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Emerson College is presenting this hilarious evening of comedy because it's fun!  Groucho Marx was a true American original, an American Master.  Who could write his life story better than his son?  And Frank Ferrante plays Groucho better than anyone else (click for Frank's bio.) 

Emerson has produced some of America's funniest and most succesful comedians including: 

• Jay Leno (1973)
• Henry Winkler (1967)
• Denis Leary (1979)
• Anthony Clark (1986)
• Steven Wright (1978)
• Andrea Martin (1969)

This production was to be the turning point for the career of four brothers who had been on stage from the time they were children.  Their first names as listed in the program -- Julius, Herbert, Arthur and Leonard -- will give you no clue as to their identity, but the stage names they took on after this production are a dead give-away -- Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo. 

Their mother, a performer who used the stage name Minnie Palmer, organized her boys in their first vaudeville act in 1905.  She later sent Julius out alone with two others to form "The Three Nightingales."  A few years later, the three other boys were sent to join him and the Four Marx Brothers was established.  After they had played the vaudeville circuit for a number of years, they started to add more and more musical numbers to their act.  I'll Say She Is was the first step toward their great career in musical comedy.

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Frank Ferrante as Groucho Marx

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Frank Ferrante as Groucho Marx

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Les Marsden, Frank Ferrante, Faith Prince,
& Rusty Magee

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TERMS:  Web-only discount $3 per ticket, limit 10 per customer, not available on $15 tickets.

Frank Ferrante is an actor, director and playwright described by the New York Times as "the greatest living interpreter of Groucho Marx’s material."  Animal Crackers and A Night at the Opera co-author Morrie Ryskind called him "the only actor aside from Groucho who delivered my lines as they were intended." 

Discovered by Groucho’s son Arthur, Frank originated the off-Broadway title role in Groucho: A Life in Revue (written by Arthur) portraying the comedian from age 15 to 85.  For this role, Frank won 1987’s New York’s Theatre World Award and was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award.  He reprised the role in London’s West End and was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for ‘Comedy Performance of the Year.’  Frank played the Groucho role in the off-Broadway revival of The Cocoanuts and has played Captain Spalding in several productions of Animal Crackers, winning a Connecticut Critics Circle Award for his portrayal at Goodspeed and a Helen Hayes nomination in Washington D.C. at Arena Stage. 

In Boston in 1988, he played the Huntington Theatre in the record-breaking run of Animal Crackers that landed Frank on the cover of American Theatre magazine.  His other regional roles include Max Prince in Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre (a production which Frank also directed); George S. Kaufman in By George (a new one-man play by Frank); Tom in the farce Perfect Wedding; Oscar in The Odd Couple and leads in The Sunshine Boys, Lady in the Dark and Anything Goes.  Frank recently directed M*A*S*H star Jamie Farr in the Kaufman & Hart comedy George Washington Slept Here and revivals of Simon’s The Sunshine Boys, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues. In 1995, he directed and developed the world premiere of the Pulitzer finalist Old Wicked Songs.  In 2001, Frank starred in, directed and produced the national PBS television program Groucho: A Life in Revue.. Frank currently stars as the comic lead in the European cirque Teatro Zinzanni in San Francisco and Seattle and next month returns to the Walnut Street Theatre to direct Broadway Bound. For more information on Frank Ferrante’s Groucho, log on to grouchoworld.com. 

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