My 1st Aussie Open Experience

My 1st Aussie Open Experience
- Tuesday, January 15, 2013

The beautiful summer sun shone brightly as I walked through Melbourne’s CBD – central business district, or ‘downtown’ for us Canadians – and made my way to Melbourne Park for my first experience at the Australian Open, or any professional tennis tournament for that matter. I had no trouble finding it, as I had previously jogged by the facilities earlier in the week. I knew I was in for a good night when I rounded the bend and turned onto none other than Batman Avenue. I knew the Aussie Open was a Grand Slam, but had no idea it was going to be a SUPER AWESOME Grand Slam!

The tennis centre is called Melbourne Park, and it is massive – it holds 28 courts, plus two arenas – Rod Laver and Hisense Arenas, which hold 14,820 and 10,500 spectators respectively. Tickets are available as day or night passes to the grounds, and at $39 is a great value, as it allows you to wander around and sit in on any of the matches on the outside courts. If I had my act together earlier in the day I would have caught Canadian Milos Raonic win his 1st round match in four sets. I’ll have to come back later in the week to see him play – a potential 4th round match against Roger Federer already has me salivating.

My ticket was for a reserved seat at the Day 2 Prime-time matches at Rod Laver Arena, and allowed me full access to the grounds from 5pm until closing time. I arrived early to make sure I could wander around the outer courts, have a snack and soak up the sun-filled atmosphere before heading into the open-air arena at 7pm.

Even though the $75 ticket price initially seemed steep, it’s actually a decent value when you consider that as the tournament moves on, this particular ticket price-point rises by about $20 each round, and then jumps to an unbelievable $400 for the Men’s Final.

 My first thought inside Rod Laver Arena was Wow – this place is massive for a tennis arena. It is almost the size of Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, and has many similar features. My second thought was Wow – the tennis court appears so small, much tinier than it appears on TV. And, also just like at the ACC, the fans don’t quite make it inside on time, continuing to trickle in during the 1st few games of the match - or, the near the end of the 1st set if you happen to sit in the Corporate seats. Funny, isn’t it - Sports is sports, wherever you go.

The first match I was treated to featured Australia’s next great hope Bernard Tomic (Lleyton Hewitt had already lost his 1st round match and is inching slowly toward retirement). Tomic, a 20-year old Aussie hotshot was facing the infamous Leonardo Mayer of Argentina. Tomic is your typical meathead Tennis prodigy. He’s known for having run-ins with the police driving his Ferrari, for having multiple model girlfriends, for having difficult relationships with his friends, his father, and indeed Australian Tennis and its head honcho, Pat Rafter.

His opponent Mayer is similarly hilarious – surely he must be the life of the party, because he rocked up to this match with his right hand and wrist heavily taped up, as if entering the ring for a prize-fight. Turns out he partied a little too hard on New Year’s Eve and lit a Firework on fire while still holding onto it. Um, yeah. That gag never gets old. Many questioned why he’d even bother to play with a hand injury, until they realized that he gets $27,000 simply for showing up to his 1st round match. You gotta love tennis, huh?

Not surprisingly, the match was no contest. Tomic displayed loads of talent, effortlessly hammering 200km/h serves down the T, smashing crisp one-handed backhands, varying his pace and spin, and occasionally slapping rather awkward flat-footed groundstrokes that he is quickly becoming known for. Tomic easily handled Mayer and his burned right hand 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 in a measly 91 minutes, looking very impressive doing it. If he gets past his 2nd round opponent, Tomic will likely have the pleasure of facing Roger Federer in the 3rd Round.

During the breaks in the match, there was another battle going on, only this time in the crowd. I’m told that it’s an Aussie tradition, where groups of 10-20 men called “cheer leaders” show up with songs prepared, chants rehearsed, and sometimes props, all in the hopes of getting a laugh out of the crowd and of course, encouraging their favorite in the match on to victory. Although I found their enthusiasm and gags humourous at first, they became progressively more annoying as the night went on. One of the group’s signs displayed their twitter handle, but I won’t bother passing it on to you all here.

Dusk was fast approaching, and as you can see from the picture above the summer sky here in Melbourne is pretty frickin’ amazing. Back inside Rod Laver Arena, (All) the singles ladies match (see what I did there?) was about to begin, featuring Belgium’s 20th-seaded Yanina Wickmayer squaring off against local hard-luck story Jarmila Gajdosova, she of the 0-7 record in her Australian Open career. Think about that for a second. She’s a home-town girl, and at one point was ranked as high as 25th in the world, but yet she has never won a match in seven years of Aussie Opens. That’s got to weigh on you, don’t you think? Yeah, I really do think.

