Published Wednesday, February 8, 2012, 4:55 PM
Tomorrow night, Thursday, February 9, at 8 PM, Jarrod Spector – the star for approximately four years (and counting) of Jersey Boys on Broadway – will make his Philadelphia concert debut.
Spector, a native of Meadowbrook (Montgomery County) and a graduate of Germantown Academy, plays the role of Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys, which won the 2008 Tony Award for “Best Musical.”
Spector’s concert debut, called “Minor Fall, Major Lift,” is presented at and by Loews Philadelphia Hotel (12th and Market Streets in Center City Philadelphia) as part of its Live from Loews monthly concert series. (There is no cover and no minimum.)
The concert features songs and stories about him growing up in the Philadelphia area, as well as about his tumultuous relationship with music. In “Minor Fall, Major Lift,” Spector covers everything from The Jackson 5 to Led Zeppelin. This concert is directed by Eric Michael Gillett with music direction by Adam Ben-David.
As a child, Spector was on Al Alberts Showcase by the age of 3 and, later on, had a stint on Star Search. After debuting on Broadway as Gavroche in Les Misérables, he took an academic detour at Princeton University before rededicating himself to a career as a performer. After opening the Chicago company of Jersey Boys as Frankie Valli, Spector was tapped to play the singer on Broadway in 2008.
Asked by Jewish Culture Examiner about the songs he will be performing, Spector responded that it will be “a pretty wide selection.”
He continues: “The material is mostly songs I grew up singing or listening to. I grew up with my parents drilling Bobby Darin and Barry Manilow and a lot of soul and Motown into my head, so there’s some of that, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder. And I am going after the Frankie Valli/Four Seasons contemporaries like Paul Anka, Buddy Holly, Neil Sedaka. And definitely stuff from the 80s, since I’m very much an 80s child. It’s a good, broad selection of songs from the late 1950s until very recently.”
As for material from Jersey Boys, he says “I wish that I could, but the truth is you can’t perform Jersey Boys material while you’re still a cast member.”
However, Spector adds that he “will be singing the show I auditioned for Jersey Boys with” and that the show will include some Frankie Valli-like falsetto.
Asked about the difficulty of singing in falsetto, Spector says: “Yes, of course it’s my real voice, but it’s not the way I sing when I wake up in the morning. I can always hit the notes, so getting the role wasn’t the issue. Once I had the role, training to be able to sing it night after night after night was what was really difficult. So I went to a teacher that Jersey Boys works with and learned how to sing properly up there, so that I could sing 27 songs a night, 6 shows a week. That was really the tough part.”
As for future plans, according to Spector: “I’m signed with the show until the fall. I’m not completely sure what my plans after that are. I’ve been doing Jersey Boys [including in Chicago] for 5 1/2 years, about 1,300 shows. It’s a lot. I’m not totally sure what would happen. For right now, I’m happy to have this job, and to be in the Jersey Boys machine. It’s a great show. It’s an amazing role. And I’m not in a rush to leave.”
Asked about whether such a long run in one show inevitably gets old, Spector responds: “There are ups and downs to being in a long run. I’ve sung ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,’ for example, in 1300 shows, not to mention rehearsals. But there are nuances, things that are slightly different. We try to play with each other and keep it as fresh as possible. Of the 1200 people in the audience each night, there are probably 980 or so seeing it for the first time.”
He continues: “I would certainly love to create a new role and be a part of a new production. But I do concerts and workshops and readings for new musicals. … So being in this role for so long is very much a matter of ‘golden handcuffs.’ Anyone who’s been in a long run will tell you something similar.”
Besides musical performances, Live from Loews also showcases art, dance, culinary, fashion and sporting events.
To learn more about Life from Loews and to stay in the loop of ongoing performances, one can press “like” at https://www.facebook.com/livefromloews.
For more information about the Jarrod Spector performance, please call (215) 627-1200.
Comments