Daniel Reichard is the best kind of success story - self made. He wasn't noticed on a whim, instantly launching him to superstardom. He isn't the son of famous performers, and he wasn't in the right place at the right time. He's not even from New York or California.
Reichard honed his craft for years, working hard at what he loves, trying new things, always being content with the fact that he was in the entertainment business at all and just doing what he wanted to do. So what better way to be rewarded for such humble beginnings than to score a role in the biggest musical on Broadway?
"It's mindblowing that I'm sitting here on 52nd Street!" he says, looking out the window of his dressing room at the August Wilson Theatre as he prepares for a matinee of Jersey Boys. "This is kind of a surreal, insane point of view when I think about it!"
Jersey Boys is the winner of four 2006 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The show is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons: Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi. This quartet of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American pop music sensations of all time. They wrote their own songs, invented their own sounds and sold 175 million records worldwide - all before they were thirty.
Reichard fills the shoes of Bob Gaudio who wrote the quartet's three biggest hits - "Walk Like a Man," "Big Girls Don't Cry," and "Sherry." "We're both very ambitious and easy to get along with. Besides that we're totally different," says Reichard about his character. "He's a great business man; I'm more of a 'just-doing-the-work person.' He's shy and I'm anything but."
Reichard says challenge in the role wasn't "becoming" Gaudio, because the writers did the necessary research and it showed in the script. "When I first started, he didn't think I was like him, and his wife said, 'Bob, it's you.' The writers' story was so accurate that their ideas and my own ideas all kind of came together. I love that I'm playing one of the best [song]writers of all time."
Growing up in Ohio, Reichard knew that he was going to perform for the rest of his life. It was especially easy to live his dream, at first, because he had a built in audience. He was the second youngest of nine children. "I made a stage in my dining room where we all ate. There was a kind of old ledge and I got up and sang songs while my mom was making dinner with the other eight kids running around. And we'd get up at the family reunions and I'd sing "King Tut" from Steve Martin. I sort of idolized Steve Martin and the SNL players."
Reichard would write sketches for his school talent shows. "We'd get up and do the Blues Brothers, or we'd make up characters and do sketches with them," he laughs. The crazy skits were good practice for his New York debut in the zany production Forbidden Broadway: 20th Anniversary Celebration.
After doing everything from children's tours to non-union tours, Reichard landed a spot in the segmented show that pokes fun at New York theatre. "It was great to do the show. My best impressions were of Mandy Patinkin, Elton John, Adam Pascal in Aida. I really do love doing that, the character work."
In the end it wasn't character work that got him his biggest role to date. Reichard really got to explore his acting chops in The Public Theater's 2003 production of Radiant Baby. He played Keith Haring, a gay pop-artist felled by AIDS. "Radiant Baby was completely life changing. "I was playing this artist who went in his own direction; he sort of bypassed the norm, in favor of literally going with his ideas. You get to know an artist like that, and I felt like I became him. I want it to be my goal to be in shows that have integrity," he says.
Integrity is a central theme in Jersey Boys, and luckily director Des McAnuff saw Reichard in Radiant Baby. "This is sort of the perfect show to do that because I think the show really reaches the public. The people who come to see the show, everyone from the in-crowd, the socialites, to lawyers, doctors and teachers, everyone really seems to be loving it," he says. "I think all those dreams I had when I was doing Radiant Baby are starting to get fulfilled with Jersey Boys. I have such a passion in doing Jersey Boys."
Reichard considers himself to be very flaky about practical things, like paying his phone bill on time, or organizing his dressing room. But his dedication to staying upbeat for his strenuous performance is invigorating. "I swim everyday, but that's so uninteresting," he laughs. "On days when we have two shows I go to the gym twice. It's crazy, just to keep my energy going." With very little prodding, he also reveals a Jersey Boys secret for getting energized before Saturday night performances.
"At 7:45 we open the windows and do a kick-line to the tune of "New York, New York." Anybody in the company who wants to can sing it out onto 52nd Street. It's a funny company, everyone gets along well," he says.
With Jersey Boys tickets sales already flowing into the end of 2007, "we're in this ride together," Reichard says. "I've been so lucky because I've always worked steadily, and as far as opportunities, each one has topped the next, especially now that I am one of the Boys."