even though we are colleagues, collaborators, competitors ultimately, we want to know that tomorrow, if we put our our life’s blood into it, could be a better day.”
McCollum, also producing the musical Six on Broadway and The Play that Goes Wrong off-Broadway, adds: “The key is to recognise yes, in many ways it’s unfair but that’s no reason to become a victim. You have to pivot and get up and figure it out tomorrow. I think that’s what people love about Broadway and it takes a certain amount of grit and indomitable spirit. Those are two very powerful ingredients.”
Lynn Nottage in November 2021. Photograph: MJ Photos/Rex/Shutterstock
Playwright Lynn Nottage currently has two projects on Broadway. Clyde’s, a comedy at the Helen Hayes Theater on Tuesday, has survived Omicron relatively unscathed apart from thinned-out audiences. But MJ: The Musical, which features the music of Michael Jackson, was forced to cancel several performances last month due to multiple coronavirus cases within the company.
Nottage believes that the media is accentuating the negative but prefers to see the glass as half-full. She tweeted last month: “There’s so much emphasis on what’s closed on Broadway, let’s show some luv to the shows that r still OPEN. PLAYS r out here beating back the virus & the odds.”
She adds in a phone interview: “Pre-Christmas and during the fall, it really felt like Broadway was coming back. The restaurants were crowded, the streets were crowded. You felt a lot of energy in the air and some of that hasn’t left. There’s still people very much here eager to get back to business as usual but you can feel the hesitation.
“But that said, we were in the theatre on Sunday for MJ and we were almost completely full and audiences that came were ready and were enthusiastic and happy and wanted to be engaged. There are people who are really desperate to get back to theatre.”
Nottage, a double Pulitzer Prize winner, concludes: “I’m an optimist by nature so I do believe that when this thing crests, people will come back. We’re going through an unprecedented, difficult moment but the fact is – and I can say this about the two shows I’m involved in – we will weather this storm.”
Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre opens 2022 season with ‘Meshuggah-Nuns: The Ecumenical Nunsense Musical’
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