Jersey Boys welcomes back its prodigal son

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John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli in the musical Jersey Boys—AP

Who says you can’t go home again? Not John Lloyd Young, who left Broadway’s Jersey Boys five years ago and is now spending the summer back in his old role. He even got the same dressing room.

“How many people in life get to go back and reclaim their past and relive it in almost exactly the same way and enjoy it all over again?” asks Young.
The show and theatre may be the same, but it’s a different Young who again slips into the shoes of Frankie Valli in the behind-the-music musical about the doo-wop group The Four Seasons.
Young left the show in 2007, a newly minted Tony Award winner whose lead vocals also propelled the cast album to a Grammy win. He moved to Los Angeles to try his hand at film and TV, but found frustration. So he did different things: He became a kung fu expert. He helped charities. He got a tattoo. Most important, he fell in love with making modern art.
“A lot of things changed radically right after I left the show,” he says. “I had certain expectations that didn’t happen or at least didn’t happen the way I expected. So I adapted.”
Michael David, president of the producing partnership Dodger Properties, happily welcomed Young back to Jersey Boys and knows how rare it is for a Tony-winning leading man to return to the show that launched his fame.
“It’s great to observe his inarguable talents and work ethic inhabit Frankie Valli again onstage,” David says. “For everybody in the show, it brings up their game to have him there.”
Young, a Brown University graduate, clearly has a thirsty mind, able to speak thoughtfully on a vast range of topics, from the Arab Spring to Fran Lebowitz. He’s a searcher — for meaning and meaningfulness.
How many Broadway actors have a notecard on their mirror with a quote from the Greek philosopher Epictetus?: “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
Young’s life completely changed after winning the Tony. The year before he had been a struggling actor and an usher, handing out Playbills at the musical 42nd Street. Now he was toast of the town. That actually closed some doors.
He recalls being up for an Anton Chekhov play downtown in a small off-Broadway theatre after Jersey Boys and realising it would be a nightmare if he landed a part in it.
“You have a whole fan base that’s going to come and overrun the theatre and isn’t going to appreciate that you’re playing Konstantin in The Seagull,” he says. “You can’t go do certain experimental things anonymously anymore. It sort of forced me to challenge myself in a new arena.”
So he went West, where he did some TV — he was the first-ever guest star on Glee — as well as starring in the film Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay! which never got released. “Maybe not everything is meant to come out,” he jokes.
Young admits it was hard to find good jobs in Los Angeles, especially like the role of Valli, the emotional core of Jersey Boys who gets to sing such hits as Sherry, Walk Like a Man and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.
“It’s really hard to find really engaging, smart material that also has appeal to a lot of people. The lowest common denominator and shamelessness is centre stage in way too many cases,” he says.
To keep his spirits up, he got the word “faith” tattooed on his inner left arm. Faith in? “In the future. I think we could all use a little of that right now,” he says. Art became a refuge for Young, who has decorated his dressing room at the August Wilson Theatre with photos of the works he admires by contemporary artists Mary Heilmann, Michael Carini, Richard Roth and Yayoi Kusama.
Young’s own mixed-media conceptual art is inspired by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. He specialised in what has been described as Pop Kitsch — adorning iconic food packages such as a Spam can or a Heinz ketchup bottle with rhinestone jewels.
He says it took a few years to build up a body of artwork, and even though he had no expectations of it ever selling, it has. One of his pieces hangs at Beverly Hills’ famed restaurant Spago.
He once supported himself with his acting and singing. Now he has with his art. He has now succeeded in two careers. “Whatever role I find next, I’m a deeper person with more facets,” he says.