By the time Jersey Boys bids farewell to Chicago with its Sunday matinee at the Bank of America Theatre, actor Michael Ingersoll, who plays the role of Nick Massi, will have sung “Sherry” well over 1,200 times.

That statistic (which includes his pre-Chicago appearances in the national touring company that played San Francisco and Los Angeles), doesn’t even begin to account for all the replacement and understudy rehearsals, or the many special event and publicity appearances he has participated in as the only member of “the group” who has been with the Chicago production from the start. So no matter how hooked one might be on the irresistible harmonies of “Sherry” — that hit song by Bob Gaudio that put Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons at the top of the pop charts in 1962 — you might suspect Ingersoll would never want to sing it or hear it again in his life.

Yet that is not the case at all. The actor considers himself one of the luckiest people around.

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On Monday, July 21, Jersey Boys star Michael Ingersoll delighted and awed the sold-out crowd in an exclusive cabaret show, The Long Road Home. His charm, personality, charisma and wit were evident on stage as Michael sang his favorite songs and entertained his adoring audience with stories of his life as a professional actor.

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Over the years, Wrigley Field has seen its share of earplug-worthy crooning during the seventh-inning stretch- from Mike Ditka’s infamous shouted rendition to this year’s off-key performance by NFL quarterback Tony Romo.

However, this season Cubs fans were treated to one of the most beautifully harmonized versions of Take Me Out To The Ball Game when a quartet of Broadway stars from the Tony-winning musical Jersey Boys visited Wrigley Field on May 12.

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The phenomenon that is Jersey Boys has generated incredible fan interest in every aspect of the show. What has been most interesting to me is the accessibility of the Jersey Boys stars. From Broadway to San Francisco—and all “those places you fly over on your way to LA”—people line up at the stage door to meet these talented actors. Perhaps because they weren’t—for the most part—famous until landing these career-making roles, the major players in this show are amazingly generous with their time.

These young men and women will sometimes stand for 30 minutes or more signing autographs, answering questions and posing for pictures with their adoring fans. One of the most generous is Michael Ingersoll from the Chicago cast. Michael was cast as Nick Massi in 2006 and performed with the National Tour when it opened in San Francisco in December. He stayed with the company when it went to Los Angeles, but over the summer returned to the Bay Area to join the cast that moved to Chicago in October. Lucky guy—he and his wife live in Chicago, so he gets to go home every night after the show.

Talk to anyone who’s met Michael, and they’ll tell you how nice he is. Grounded is the word I like. He knows where he’s been, and he’s enjoying where he’s at because as he puts it, “there are no guarantees when you reach a certain point that you’ll stay there…” Michael isn’t just a very talented and hard-working actor. He’s a young man with his head firmly attached to his shoulders. He’s someone you’d be proud to call a son, a brother or a friend. I’m happy to give Jersey Boys Blog readers a glimpse into the world of Michael Ingersoll.

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Michael Ingersoll, who stars as Nick Massi, one of the Jersey Boys, now playing to enthusiastic audiences at Chicago’s LaSalle Bank Theatre, calls Chicago home. Getting here took perseverance, discipline and, like everything in life, a little luck. This story is also a love story, because Michael is now married to Angela Ingersoll, a talented actress in her own right, having received a 2006 Jeff Award nomination for her role as Martha in The Secret Garden at Porchlight Music Theatre in Chicago.

Here’s what happened: After graduating from Miami University, Michael auditioned for an internship with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Theatre. So did Angela Groeschen. “The auditions were rigorous,” says Brian Isaac Philips, Artistic Director of the theatre. “Actors from all over the U.S. auditioned, doing monologues, scenes from Shakespeare, and singing as well. Our top choices were Michael and Angela. They were outstanding.”

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It’s a story of rags to riches, of victory for the underdog, a Rocky for the ages. The hit musical Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Italian boys from the wrong side of the tracks who chose a life of song over lives of crime, and it has already steamrolled its way into the hearts of audiences in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Now it’s in Chicago for, at the very least, a six-month engagement. In fact, more than seven months before Jersey Boys even hit the Windy City stage last month, its run was extended by 14 weeks – the show has garnered that much buzz since it came away with a bunch of 2006 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Director. “The response has been mind-blowing,” says co-writer Rick Elice.

