Coming 2024 Holiday Season:

Read a behind-the-curtain story about how John Lloyd Young's fans have impacted my life in my soon-to-be-released book, Behind The Curtain: The Mistakes, Lessons Learned & Triumphs of Interviewing Celebrities.

2024 Interview:

I am so excited to catch up with Tony and Grammy Award winner John Lloyd Young, who won the coveted awards for playing Frankie Valli in the Broadway Tony Award winning musical Jersey Boys.

It's been two years since I last featured John Lloyd and his upcoming return to 54 Below seemed like the perfect time to chat.

In this NEW interview, John Lloyd once again answered my call, but this time around he shares:

• What made now the right time to bring John Lloyd Young's Broadway back to 54 Below
• What will surprise fans about this show
• What he loves about musical theatre
• Whether he likes Pancakes or French Toast
• So much more

Connect with John Lloyd: Website, Facebook, Instagram

John Lloyd Young's Broadway will play at 54 Below from November 6-9, 2024.

According to press notes, John Lloyd Young returns to the heart of Broadway to interpret his favorite spine-tingling, soul-bearing showstoppers in John Lloyd Young’s Broadway. John Lloyd sings hits from Jersey Boys, The Wiz, Chicago, Hair, Les Misérables, and more, along with classics by legendary Broadway writers including Rodgers, Hart, Hammerstein, and Loesser. Music direction by Ron Abel.

John Lloyd Young performing at 54 Below
Photo Courtesy of John Lloyd Young's Social Media

1. This November, you are returning to 54 Below with your show John Lloyd Young's: Broadway. What made now the right time to bring this show back? Everyone is always in a festive mood this time of year and Broadway is always booming. I like to bring my Broadway set right into the heart of things. This year's opening night, November 6th, just happens to be the anniversary of the original Broadway opening of JERSEY BOYS. 

2. For the person who has never seen you in concert before, why is this show a good introduction to you? Of course my early dreams of singing for audiences were given a big boost by the success of JERSEY BOYS. And I share songs and stories from that show. But most people don't know that what brought me to New York was my love of classic Broadway shows like Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Miserables. So in a way, this set is a reveal of a voice that does much more than just evoke Frankie Valli, and of a singer who knows his Broadway classics cold (and can sing the hell out of them!)

3. For your fans who have seen this show multiple times, what is one reason they should come back? There's always new songs and surprises -- the show is never the same -- and the interplay with a full NYC band, led by Ron Abel, is electric. One surprise this year is some internationally-known mega musical in a foreign language I've never sung before. Hmmmm...

John Lloyd Young having fun at 54 Below
Photo Courtesy of John Lloyd Young's Social Media

4. What do you love about singing these musical theatre songs as opposed to other genres? It's personal for me; I dreamt of New York and Broadway from when I was little. So in singing and sharing some of these classics that drew me to the city, I of course reveal a great deal about myself. And I'm known to be an emotional singer. Big musicals have epic, sweeping feelings -- perfect for a singer who loves to really live through a song.

5. According to press notes, you will be performing your favorite spine-tingling, soul-bearing showstoppers.

• Which song do you feel reveals the most about you and why does it share so much? There's a new addition to this year's set. It's a song about going for it against all odds, from one of the longest-running musicals ever. An anthem, if you will, for a young person who wants to go out into the wider world, damn the torpedoes. I lived this song. Come see the show and find out.
• Which song makes your spine tingle and what do you feel it is about said song that makes you feel that way? "So You Wanted to Meet the Wizard" from THE WIZ. It's thrilling! It's an "umph! take me as I am!" kind of animal theatricality that only the best Broadway musicals can offer. And if that weren't enough, it ends with a high, sustained falsetto note. Heaven.

6. This past summer you got to perform with Debbie Gibson in NYC during her Electric Youth 35th Anniversary Concert. During the show, you sang "I Drove All Night." If you could drive all night, where would you drive to and who would want to be driving towards? New York City! Broadway! It's a new season! So much to discover.

7. Rapid Fire Questions:

• Pancakes or French Toast? Pancakes
• Favorite Candy? English Toffee
• Favorite Scent/Smell? Pine
• Go to Emoji when texting? Facepalm 🤦🏻‍♂️
• Glinda or Elphaba? I am Elphaba
  

More John Lloyd Young Interviews:

2018 (Read Here): Broadway's Jersey Boys & Beyond
2021 (Listen Here): Podcast: Season 2: Episode 5: Jersey Boys + Legacy
2021 (Listen Here): Podcast: Season 2: Episode 11: Lessons Learned
2021 (Read Here): Adam, Did You Know?
2022 (Listen Here): Podcast: Season 3: Episode 2: Jersey Boys, Stage Mishaps, Fan Questions

More on John Lloyd Young:

Film, stage and concert artist John Lloyd Young is a Tony^® and Grammy winner, multi-Platinum recording artist and Presidential Appointee. As the original “Frankie Valli” in Broadway’s Tony Award-winning Best Musical Jersey Boys, Young garnered unprecedented accolades from the New York and national media, going on to become the only American actor to date to win all four major Broadway Leading Actor in a Musical honors for a Broadway debut: the Tony^®, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Award. Young starred in Jersey Boys on London’s West End and was hand-picked by director Clint Eastwood to reprise his role in the Warner Bros. film adaptation, becoming one of only a select-few actors in entertainment history to take his Tony-winning role to the big screen.

Over the years, Young has sung selections from Jersey Boys several times at the White House, in the halls of Congress, and to Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes, Obamas, Bidens, Trumps, Pences, the Prime Minister and First Lady, Shinzo and Akie Abe, of Japan and the President and First Lady of Finland, Sauli Niinistö and Jenni Haukio.

As a concert artist, Young has taken his expertly curated repertoire of classic pop and R&B to filled-to-capacity rooms, thrilling his audiences with a “disciplined one-in-a-million high tenor shading into falsetto that he can direct through the stratosphere” (The New York Times). He has played The White House, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Hollywood Bowl, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the U.S. Embassy in Finland, Mar-a-Lago, Clint Eastwood’s Tehama Country Club, New York’s Café Carlyle, Feinstein’s in NY and San Francisco, Radio City Music Hall, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

Young has appeared on Live with Kelly and Michael, The Today Show, Extra, Entertainment Tonight, NPR’s All Things Considered and Here and Now, Access Hollywood, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and more.

John Lloyd Young’s five-star-rated solo album of classic R&B, My Turn…, debuted as a best-seller on Amazon. It remains a fan favorite with several songs from the album requested at each of his live performances.

Appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities by Barack Obama, Young was sworn in at the Supreme Court of the United States by Justice Elena Kagan. As a member of the Committee, Young represented the United States on the first U.S. Cultural Mission to the Republic of Cuba, along with fellow Committee members Kal Penn and Alfre Woodard, guest artists Usher, Smokey Robinson, Dave Matthews, violinist Joshua Bell, playwright John Guare, U.S. arts officials, including the Chairs of the NEA and the Smithsonian Institution, and members of Congress.

A resident of Los Angeles, Young was educated at Brown University and in Spain at the University of Salamanca. He knows fluent Spanish, conversational and written Mandarin, and sings in several languages, including Spanish, Mandarin, Hebrew and Italian. Trained by world championship title holders and Chinese Shaolin monks, Young holds a brown-belt in Shaolin Temple-style kung fu and is a student and practitioner of Chinese Chan Buddhism. Young ardently supports charities including the USO, amFAR and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.