‘Frankie Camp’ turns out ‘Jersey Boys’

Last September, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons performed in metro Atlanta. This week, they return —- sort of.

“Jersey Boys,” the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical about the Four Seasons, makes its local debut Wednesday at the Fox Theatre.

The show follows the lives and careers of Valli, Bob Gaudio, Nick Massi and Tommy DeVito. During the run, the touring production will see its 1,000th performance.

“That’s three years of touring,” Rick Elice, the co-writer of “Jersey Boys,” said by telephone from New York.

In the cast coming to Atlanta, Joseph Bwarie plays Valli, a role he’s performed for more than 18 months. It’s demanding, featuring 27 songs during a single show, including the chart-topping hits “Walk Like a Man” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”

There’s more than the singing, though, Elice notes.

“We have to have a guy who looks believably Italian, who’s about 5-foot-6, who has no break between his chest voice and his falsetto,” said Elice, who wrote the show with Marshall Brickman. “[This musical needs] somebody who’s willing to swim for two hours every day so he can breathe and have breath control to deliver this vocal performance.”

Aspiring actors also spend time at what Elice affectionately calls “Camp Castelluccio” (Castelluccio is Valli’s real last name).

“At this ‘Frankie Camp,’ we bring in kids who have possibilities. … I don’t think we could just bring someone in who could just play this part because it’s so demanding,” Elice said. “You have to train for it, like an athlete for an event.”

Bwarie said Frankie Camp is the same for any guy going in for the role, and it’s scheduled before the final audition. “Some people assume that it happens after you get the job, [that] you get whisked away to the woods and roast marshmallows with other Italian-looking guys,” he said.

“They give you the singing, acting and dancing technique and sort of the style of the era and of the real man himself.”

Re-creating the group

“When Marshall and I first met Bob and Frankie, I think the idea was not fully formed as to what type of show they were looking to do. ‘Mamma Mia’ had just opened and this whole ‘jukebox thing’ had gathered some steam and attention,” Elice said.

Doing a show like ‘Mamma Mia’ was a non-starter, Elice said. When he and Brickman met with Valli and Gaudio, they talked about the band’s beginnings, including when various members of the group would get in trouble.

“When they told us they were never really written about because they were these blue-collar, local guys without any glamour quotient, that was when we got very interested, and we suggested that this untold story should be the show,” Elice said.

“Jersey Boys” provides a new context for the songs. “[It’s about] what was happening to the guys who were making the music when they were making the music,” Elice said.

More than a revue

Elice said casting was complex because of the show’s extraordinary needs. It’s dancing, playing instruments and fitting together believably as a foursome.

“Our requirements are so specific,” Elice said. “They have to be able to act well enough to play this play. This isn’t just a revue. This is a play with a story.”

Josh Franklin, on the tour for five months, plays Gaudio, who wrote much of the Four Seasons’ music.

“I was in ‘Legally Blonde’ and it closed last fall,” Franklin said by telephone. “I went in for the first time ever for ‘Jersey Boys.’ It was just one of those shows that my schedule never lined up with the auditions.

“Most people go in five to 10 times for the show, but I pretty much did everything in one day and, by the end of the day, I did my thing for [director Des McAnuff]. I was in the room for a good half-hour doing all the material. And he said ‘OK, I think we’re done.’ It doesn’t happen often, but I was fortunate enough to get the job in one day.”

Childhood memories

McAnuff said he was a Seasons fan when he was young and, as an adult, was instantly smitten with the story.

“As unlikely as this may sound, it was my first album [‘Sherry & 11 Others’]. In those days, when I was just a little kid, I could only afford to buy the odd 45,” McAnuff said by phone.

He credits Gaudio for the director’s interest in composing and performing.

“I remember the liner notes on this album, ‘Sherry & 11 Others,’ vividly. It describes how Bob was the songwriter. That was the first time I was conscious of the fact that someone in a band would write and compose songs. That definitely had an impact on me,” he said.

“There wasn’t an awful lot happening in 1962 musically, in my opinion. It was a fairly bland era, between the death of Buddy Holly and the British Invasion. The Seasons were really a breath of fresh air.”

Theater preview

“Jersey Boys”

8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Wednesday -June 21. $22-$127. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. Call 404-817-8700 for tickets, visit the box office, Ticketmaster outlets or online at www.ticketmaster.com.