- We did really great work yesterday.

We are in really good shape.

Thank you everyone for contributing everything that you have to get us to this point and today's going to be really, really exciting.

- I mean the pandemic's awful to this industry, to all my friends and coworkers.

We're all here to create art because we haven't been able to, because of this pandemic.

- So we're here today-- (both mumble) - Great.

- I feel so blessed and thankful to Detroit Public Theater and Chautauqua Institute and DPTV and everybody else involved that of all the shows that they picked mine.

It just means-- it means the world to me.

(audience claps) ♪ Oh, what a night ♪ Late December back in sixty-three ♪ - That filming was the start of our partnership with Detroit Public Television, where we've been looking for ways to partner with arts and cultural organizations, such as DPTV to really showcase and highlight the benefits of our theater.

♪ You're just too good to be true ♪ - Preserving our legacy of arts and culture in this community is a really important value of the Conservancy.

We believe that through gentrification and through a number of other systemic changes in our neighborhoods, basis such as these traditionally go away.

And so we're working hard to make sure that these spaces remain affordable and accessible.

Also the arts and culture can remain a staple on this institution's campus.

- Shortly after graduation, I learned of an off-Broadway show that was having a Detroit run and they were looking for local understudies to audition.

I figured I'd go, I'd have my first real, professional audition experience.

- Our mission at Detroit Public Theater is really to provide theater for everyone, to make theater accessible, to make theater the PR public in Detroit, that people who live in Detroit, people who are Detroiters see themselves reflected in the work that we do.

So I think the values of DPTV and Detroit Public Theater are aligned.

- It probably needs more lighting because the camera can't.

- Theater community right now is in the somewhere around 95, 96% unemployment rate.

So it's devastating out there.

Another big motivation for us, wanting to do this safely, was to create work, but to try to find a way that we and by example, all of us can continue to do what we do.

What we were put on this earth to do.

- This is such a gift that we get to do this for eight hours.

So soak it in.

- Don't know when we'll be in a theater again.

- I teach college, you know, so I've been all summer long-- We've been dealing with, how do we make theater in our current situation?

I leapt at the chance to do this when Eric called and said we were doing it.

- I love this show.

I stage manage a lot of plays and I don't get the chance to do musicals a lot.

So this is really a fun treat for me because it's so many musicals wrapped into one.

♪ If I hide the one song ♪ Before the critics hate hold boring ♪ ♪ Like Lorne Webber ♪ One song to reach him this ♪ Hey, let's try - 2014 we premiered it.

So it's been-- we've been performing it now for six years.

In 2013, a place called Berman Center For The Performing Arts in West Bloomfield, the managing director there at the time, She's an old friend of mine.

And she called me, she said "Do you want to do a cabaret about your time with Jersey Boys?"

And I was in Chicago at the time.

And I said "Yeah, sure.

That'd be fun."

After 10 months in Detroit-- It kind of morphed out of a cabaret and into a book show.

I started working on it with Brian, my director, and after 10 months and 14 drafts, we have what is being presented tonight.

Get me in for interviews at the restaurant.

- He knew he wanted to tell his story, but, you know, initially it was kind of all showbiz.

It was all that story.

And I think eventually we found our way into the more personal narrative.

And I think that's when we really found the heart of the show.

♪ I'm falling, baby, from the sky ♪ - Brian was really instrumental in kind of piecing all my thoughts together so I don't kind of just go off the rails, so to speak, which sometimes I do.

- As we were developing it, you know, starting to learn, I had no idea about the struggles and the things that he went through.

So for me, it was like re meeting a friend in that collaboration.

- And living in a city where there are 50,000 other actors just like you struggling and clawing their way from audition to audition.

- We actually have only had a couple of days to put it all together.

So it's kind of been a whirlwind process.

- I think all the shots are pretty wide, but not incorporating the projections ever.

Is there a possible shot from this camera that has-- that also incorporates the projection?

- Yeah.

- And we had some partnerships obviously with DPTV and WNED that made it possible that we could bring these productions to life.

(woman giving directions from a distance) - For us there's nothing that can quite compare to being in a room together with our audience.

And we are craving that and looking forward to when that can happen again.

