How to play a ‘Jersey Boy’
Ben Diamond is one of the Four Seasons at the Paper Mill in Millburn
Ben Diamond is young.
How young is he, you ask.
He is so young that though cast as Bob Gaudio in the spectacular new Paper Mill Playhouse production of “Jersey Boys,” he had no clear idea who the Four Seasons were.
For you other youngsters out there, the Four Seasons were a major pop group with scores of chart toppers starting in the 1960s. Gaudio, who grew up in Bergenfield and went to Bergenfield High School, was the group’s co-founder, backup singer, keyboardist, and co-writer of some of the group’s biggest hits, including “Sherry” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”
Will Gaudio be upset about the 28-year-old thespian’s musical blind spot? Will he reveal that, unlike girls, big boys do cry? Who’s to say?
But for Mr. Diamond, an honorary New Jerseyan (Princeton ’19), this role is the highlight of his brief, covid-interrupted career.
“I’ve been doing theater my whole life,” he said in a Zoom call on a rehearsal lunch break. “I’ve been taking voice lessons since I was 13, so this was always on the table.” He minored in theater — his major was sociology — but was active in the famed Triangle Club at Princeton and appeared in many student productions, all reinforcing his commitment to the stage.
“I had people telling me that they thought I was good, teachers and people in my circle,” he said. “It’s also all I really thought about. It’s all I was ever deeply interested in from childhood.
“When I got to Princeton, everyone was remarkable in some way. I saw that my currency was as a performing artist. It was my singing, dancing, directing, and critical thinking when it came to films, television, plays. That was something unique in me.
“The combination of my own interest and what people were affirming, it just kind of clicked that this was something I could do.”
So he moved to New York in the fall of 2019 and started the process of “learning to become an adult.” Previously, he explained, there was always someone around to hold his hand. Even in college, yes, he did his own laundry, but there was a dining hall that provided him with meals.
“I was learning how to cook,” he said. “Learning how to be in charge of grocery shopping. Meeting up with friends, because I didn’t live in a dorm, where everyone was down the hall.”
And he was getting a bit of work — an off-Broadway play, some extra jobs in television and film — when covid struck and much of the world closed down. He turned from acting to SAT-ing — working as a tutor for students preparing for college entrance exams.
His first post-covid job was singing on a cruise ship. It was a fun few months where he was able to build a small nest egg. “They handle housing and food, so all you have to do is walk to the stage,” he said. He also had the chance to travel, and, as it turns out, make a key contact.
One of his shipmates worked as a singing waiter. “He said, ‘When we get back to New York, you have to audition.’” Mr. Diamond did, he made the cut, and he became a regular at Gaye’s Broadway Rose, a restaurant in the Edison Hotel, in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district.
What’s not to love? He’s where he wants to be, in the theater district, just a block from the TKTS booth, sharing the stage (and the dining room) with aspiring stars, singing show tunes. Plus: it’s better than tutoring.
As an added bonus, a video of him singing unexpectedly went viral. A director saw it and eventually signed him for a role in “Newsies,” which was playing in Houston.
He followed that with a role in “Mamma Mia” in Bay Harbor, Michigan, and now he’s in Millburn.
Mr. Diamond was raised in a culturally Jewish family in San Francisco. “Growing up, we would celebrate Chanukah and Passover, especially with my uncle, who married a Conservative woman.
“But this was San Francisco. I wasn’t a bar mitzvah, but we did celebrate the holidays, and I had a lot of Jewish friends. So Jewish culture was very familiar to me.”
Perhaps that’s why, when he’s asked if he sees a light at the end of the casting tunnel, he quotes celebrities far more famous than he is who say, even they are insecure. “I’ll see an interview with, say Jennifer Aniston, as a random example, and she’ll say even she gets insecure sometimes about her future in the industry.
“So if you look at it from that perspective, it’s always going to end in fear. I try not to think about it too much because I don’t have control over that timeline.
“All I can do is make sure I show up for work prepared and that I’m giving my all to whatever I’m doing.”
“Jersey Boys” runs through November 3 at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn. Tickets range from $35 to $206. Order them at my.papermill.org.
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