And to the surprise of no one, as if encouraging history to repeat itself, she suffered through the 1st set, spraying unforced error after unforced error before going down 6-1 in a brisk 26 minutes. Wickmayer barely broke a sweat in the 1st set, looking like a filly galloping around the track on a warm-up run. In fact, her strikingly fit 6’1” frame, decked out in black and hot pink with a severe blond pony-tail reminded me more of my kids’ My Little Pony dolls. (Apologies for the reference; my two little girls are fans…) See for yourself below:

The second set was a different story, as the Aussie leapt out to a 4-1 lead on the strength of several backhand winners down the line and a strong serve that forced Wickmayer into a few errors. Gajdosova looked poised to make this a three-setter, when all of a sudden the wheels came off and that oft-heard choking sound became evident to the members of the home crowd. Several double-faults and unforced errors allowed Wickmayer to sail through the remainder of the 2nd set, winning six of the last seven games to take the match 6-1, 7-5.

One wonders whether 0-and-8 is enough for Gajdosova, or if she’ll gut it out again next year in hopes of breaking the streak. She’s like that frustrating 1st-round draft pick with all the tools and so much potential, but who seems to lack the consistency or that certain something to put it all together.

All in all, it was a very pleasant night, and a very easy-going venture into my Grand Slam Tennis-observing career. I look forward to my next journey down to beautiful Melbourne Park. I think Raonic is playing tomorrow afternoon, I may just rock up and check it out.

Exclusive Jersey Boys Blog Interview

Hey Folks,

As I approach my last few days here in Sydney, here's my 2-part interview with the fine folks at Jersey Boys Blog.

Part 1:
http://jerseyboysblog.com/jbb-exclusive-interview-with-jeff-madden-from-toronto-to-down-under-as-a-jersey-boy-part-one/5285

Part 2:
http://jerseyboysblog.com/jbb-exclusive-interview-with-jeff-madden-from-toronto-to-down-under-as-a-jersey-boy-part-two/5288

Enjoy!

Interview with "The Way I See It"!

Hey Everybody,

I just completed a fun interview with Canadian Theatre Blogger extraordinaire Amanda Campbell all about what's been going on in my world for the last few months. It's quite thorough, and I'm sure you'll find it interesting.

Check it out at
http://www.twisitheatreblog.com/2011/04/jeff-madden-on-jersey-boys-down-under.html

Let me know what you think!

Jeff

G'Day, Everyone!

Many of you have been wondering how it’s going, and why I haven’t reported back on how the show has been going. Well, there’s a really good reason: I haven’t started performing yet.

Well, what the heck have I been up to, you wonder? The short answer is, I go to work six days a week, at the one-hour call before every show, and when I'm not rehearsing, I'm watching the show. The longer answer, well, that needs a little more explaining.

Most of you have seen the show, some of you many, many times. You may recall that in every company of Jersey Boys, there are four actors that could play Frankie at any given show. Usually it breaks down like this: the main ‘Frankie’ does six performances a week (which was my job with the Toronto company), the alternate ‘Frankie’ does two shows a week (usually the matinees on the 2-show days), a ‘Swing’ who covers a few different parts including Frankie, but most days does not appear onstage, and the ‘Joe Pesci’ who is a ‘Frankie’ understudy. Here in Sydney, both the Swing and the 2-show ‘Frankie’ were leaving the show at almost the same time, leaving the company at risk should one of the two other ‘Frankies’ get sick or injured. So, JB Sydney decided they needed to fill those two slots ASAP until they could find permanent (hopefully Australian) replacements.

As you might imagine, it’s fairly difficult to find someone to play ‘Frankie’ – with the casting restrictions on age, height and appearance on top of the acting and dance abilities and the crazy high voice. So, the producers did a couple things – they hired the ‘Joe Pesci’ who played the part in Melbourne but had since left the show, a young guy named Bernard Angel to rejoin the company and fill the 2-show ‘Frankie’ role until the end of February. Then they asked me and Graham Fenton, a great actor who previously played ‘Joe Pesci’ and ‘Frankie’ in Las Vegas, the US National Tour and Broadway to come join in on the fun Down Under. I’ll be doing the 2-show-a-week role, and Graham will be the ‘Swing’ for about three months. Then we come back home.

So, since I have played Frankie about 500 times in Toronto and Graham has been in Jersey Boys for about 2.5 years, you’d think they’d just throw us in there, right? As you know, the show is very slick and probably seems quite effortless to the audience, but when you really break it down, it has about a million different details that need to be accomplished perfectly to make it seem effortless. So, if I may get back to the opening questions, that’s what I’ve been doing all this time … remembering the million little details. Getting them back into my body. And somewhat surprisingly, learning about a hundred little differences between the way we did things in Toronto and the way they do things here.

What’s different, you ask? I can’t believe I actually have to answer this question, but, No, they don’t speak with Aussie accents – although that would be pretty fricking hilarious. But they are different people, and different people do and say things their own way. Also, there are four or five scenes that have lines cut here, some of which happen really quickly, so I’ve spent a good deal of time memorizing those changes. Basically, the biggest chunk of my job so far has been simply watching the show to learn how exactly they do things. Sometimes I’ll watch the show from the audience but I pick up most of the nuances from the wings. The more I see it, the more I love this show – and believe me, I totally get why some of you keep coming back time after time to see it.

