Jersey Boys: Interview with Elise Brennan

Elise Brennan says one of the best things that young performers can do when starting out in musical theatre is to listen to horrible musicals alongside great musicals. “Make your own mind up about what you like and what you don’t,” she says.

AussieTheatre.com’s new feature writer Ben Neutze catches up with Elise Brennan, star of the hit musical Jersey Boys.

Elise Brennan says one of the best things that young performers can do when starting out in musical theatre is to listen to horrible musicals alongside great musicals. “Make your own mind up about what you like and what you don’t,” she says.

It seems that Elise made her mind up the right way, as she now performs in one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful shows of the past decade – Jersey Boys.

Elise started with Jersey Boys during the Melbourne season in June last year as a swing. She recently re-auditioned and now plays Frankie Valli’s first wife, Mary Delgado.

“She was a singer herself and had a passion for singing but it all didn’t turn out for her. She became a housewife for his kids and looked after his life, and her life kind of got pushed aside,” Elise says.

“Having the conflict and going through her journey each night is quite emotionally taxing. But it’s also an amazing roller coaster.”

Elise says that she tried to research Mary Delgado’s life quite extensively, but found that there was very little information on her. In today’s age of tabloid journalism it’s hard to believe that the wife of such a superstar could be so far out of the limelight, but Elise says that Mary was not a public figure by any means.

It was on a trip to New York last year when Elise was able to spend some time in New Jersey that she really got to understand the show and feel a connection to the characters.

“You can actually still feel in Jersey today how bits of the show all fit. It was a really cool experience to go over there and just sit in a diner and experience all those things that we don’t have in Australia and to discover it for yourself,” she says.

Being one of only a few women in a predominately male cast is a different experience for Elise, but she says the cast work well together as a unit, which is essential in a show like Jersey Boys.

“It’s such a tightly wound clock. Everything just happens one thing after another and it’s all very tight and neat. Unfortunately that means when something does go wrong, it can kind of unravel very quickly. But fortunately there hasn’t been any major mishaps in my time so far,” she says.

“Occasionally there’s a small thing like a table will come on, and instead of the pizza facing the front its facing you and it looks like you’ve eaten a whole pizza to yourself!”

Another challenge of the show is that the performers are constantly singing, even when offstage they add harmonies to build on the sound of the Four Seasons.

“In other shows, when you are onstage, that’s when you are switched on, and when you walk offstage is when you get to have your break. But in Jersey Boys we never have much downtime, so we’ll be sitting down and reading a magazine and have to just jump up and sing Sherry or Walk Like a Man. It makes it fairly challenging, because you’ve got to always be alert.”

Elise says that while she has no specific pre-show rituals, there is one activity which keeps the cast entertained before each show.

“There’s a ping pong table downstairs, and we’re often on that table just post warm-up trying to play a little and beat each other,” she says.

Elise believes that the key to succeeding in musical theatre is to get a great education and become completely immersed in musicals.

“I was really lucky, I went to the Arts Academy in Ballarat and I just feel like without having done my three-year musical theatre bachelor degree, I wouldn’t actually understand a lot of the things that just happen every day that I take for granted because of my training,” she says.

“Just get out there and do it!”