Jersey Boys Visits Cape Town, Johannesburg on South African Tour

The first South African production of the Tony Award-winning musical “Jersey Boys” will premiere in April of next year, producers announced recently.

The extremely popular musical will debut on April 3, 2013 at the Teatro at Montecasino, and then will move to Artscape, Cape Town, where it will open June 19, 2013. Hazel Feldman, the South African producer of “Jersey Boys,” announced the cast for this version of the show recently. Grant Almirall will play the lead role of Frankie Valli, and Daniel Buys, Kenneth Meyer and Emanuel Castis will round out the rest of the Four Seasons, the band featured in the musical. Jaco van Rensberg will take on the role of Frankie Valli for certain performances.

The creative team for the production features musical director Bryan Schimmel, resident director Anton Luitingh, and resident choreographer and dance captain Duane Alexander. This team will work closely with a visiting creative team based out of New York that includes music supervisor Ron Melrose.

Rehearsals will begin in Johannesburg and final onstage preparations will be in Singapore, where the show is scheduled to open internationally at the Marina Bay Sands in November. That production will run for a 14-week season and will then return to South Africa.

In other news about the show, real “Jersey Boy” Frankie Valli announced earlier this week that he will make his Broadway debut later this year. Valli will appear at the Broadway Theatre from October 19 through October 27, where he will perform many of the classic Four Seasons songs that are featured in the musical based on the group’s rise to fame.

Earlier this month, actor and director Jon Favreau signed on as director for an upcoming film adaptation of the musical. The screenplay for the new version will be written by John Logan, and the film is expected to be released in 2014.