Another thing that’s slightly different is the depth of the stage. The stage here is about a foot or two shorter than in Toronto. This may not seem like a big deal at first, but when you do a knee-slide down to the edge of the stage, and you miss by a foot or two, you could end up in the 2nd row, so, it is a big deal. Likewise when you’re dancing around the trap door in the dark, a foot or two could leave you with a broken leg or a concussion, so, it’s a big deal. There are also tonnes of little differences in the choreography – from the height I snap my fingers, to how often I pop my knees, to the way I wrap my arms around my body when doing the “Walk Like A Man” marches. So, literally in every scene there’s something I have had to adapt in my footwork, while still trying to look cool.

Musically, there are many slight differences, too. In JB Sydney, they do all Beach Boys songs. Ok, that’s not true. They do the same songs, they just do them in French. Ok – really, here’s the thing. In each company, the main ‘Frankie’ learns the songs and has a little bit of freedom to stylize them. Maybe he’ll do a little lick here, maybe a growl there, maybe a little back phrasing thrown in. Subtle, subtle stuff, because it still has to sound as much like the real Frankie Valli as possible. The reason I mention this is because the sound design of the show requires a fair bit of “doubling”, i.e. places in the score where other actors – onstage or off, male and female – sing along with ‘Frankie’ and the other Seasons. This gives the audience the incredible sensation of hearing the songs sound “multi-tracked”, the way they were recorded by the Four Seasons. So here in Sydney, whatever subtleties Bobby Fox, the sensational main ‘Frankie Valli’ does, the doublers also have to do. And since the doublers are on every single show, the 2-show-a-week ‘Frankie’ has to learn the same subtleties in order to sound in sync with everyone else. So, as you might imagine, these changes have taken up a fair bit of my rehearsal time.

Another thing to realize is there is just not that much time to rehearse when a show is running a full schedule of eight-show weeks. Without getting into overtime, there can only be two four-hour rehearsals onstage per week, and for the most part I’ve been rehearsing with the understudies and swings. In our first week, we were still pretty jet-lagged, so that slowed things down a bit. Then, our 2nd week here there were no rehearsals at all, with the day-off for Australia Day falling in the middle of the week meaning an extra 2-show day. And then, our creative team started flying all over Australia and New Zealand on an audition tour, making rehearsal hours even tighter.

But, it’s almost all over now. This afternoon we did an Automation Tech-Run which went great. Tomorrow afternoon we do a full Tech-Run of the show, which will be my first rehearsal with the other “3 Seasons” Quinny (‘Tommy’), Stephen (‘Bob’) and Glaston (‘Nick’). But, more tellingly, it will be my first run of the show with microphones, with the band, with the lights and with my costumes in over five months. I can’t wait. Then, my first two shows are this Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening. It’s gonna be awesome!!!

Wish me Chookas!

G'Day Mate!

Hello from sunny Sydney Australia!

My epic 27-hour journey is over, I'm totally unpacked, and I'm reasonably over the jet-lag (he says optimisticly). In other words, I'm ready to rock and roll. Which is good timing, since my first rehearsal for JERSEY BOYS, SYDNEY starts tomorrow morning. Which for you back home is sometime yesterday afternoon ... -ish. I think. But don't quote me.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Dodger Theatricals in New York and at Newtheatricals in Sydney who had a hand in giving me this opportunity. I am very blessed. Thank you all, very much.

As you can probably already tell, I'm super excited to be here. The city is so vibrant, the weather is amazing (sorry to you folks back home buried in the snow), and the locals are very welcoming. In fact, last night I had the chance to meet many members of the JB company at a roof-top bar just a few minutes walk away from the Sydney Harbour. Everyone was incredibly warm and welcoming to myself and to another new cast member joining the company here, Graham Fenton. They treated us like gold, and showed us that Aussie spirit.

A lot of you have wished me good luck and safe travels on Facebook and through email and I can't thank you enough for your kind sentiments. I think many of you are sending these wishes in light of the disasterous floods which have claimed the lives of nearly 20 people with more people still missing. However, I do want to point out to folks back home that these floods are happening at least 1000km away from Sydney, some to the North near Brisbane, and some to the South-West in Victoria. The recovery is going well, and it seems the water levels have stopped going up, which is a very good sign. In any case, Sydney has been spared, it seems. Knock on wood.

As for work, I'm excited to get back into the rehearsal hall. It's been almost five months since I've worked on JERSEY BOYS, with the closing of the Toronto production August 22, 2010. Although I played 'Frankie Valli' nearly 500 times, I'm sure it'll take a few weeks to get back into my body, due to the lenghty layoff. But, you never know, it could be sooner. Things can change pretty quickly in Jersey!

I'll be trying to write more frequently now that I'm Down Under. I may start using Twitter a bit more often too, so if you're interested, check it out. And Facebook seems to be the preferred way for everyone to keep in the loop. And of course, my website is another option. It's fun to keep connected to everyone back home!

Alright - till next time.