By Seth Rudetsky
06 Jul 2009

On Thursday I had the golden-throated Daniel Reichard from the original Jersey Boys and the upcoming Forever Plaid film. Actually, he wasn't so golden-throated after he played Keith Haring in Radiant Baby. The show was doing phenomenally at the Public Theater, and it got extended. The cast had heard that David Geffen was going to give five million dollars to transfer it to Broadway. Then the New York Times review came out, which was b-a-d. The transfer ended before it began and they were told the show was going to close before the extension! Daniel got depressed, didn't take care of himself and bruised a vocal chord. He was doing The Thing About Men at night and on total vocal rest during the day. He carried a pad around and wrote things instead of speaking. The hard part was being in New York City and not being able to speak because, even though it's a big city, he was constantly running into his friends. He would be on the subway platform, see someone he knew, and literally hide behind a pole so he wouldn't have to deal with writing a conversation with them. And in stores, people reacted like he had many things wrong with him, not just "no voice." He'd walk up to the counter, write down that he lost his voice and that he'd like a medium coffee and the people behind the counter would gesture wildly and yell, "DO YOU WANT IT TO GO?" He got his voice back and was desperately coveting the role of Jean-Michel in the revival of La Cage aux Folles. He thought that playing that kind of male ingénue would be amazing for his career. He had a job offer waiting for him, but it was all the way on the West Coast, and he was hoping he could turn it down to do La Cage. Well, he had a final callback but didn't get Jean-Michel (Gavin Creel did) and Daniel was forced to go to California. Turns out the show he wasn't looking forward to doing was…Jersey Boys! No one knew that it was going to be such a hit because the last two "jukebox musicals" (All Shook Up and Good Vibrations) had closed quickly. The irony, of course, is that the role he didn't want wound up changing his life. It reminds me of when I auditioned for Spamalot ...without the ironic, happy ending. My version is: I auditioned, didn't get it and the show was big hit.

Recently Daniel played Frankie in the Forever Plaid film. The three other parts were played by original cast members — the same members who were fresh-faced and in the bloom of youth in 1991. You do the math. As a matter of fact, Daniel said that the crazy age discrepancy was a running joke in rehearsal. If you don't know, Forever Plaid is a fantastic musical about a close harmony group that's killed by a busload of Catholic school girls who are on their way to see The Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show." All four guys come back to life to give the final concert they never gave. Larry Raben's first line as Sparky is "Hi. We're Forever Plaid, and we're dead." During rehearsals, though, he would say, "We're Forever Plaid… and we're old." Although, I guess the original line is ruder when you think about it. PS, I heard a cut of one of the songs, and they sound great together. There's going to be a special nationwide showing of Forever Plaid on July 9 in theatres around the country; go to www.ForeverPlaid.com. Of course, if you're my age, you probably don't understand how the internet works, so have one of your grandkids do it for you. And cut!

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