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Michael Ingersoll admits that back in 2006 he’d never heard of Jersey Boys. But that all changed for the young actor after a star turn in Pegasus Players’ production of Jonathan Larson’s tick, tick … BOOM! In her review of the Pegasus show, Sun-Times theater critic Hedy Weiss wrote that she was ready to slip the talented singer-actor a note that read: “Start learning the score for Jersey Boys; you might have a real shot at that hit show’s national tour.” That comment got the ball rolling for Ingersoll, who has been on the West Coast since last December performing in the musical.

A native of Dayton, Ohio, Ingersoll, 29, worked at theaters in Cincinnati (where he met his actress wife, Angela) and Memphis before moving to Chicago; the Pegasus show was his first big local break. He recently took some time to answer a few questions about the musical that changed his life.

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Michael Ingersoll, 29, wasn’t born and bred on Broadway. A native of Dayton, Ohio, he didn’t spend his childhood going on casting calls and auditions. Instead, Ingersoll was bitten by a late-onset acting bug during his senior year of high school, while doing a stint in an equity-caliber production of Me & My Girl. “That experience opened my eyes,” he says. It prompted him to major in acting at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and he’s never looked back.

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Jersey Boys, the Broadway musical telling the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is sure to be this season’s hot ticket. Directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Des McAnuff, the show follows a group of blue-collar boys as they become the biggest American pop pop stars of all time. With a jam-packed performance schedule from October to early April, the best place to catch Michael Ingersoll will be on stage, in his role as Nick Massi. We caught up with the talented Chicagoan to learn how he would spend a rare free day in the city.

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On the first night of the Los Angeles engagement of Jersey Boys, the touring company of the 2006 Tony Award-winning musical, the courtyard outside the Ahmanson Theatre is flooded with people an hour before show time. Asked if any tickets have been returned for that night, a woman at the box office shakes her head and replies, “Not a one. I’ve worked here for 20 years and never seen anything like this.”

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Earlier this month, I sat down with the stars of San Francisco’s Jersey Boys, the quartet driving audiences into a frenzy every night as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Here are some tidbits that didn’t make it into the newspaper. If this were a DVD, we’d be in the “special features” section right now.

The players are (pictured above from left) Deven May (Tommy DeVito), Michael Ingersoll (Nick Massi), Christopher Kale Jones (Frankie Valli) and Erich Bergen (Bob Gaudio), and we’re in a suite at the Hotel Diva, across Geary Street from the Curran Theatre, where Jersey Boys is running seemingly until it’s not running anymore.

A discussion about how audience members react with such personal connections to the Four Seasons music leads. Bergen to say: “My dad listened to this music. His style was more Motown and doo-wop, but the Four Seasons were definitely in there, and I heard it growing up. That’s one of the reasons I was so excited to be doing this show rather than an old traditional book musical. May interjects: “Isn’t this a book musical? I don’t know…”

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When Kettering native Ingersoll took on the starring role in a recent Chicago production of Tick, Tick… Boom!, Chicago Sun-Times critic Hedy Weiss offered a bit of sound advice that would inadvertently catapult his career. In praise of Ingersoll’s performance, Weiss believed he should “start learning the score for Jersey Boys,” because he “might have a real shot at the hit show’s national tour.”

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It’s hard to imagine actors with this much talent attributing their success to “perseverance” and “discipline.” But that’s exactly what Michael and Angela Ingersoll say when asked by Metropolis Insider. The husband and wife teamed up with actors Julie Burt and Steve O’Connell in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Metropolis’ opening production of the 2006/2007 season. This was the second time in these roles for the Ingersolls, both having performed in Love/Perfect at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis. But to become such a successful husband – wife team, they had to become a husband and wife.

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Bat Boy Begins Body Work Year In Advance

There’s nothing like standing naked in front of 200 people to get you to the gym. It was all actor Michael Ingersoll needed to get motivated to work out.

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