Nick Fradiani: Broadway's New Neil Diamond

Michael Riedel chats with Nick Fradiani, Broadway's new Neil Diamond, in the bio-musical A BEAUTIFUL NOISE, THE NEIL DIAMOND MUSICAL. He crafted this performance after watching thousands of hours of Diamond on stage. A BEAUTIFUL NOISE is currently at the Broadhurst Theater.
Christine Nagy was off this week.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, welcome to Inside Broadway.This is Michael Ridle. My co host
Christine Neaggy is in court today.They picked up for grand larceny, so
we hope it goes well for now. Actually she's on Jerry duty. Guilty.
That's what they say in Chicago.iHeartRadio Broadway presents Inside Broadway, the
podcast about everything theater. It's whereyou hear what happens from the ticket window

(00:24):
to the stage door, with thestars and creative forces that make it all
come alive. Here are your hosts, w O Rs. Michael Riedle and
Light FM's Christine Naggy. A BeautifulNoise the Neil Diamond Musical. It's got
a brand new Neil Diamond. Hisname is Nick Freddi Aami and he joins
us right here on Inside Broadway.Nick, how are you? I'm great
impressed how easily you say my lastname too? Right off from the beginning.

(00:47):
I know well screwed up, verygood with Italian names, trust me,
because I'm married a woman named Amrosso. Who's some practice. I just
want to clear up one thing now. You said that your mother gave you
my book Razzle Dazzle The Battle forBroadway. You haven't read it yet it
was actually my aunt, your aunt. She gave it to me. I
believe it was either my birthday orChristmas. But I do have it.
It's in my apartment. So nownow that I know it's you, I

(01:11):
have, I most definitely have to. And there's a sequel called Singular Sensation.
Okay, so the next time Isee you, let me start it.
Let's just worry about those I haveread both of those books, all
right. So you've been with aBeautiful Noise since the very beginning I think
he went beginning of time. Yeah, you went up to Boston, the
out of town try on that kindof thing. So I just sat around
there and I was actually there.Did you actually want to dispatch the guy

(01:33):
playing Neil Diamond? So you getinto this role? Sooner? Was Will
Swinson? Right there was Will?Did you plot anything against them? I
kind of. I let him dohis thing for for a year because you
know, I burnout. It is. It is a rough gig. It
is fun, but you're you're You'reon stage for a long time for most
of the show, aren't you.Yeah, Now you spend any time with
Neil Diamond himself? Yeah, hehe was at our a lot of rehearsals

(01:57):
pre Boston and then uh, soyou know, I probably he wasn't.
I wouldn't say it was hands onat that point. I know he was
a big part of the of thewriting process, but uh, yeah he
was there, and uh he wasa big help to Just having him there
I think was pretty awesome. Andthen he came to our both our openings
in Boston and and uh New Yorkand yeah, and then he's even he

(02:21):
left. He wrote me a coupleof nice notes that once I took over,
he says. His wife actually sentme a video of him congratulating me
in a full Halloween costume, whichis pretty fun. Was started. I
don't even really know what it was. It was like a lot of pumpkins
and he had it was it washysterical. Actually the time as a pumpkin.
It was pretty awesome. So I'llalways have that. I was finding

(02:42):
interesting when an actor is playing areal person, you're not You gotta be
careful not to do an imitation,right. You don't imitate his voice necessarily?
Do you imitate some of the mannersof I Actually I actually do.
I wouldn't. I don't want togo I don't go too over the top
with it. But I did,you know, listen to like thousands of
hours of his He has a lotof YouTube videos up, a lot of

(03:05):
interviews from the seventies and eighties andstuff, and so I kind of listened
to that, and you know,I did really study his the way he
sings and his phrasings and stuff likethat, because you do want to get
it. I think if you gofor I mean, if I go to
a biomusical, I do want theperson to sound and I want to feel
like I'm you know, at aconcert or yeah, j Michael Jackson,

(03:27):
not Carol Channing exactly exactly. Butbut you are right, I mean there
is a you know, for instance, I just did the parade on the
CBS channel and we performed. Andyou don't get to listen to yourself do
a musical lot, right, It'sjust you do it every day. And
I found I was like, youknow, I think I'm doing a little
too much of certain neal stuff.Then when I heard it and so now

