How did four blue-collar kids become one of the greatest successes in pop music history? Find out at Broadway's runaway smash-hit, Jersey Boys. The Tony Award-winning Best Musical of the 2006 takes you up the charts, across the country and behind the music of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.
As Clive Barnes in the New York Post says, 'It's just too good to be true.' Discover the secret of a 40-year friendship: four blue-collar kids working their way from the streets of Newark to the heights of stardom. And experience electrifying performances of the golden greats that took these guys all the way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 'Sherry,' 'Big Girls Don't Cry,' 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You,' 'Dawn,' 'My Eyes Adored You,' and more. The New York Times says, 'The crowd goes wild!'
Now a Major Motion Picture! Jersey Boys is directed by Des McAnuff, with book by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice , music by Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob Crewe.
O.K, so the book is clunky, the backstory is emotionally skeletal and the structure sticks to a generic 'VH1 Behind the Music' model, but glance around the newly rechristened August Wilson Theater during the songs in 'Jersey Boys' at the middle-age women dancing in their seats while their husbands' heads bop to the music and it's clear something is connecting. Then go dive in among the leopard-print outfits and thick 'Sopranos' accents in the lobby at intermission and it becomes even clearer. If this musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons can reach its core audience of baby boomers and partisan home-staters, it could become a sizable hit.
In a year in which one pop-songbook show after another has thudded and died, 'Jersey Boys,' a shrink-wrapped musical biography of the pop group the Four Seasons, passes as silver instead of as the chrome-plated jukebox that it is. Unlike the recent Broadway flops, this show has the advantage of featuring singers that actually sound like the singers they are portraying and a technology-enhanced band that approximates the original sound of their music. Scriptwriters Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice provide some likably sassy dialogue as they chart the evolution of their main characters from street kids in the urban wastelands of New Jersey to pop gods enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But while 'Jersey Boys' is based on fact, it rarely leaps over the cliches of a regulation grit-to-glamour blueprint.
2004 | San Diego, CA (Regional) |
Regional Premiere San Diego, CA (Regional) |
2005 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2006 | US Tour |
1st National Tour US Tour |
2007 | Chicago |
Chicago Production Chicago |
2008 | West End |
Original London Production West End |
2008 | Las Vegas |
Las Vegas Production Las Vegas |
2008 | Toronto |
Toronto Production Toronto |
2021 | West End |
West End |
2021 | West End |
West End |
2021 | West End |
West End |
2021 | West End |
London Production West End |
2021 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Revival Off-Broadway |
2021 | US Tour |
U.S. Tour US Tour |
2024 | US Tour |
US Tour US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2006 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Production of a Musical | 0 |
2006 | The Hewes Awards | Lighting Design | Howell Binkley |
2006 | Theatre World Awards | Performance | John Lloyd Young |
2006 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical | Christian Hoff |
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