But for now, we're not going to stop making art and connecting.

♪ You're just too good to be true ♪ - What they're calling me is the transition director, which is actually, I've come to believe that it's, I'm the interpreter because I speak two languages.

I speak theater and I speak film.

My job is to watch what's happening on stage, but also what's happening on the monitor and make sure that the people on stage, what they're looking for, is being translated to the people who were running the cameras and the backstage.

- It's very strange to film it this way with no audience, you know?

(upbeat music) - It's different.

It's always different than being in a live theater.

Not-- there's no replacement for gathering in the room together with an audience.

♪ As I've been called an actor - It's just, it's a ghost town.

So it was hard to adjust that way.

- So to not have the human bodies there, the cameras, you know, he had-- he did a great job communicating with those and playing the show as if there was an audience.

- I've done this show for yes, six years.

I've done it, I don't know, 60 times, 70 times.

And I always kind of know where the laugh is going to be or where the applause is going to be.

2,100 people think I am far too short to play this role.

In Chicago-- - There's no holding for laughter.

There's no holding for applause.

So there's the big thing to kind of get used to it's.

- It's knowing that I do like a really big song that takes a lot out of me.

And I don't have the, you know, six, seven seconds of applause to catch my breath.

It's just like, catch your breath quick, move on to the next story.

(finishes singing) After 10 months in Detroit-- - There's a lot lost in that communion between the performer and the audience.

There's a-- it's a conversation, a performance isn't complete until the audience is there.

The audience is part of the performance.

- The timing is just very different and the energy.

And I applaud Eric for being able to keep the energy up.

I sing the hell out of my song ♪ Jesus Then he says "You know, Eric, I don't think you're right for this role."

- The audience experience is becoming an isolated experience these days.

More and more people have there-- are witnessing it over their phone or their iPad or their computer or their television.

And don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

It is a tool and it's a magical tool, but at the same time to have an experience with a group of people is something that I believe is in human DNA.

♪ Happy, drowning out my cries ♪ I pull myself together ♪ And I'm focused on the prize ♪ I'm falling, baby, through the sky ♪ ♪ Through the sky I'm falling, baby, through the sky ♪ - We try and hone in the audience as I on those particular moments, but we have to do it in a different way because it's a different medium.

Whereas the camera can just zoom in and capture that.

So I'm having a-- I'm having a fantastic time watching that happen.

♪ I could be in love with someone ♪ ♪ Like you (audience claps) - With this project, we really wanted to keep it true to the spirit of a live continuous production.

It's almost as if you're watching a live show, it's definitely as close to that as we can get it for you.

- Theater and performing was a mere memory.

And so there I was.

It's funny how life throws you curve balls sometimes.

I was working at a desk job for a ticketing broker company in Southfield, Michigan, and the call came in and I took it and it was, I mean, it changed my life.

That one phone call.

(phone rings) - Hi, Eric.

This is Jennifer from Dodger Theatricals.

We would like to offer you a role in the first national tour of Jersey Boys.

- Talking to people that have seen the show over the years is-- they say "Gosh" you know, "I was able to relate to this or to that" or, you know, "I have a kid that wants to go into theater" or "I did this 20 years ago and then I gave it up" you know, "To raise a family" and our lives are all kind of paralleled that way.

- It's a great story.

And I think one of the things to take away from it is being somebody who's earlier in their career, it gives them hope to keep working and not stop going until you get that break.

You know, we all get breaks, but sometimes it takes longer for other people, but work is the most important part of that.

And Eric works very hard for it.

- It's been an amazing week doing this and an amazing few months getting this ready.

And I just hope that people will not just appreciate the shows, appreciate the work that's going into them.

- This is an experiment.

We're really hoping that this crosses that boundary and gives a lot of people who are missing the theater something that they haven't been able to go out to.

- Theater's not a part of everyone's life.

Television is a part of everyone's life.

So I think that television has a lot to offer us as theater artists.

(upbeat music) - I think a lot of theaters are trying to adapt to this new way because they have to, they're forced to and I only hope that all of these theaters that employ so many designers and artist will be able to do this and will have the opportunity like I did, like Detroit Public Theater did, like Chautauqua Institute did.

(people clapping and cheering)