It was in October 1995 that Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx, performed a stage concert at The Center for Visual and Performing Arts in Munster.
Earlier this year, Bill Marx, now 87 years old, spent his January birthday weekend attending his pal Frank Ferrante’s live stage show tribute to Groucho Marx during a West Coast engagement and with Groucho’s grandson Andy Marx also attending as another invited VIP.
Next month, Ferrante is going to follow in Bill Marx’s famed footsteps and make his own Munster debut on stage at The Center for Visual and Performing Arts while celebrating his half century mark behind the famed painted-on mustache of the late great Groucho.
Ferrante makes his Northwest Indiana debut on the Theatre at the Center stage at The Center for Visual and Performing Arts, 1040 Ridge Road in Munster for a weekend of matinee performances, Oct. 5 and 6 with show times 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday when he presents his “An Afternoon with Groucho.”
Tickets are $40 and Ferrante shares the stage with a grand piano, his accompanist and a full set featuring vintage décor and antiques. Tickets can be purchased at the box office or by phone 219-836-3255 or www.TheatreAtTheCenter.com.
“I say I officially began performing as Groucho in 1985 with shows and concerts in New York, London and more than 400 cities worldwide,” Ferrante said.
“So the year 2025 next year marks 40 years with the cigar and the greasepaint. But when I really go back and look at old photos, I was already dressing up as Groucho even before 1985.”
He found added worldwide audiences and fans following his New York and London show runs after he starred in the televised PBS performances in the title role in “Groucho: A Life in Revue,” which received not only acclaim from critics and audiences but favorable attention from the Marx family in spring 2022.
Ferrante was first discovered by Groucho Marx’s playwright son Arthur Marx while still a 22-year-old drama student at USC performing his newly crafted “An Evening With Groucho” for his 1985 senior project. It was Arthur Marx who subsequently cast Frank to portray Groucho Marx for the heralded 1986-87 production of Arthur’s “Groucho: A Life in Revue” that played Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre for 254 performances.
Even at the young age of 23, Ferrante was already creating a career portraying legendary Groucho and able to master his impersonation of the comedy great represented as a teen at age 15 to his death at age 75.
Morrie Ryskind, who co-wrote the Marx Brothers classic films “Animal Crackers” and “A Night at the Opera,” attended Ferrante’s USC show and later said: “Frank is the only actor aside from Groucho who delivered my lines as they were intended.”
Ferrante is one of the busiest touring performers in theater today with more than 3,000 performances as Groucho internationally in over 500 cities, and ranking himself as “a new vaudevillian.” Onstage, he has co-starred with Tony Award winners Faith Prince, Liliane Montevecchi and Kristin Chenoweth, the latter who received her Actor’s Equity card in a production of “Animal Crackers” in which Ferrante headlined.
Last month, Ferrante wrote to me after I published a column about the Munster 2014 stage world premiere of “The Beverly Hillbillies – The Musical” and referenced the stage treatment was created by the late Tony-nominated writer David Rogers, who died in 2013, with some portions completed by his daughter Amanda Rogers, all matched with music by award-winning composer Gregg Opelka.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware but David Rogers was my former father-in-law and Amanda Rogers, my former wife and mother to my two kids. Nice piece today! Looking forward to seeing you soon,” Ferrante wrote.
Ferrante continued to share his former mother-in-law, the widow of David Rogers, died earlier this summer at age 97 on July 9 at her home in Westport, Connecticut.
June Walker Rogers was a singer, dancer and comedian who performed on Broadway and television and wrote several musicals and a book about how to survive in show business.
During the course of her career, she shared billing with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Prima, Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield, always seen as a platinum blond. On Broadway in 1959 she worked with Bert Lahr and Dick Van Dyke in “The Girls Against the Boys” and starred in a run of “Guys & Dolls” with Tony Bennett and in “Little Me” with Orson Bean.
On television, she appeared on programs hosted by Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Jackie Gleason and Ed Sullivan, who brought her to perform at the White House for Presidents Truman and Eisenhower.
“She was a character and ‘Nana’ to my two kids,” Ferrante said.
“And though we weren’t particularly close due to circumstances, I was pleased to see her have a tribute written up in The Hollywood Reporter. From one performer to another, I understand the joy and struggle. Curtain.”
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@comhs.org.
