Jersey Boys Blog

Frank Rizzo of The Hartford Courant states that you would have thought you were in Newark. A fuggedaboutit attitude and unfuggeddable music have filled New Haven’s Shubert Theater for the past four weeks as the production crew and cast of the national tour of the hit musical “Jersey Boys” prepare for its Los Angeles launch.

Sets were built, crews assembled, banks of computer equipment set up, lighting grids established, a sound system put in place and – in the final week – 17 actors and nine musicians rehearsed.The culmination for local audiences are two “technical run-throughs,” including the final one this afternoon, before the production ships off to California for its run, which begins May 25.

After other Broadway musicals – derisively nicknamed “jukebox musicals” – based on the song catalogs of such pop and rock icons as Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, John Lennon and Elvis Presley famously flopped, what makes a show based on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons resonate with audiences and critics?

According to those affiliated with the show, it’s the little-known and well-crafted story of the ’60s pop quartet of working-class kids – Valli, Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi and songwriter Bob Gaudio – that makes the difference. The backstage story touches on friendship, falsettos, mobsters, the record industry and cultural shifts following the British invasion, interspersed with a steady stream of melodic, harmonic pop hits that elicit audible nostalgic sighs from theatergoers. They include “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Sherry,” “Let’s Hang On (To What We’ve Got),” “Working My Way Back to You,” “Dawn (Go Away),” “Rag Doll” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”

“We knew we had something special when we played La Jolla [Calif.] Playhouse [before the play's Broadway opening],” says Des McAnuff, the Tony Award-winning director of the show. He notes the great affection and enthusiasm that crowds had for “Jersey Boys” from the first performance: “We did even better than when we launched the tour of `Rent.’”

The Playhouse, where McAnuff until recently was artistic director, was a launching pad for many musicals and their tours, such as “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” the revival of “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “The Who’s Tommy” (staged by McAnuff). He says the attraction to “Jersey Boys” comes from the infectious music of the group (“Everyone liked the Four Seasons”) and the musicians’ dramatic story.

Despite the word of mouth, media buzz and critical raves when it opened on Broadway in 2005, Deven May who starred in the off-Broadway musical “Bat Boy” and Goodspeed’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” says he was a little skeptical – until he went to the show after it opened in New York.

But after he saw what McAnuff and book writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice did with the show, he was a believer.

“As Des points out, `this is a play with music’ – about a story that no one really knows about,” says May, who plays the group’s bad boy co-founder DeVito. “At the time of the Four Seasons, the press was not what it is now, like when someone sneezes and a bra strap falls off and it’s all over the news. The show takes you back to what we think of as a simpler time, but it also shows you it wasn’t as simple as you thought.”

“The writing is so in-depth, it’s like `The Sopranos’ in a way,” says Rick Faugno, who dazzled with his dancing in Goodspeed’s “Babes in Arms” and “The Boy Friend” and who plays Valli two performances a week on the tour. (He will play the part in today’s run-though.) “They don’t just rely on the great tunes. This show could have done that, but that’s not really what floats the boat.”

Christopher Kale Jones, who plays Valli for the other performances, says Valli is gracious about how his life and the group’s career is portrayed in the show.

“He accepts that the show, while it is a reflection of his life, is not an exact thing, and he allows the show’s creative team to take the lead in terms of what is making the show successful.”

May recalls a moment at his first performance in San Francisco: “After looking down at the audience to the left and saw a man in his early 60s sitting there with his arms crossed, and he was crying. It took him back to a different place, and one that had such fond memories.”

John Fisher, executive director of the Shubert, is thrilled that Broadway’s latest blockbuster set down at his theater for a month – even if it won’t be here for a traditional run. Fisher says the prepping production pumped more than a $500,000 into the local economy. But it took some juggling of schedules and backstage deals.

The theater originally booked the tour of “Legends,” starring Joan Collins and Linda Evans, to run last week. But the comedy, which also played Hartford’s Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in November, received devastating reviews, and sales were weak around the country.

Fisher seized the chance to book the theater for a long stay by the “Jersey” crew. (“Jersey Boys” producers, he says, dealt with expenses of displacing the “Legends” engagement, which was the final stop of tour.)

The two “Jersey Boys” shows at the Shubert have full sets, staging, lighting, sound and musical numbers – but not complete costumes. Because it is a technical run-through, there may be live cues from the show’s director and the show may stop for technical reasons, though production supervisor Richard Hester says “barring a train wreck” the intent is to have a smooth, seamless and unstoppable run-through.

JERSEY BOYS will have its last technical run-through today at 2 p.m. at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. A few of tickets ($50 to $70) may be available. Tickets and information: 800-228-6622 or www.shubert.com. To check out the music and the show, see www.jerseyboystour.com.