(03:49):
I'm you know, it's like tryingto find a good spot for it.
But I remember seeing him perform atthe Songwriters Hall of Fame and of course
there's the famous sweet Caroline goes bopbop and everybody goes pop pop bay.
They raised their hand up, butactually Neil starts up and he goes bump
and brings it down's going the otherway. I thought that was sort of
interesting if you do that when youI known't actually so see, I guess

(04:10):
I'm not. I'm going to makeyourself. I gotta go back and watch
it. So where are you from? And how did you get into this
racket of the musical theater? Allright, So I'm from Connecticut and my
my father's musician, So I was. I became a musician very early on
in life. I would always goto his gigs and and uh, he

(04:31):
used to sing Neil Diamond songs andthat's kind of that was who introduced me
to his music. But anyways,I I just kind of my dad took
me on that musical journey ride,told me how to play the guitar or
the piano, and uh, youknow, I started writing songs. I
was in a band for many yearsand then so you weren't really a musical
theater at all, no, thankgod. And so I was in a

(04:54):
band for many years and we did, and then I ended up going on
American Idol and then one of ericand Idol in twenty fifteen, and so
that kind of took me on ayou know, I put out a bunch
of albums and all that, andthen in twenty nineteen, I actually got
asked to audition for the role ofLorenzo in A Bronx Tale for the national
tour. And I had no musicalexperience, but I loved that movie,

(05:15):
right, and I said, well, let me just you know, I
had friends that were in the inthe industry, and I said, let
me just talk to some people andgo in and at least audition, and
right it was I manking with themusic and anyways, I went in and
probably wasn't that great. I sangit pretty well. And then and then

(05:36):
you know, I worked with ChazCommonary on playing his father, and anyways,
I fell in love with doing it. We went on the road for
for a long time and met mygirlfriend who's now in Mulan Rouge, and
she kind of inundated me with alot of musical theater. I just fell
in love with it. I wentand got an agent, and you know,
outside I had my own agent formusic. I didn't have a musical
theater agent, so I you know, started working with Matt Redman over at

(05:58):
DGRW and once I saw this wasa musical, I was becoming a musical
I texted him and said, yougot to get me in for this role
they're looking for. So, youknow, training it is an actor either,
right, No, No, Idon't Uh is it still apparent?
I don't think. So you gottacome, you gotta come and see.
All I know is the funny thingis everybody that sees me or you know,
looks and says, all right,he's in the show, and uh

(06:21):
he's not American idol. Everybody thatI talked to like, wow, you
could act too, you know.It's every single I you're a good actor
too. Truthfully, it's not thathard, it isn't. Yeah. So
these serious actors, you know,they studied Yale and Juliard and they have
all their exercises and they dig deepto find a hidden meaning of everything.
When you just go out there,noble lines still bump into the furniture,

(06:42):
knock the song out of the park, and you're gonna get it. Yeah,
Well, I mean I think Ithink, uh, you know,
doing a lot of live television typeperformances throughout my life. I mean,
I think the performative acting, Itry to just I try not to be
too big, and I just learnedto just listen to what my scene partners
are doing, and I try tobe as realistic as I can and find
myself in whoever I'm playing, ormy or somebody I know. And I

(07:05):
just kind of have been doing thatwith the two people I've played so far.
Have you learned how to steal thefocus from your fellow castro Oh,
yeah, definitely. That's my favoritething. That's very I see when somebody's
trying to do it, to makesure the audience is always watching you about
me. The best person who didthat was a great Linda Lavin. She

(07:25):
was in a play called The Lions, very funny play by Dicky Silver.
I think, and who is shestarting with I can't remember his name now
he's dead actor Sadley, but greatactor, terrific guy. And he had
this big speech and she's sitting by. She's sitting listening to him do the
speech right, not supposed to doanything, and he's giving the speech.
She begins to play with her glovein this hilarious way, and he could

(07:47):
feel it every night that audience islooking at no attention to him. They've
shifted right over to Linda because she'sdoing this funny bit with the gloves,
and he would say, Linda,you're taking it, and she goes,
sorry, that's it, that's it. So I actually do a lot of
sce. I mean, I'm thethe incredible Robin Herders plays my second wife
in the musical, and she's solike, there's like an you know,

