Chit chat - Show some respect

Published Tuesday 30 October 2007 at 12:35 by Tabard

It’s not always an easy job putting on a new musical. In fact, it can be downright impossible. There’s so much to sort out - marketing, pricing, cast, crew, keeping underworld bosses happy.

Yes, you did read that correctly. The writers of the latest Broadway musical to hit our shores - Jersey Boys - found that writing about real life characters (in this case The Four Seasons) can have its drawbacks. Especially when they are ‘connected’, if you know what Tabard means. Capisce?

Rick Elice tells of his experience with co-writer Marshall Brickman as the pair prepared to open their show in La Jolla in the USA.

“We got a call to go to a pay phone in a parking lot, and wait for the phone to ring, because a friend of one of the characters of the play - who was a real Mafia chieftain - wanted to make sure that he was not being disrespected,” he explains.

“We stood there, we waited for it to ring, we gathered around the phone, we looked at each other, these two nervous New York Jews thinking ‘Oh my God, all we wanted to do was write a show, we didn’t want to be killed!’”

Tabard thinks someone has been watching too many episodes of The Sopranos.