The Temptations. Motown The Musical First National Tour. (c) Joan Marcus, 2014
There is great music, a great story, great musicians, good-looking girls, good-looking guys and flashy costumes. It’s got something for everybody.
COMING UP FROM BROADWAY:
MOTOWN THE MUSICAL
— ACTOR MATTHEW DAILEY (TOMMY DEVITO) Colorado’s Jersey Boys are where they are today, they believe, because of strong family and educational support growing up in Denver. Dailey’s mother is award-winning local Music Director Mary Dailey. Matthew has dedicated his Jersey Boys performance to his late father, Phil Gottlieb, who died in 2009. Dailey’s training began at age eight at an afterschool theatre school run by Paul Dwyer and Alann Estes Worley, whose wee students also included future TV star Melissa Benoist (“Supergirl”), Tonywinning actor Annaleigh Ashford (Kinky Boots) and Broadway actor Jesse JP Johnson (Wicked). Russell’s theatrical mentor is Gavin Mayer, his director at both Pomona High School (Footloose) and, later, at the Arvada Center (Legally Blonde). “I was this very shy, awkward kid in high school, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” Russell said of his freshman-year alter ego. “Gavin was the person who inspired me to join theatre. He cast me in my first production of anything, and later he cast me in my first professional production, at the Arvada Center.” Those who come to see these local actors fulfill their childhood dreams in Jersey Boys will be treated, Dailey says, to a night like no other. “There is great music, a great story, great musicians, good-looking girls, good-looking guys and flashy costumes. It’s got something for everybody.” Including plenty of Denver Boys who don’t normally go to the theatre. “The theatre stereotype is that women have to drag their husbands and boyfriends to the theatre,” Dailey said. “For this show, it’s the other way around. This is the show that boyfriends and husbands drag their girlfriends and wives to. It’s like a Hollywood blockbuster — only it’s live.”
JERSEY BOYS
NOV 9 – 13 • BUELL THEATRE ASL interpreted, Audio-described & Open Captioned performance: Nov 12, 2pm
Kristen Paulicelli and Aaron De Jesus. Photo Jeremy Daniel.
(l to r) Cory Jeacoma, Matthew Dailey, Aaron De Jesus and Keith Hines. Photo Jeremy Daniel.
Musical. It will end as the 12th-longest-running show in Broadway history. Not bad for a band that rose up from the gutter all the way to the street corner. “Our scrappiness comes from living in the street,” Gaudio said. “We came from the kind of areas most people strive to get out of, so that you can make something of yourself.” DeVito, played by Dailey, was the initial driving force behind the group until gambling debts put him on the outs with the mob. He was known for stealing milk off people’s porches as a kid. But he did it according to his own set of ethics, Dailey said. “First, he never stole from his own neighborhood, because those were his people. And he would never steal from a house that only had one jug of milk. If a house had two, he took one. If it had three, he took two. But he always left them with something.”
On January 12, 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. obtained a loan of $800 from his family and founded an enterprise he called Motown. He set up his Detroit headquarters in a modest house emblazoned with an immodest sign, “Hitsville U.S.A.” The slogan was premature, but prophetic. The company had its first hit record in 1960, and between 1961 and 1971 landed 163 singles in Billboard magazine’s top 20, including 28 songs that reached No. 1. Gordy discovered, developed and launched the careers of Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Diana Ross and The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye — to name just a few — and Motown became the most successful business owned and operated by an African American in the United States. What Gordy accomplished had ramifications far beyond the world of music. Now his legacy is celebrated in Motown The Musical. “Berry Gordy is the Steve Jobs of the music field,” says Doug Morris, CEO of Sony Music Entertainment and co-producer of the show. “He’s the No. 1 creative executive in the history of the industry, an amazing American success story who changed the culture of the country.” Relive the multi-cultured vibration that changed the world when Motown The Musical returns to Denver February 15-19.