(08:11):
I feel like she easily can stealthe smile if she wants to. She
just has that aura about her.But but we both you know that doesn't
happen with her. I'm just saying, like, I could see how if
she wanted to, she could takeit right from me. She's got that
ability. Did you ever see BetteMidler and Hello Dolly, I'm not.
I mean, I know she wasin it, but I never it was
hilarious because it was the Bette MidlerShow and he happened to be going on

(08:31):
around her and occasionally she noticed it. So all right, Well, check
out Nick Freddiani, the new starthe new Neil Diamond in a Beautiful Noise
The Neil Diamond Musical on Broadway,big hit at the Broadhurst Theater. How
long going to be with the showfor the first interview? Much longer?
But yeah, I'm hoping. Uh, I'm hoping for as long. I

(08:52):
mean I signed for a year,so let's hope we can go another year.
We've we hit a year in abouta few days for four days from
now or something. We've been onBroadway for years, so right went an
accomplishment for everybody. We're happy andyeah, we'd love to see it at
the Broadhurst. Welcome to the theaterand all the charming people in it.
Nick Freddy Ani check him out inthe Beautiful Noise The Neil Diamond Musical.

(09:13):
Christina as I as I say,is well, she's in jail, frankly,
but I really can't tell you why. No, she's actually on jury
duty. And Natalie is here tohave a little chit chat segment that we
do at the end of the show. In jail and chury duty, she's
doing her civic duty. So thankyou for letting me sit here for a
little post chat. And it wasnice to see the new Neil Diamond.

(09:37):
Yeah he's a good guy. Icould not remember the name of the actor
when I told that story about Lindaeleven. His name is Dick Letessa.
He was a great guy, terrificguy. I've been on Broadway for many,
many years. He was one ofthe stars of the Will Rogers Follies
years ago. I think he wonthe Tony Award for the Will Rogers Follies.
And he played Harvey Firestein's husband inHairspray. Remember that, Dick Litessa,

(10:00):
you know, I was just lookingat his fit. Oh wow,
he played the father. I can'tremember the father's name of the daughter whose
name I can't remember either, Butwhat's her name? What's the girl's name
in Hairspray? Tracy? Oh yes, Tracy, you're missing me, that's
right, Tracy. So anyway,Dick was a great, terrific guy,
wonderful actor. Sad that we losthim a few years ago, but I

(10:22):
think you can check out us.You should check out the performance of Dick
Litessa and Harvey Feirestein when they singthis great song called You're Timeless to Me.
I think it's called They did iton the Tony Awards. It's you
can see it on YouTube, andit was absolutely delightful. It was so
much fun that show and that andthat performance. You remember Hairsprayatie I do,
wow, and and that's awesome.Yeah, I mean, who doesn't

(10:43):
love Hairspray? Just such a greatshow. You know, who doesn't love
Hairspray? Who you know? Thepeople who lost the Tony Award to it
because it came out of nowhere andI can't remember the show was up against,
but they thought that they had theTony Award and all of a sudden,
Hairspray came roaring in and completely flattenedthem. Like you say, who
doesn't like the producers the producers ofthe full Mont? You don't like the

(11:03):
producers because they lost every single TonyNathan Lane and Matthew Broder and the producers.
There's always that show early in aseason where you're like, oh,
this is it, this is it, and then late late when late entry
and then bang. But that's thething to do, because if you come
in at the last minute, you'vegot all the momentum and excitement behind you,
and the voters. The Tony votershad seen the other shows months ago,

(11:26):
probably forgotten them, and all ofa sudden they're caught up in the
frenzy and the excitement of the newhit show on Broadway, right, I
mean, and really sustaining a yearon Broadway is a feat. So to
be able to do that on thetop the whole time until the award season
comes around is difficult. You werea Tony voter once, weren't you.
It was a freaky reason why Iwas a Tony voter, But yes,

(11:46):
for a short period of time,until they realized, why is this girl
on our list? And then Iwas booted off. Yeah, but he
got all those free tickets. That'sthe best part about it, right,
I know. But I had littlebabies and I really couldn't go at that
point in my life, which istoo bad. I was a Tony voter.
I was both for myself. Ohwhat did I wrote? Well,
I would write my name in forBest Actor, I'd write it. I
did Best Director, I write myname down the best Musical. Michael Riedle

(12:09):
I the write in vote. That'sit, so all right? Joined us
again for another edition of Inside Broadway. Take Care