Jersey Boys Blog

Recorded May 8, 2008 on MORE KVVU TV, Las Vegas.

Visit Vegas Happens Here for a sensational review, photos, and a video from last Saturday night’s Jersey Boys Opening Night!

Do you want to win JERSEY BOYS tickets? Here’s your chance! Call (206) 424-4737 by 5/19 and say in less than 2 minutes why YOU should see JB in Vegas!

Visit the Vegas Happens Here to listen to a terrific interview with the legendary Bob Gaudio, and the actor who plays him in Jersey Boys in Vegas–Erich Bergen!!

Steve Friess of LasVegasWeekly.com notes that Frankie Valli got some Vegas vindication at last weekend’s premiere of Jersey Boys.

It is hard to believe now, especially after the weekend that just was, that only a few years ago Frankie Valli walked out during a three-week contract at the Luxor and was declared by at least one entertainment writer to have essentially ended his association with Las Vegas once and for all. Hard, that is, because on Saturday the town stood up and cheered as the pipsqueak Italian from New Jersey with the priceless falsetto blew out candles at one of the city’s most elaborate and expensive birthday parties in recent memory.

Friess talks to Valli about the return of The Four Seasons to the forefront of the pop-culture scene thanks to Jersey Boys; the rivalry between the Seasons and the Beatles; Valli’s fondness for the old Vegas; and some other interesting insights from the pop icon.

Elysa Gardner of USA TODAY asks: How hot is Jersey Boys, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical tracing the lives and careers of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons? After launching a national tour and productions in Chicago and London, it just opened Saturday at a custom-built venue in Las Vegas.

Just as Caesars Palace designed The Colosseum for Celine Dion, The Palazzo, a $1.9 billion, 50-story haven for trendy Vegas visitors — home to Jay Z’s 40/40 Club and the Strip’s first Lamborghini dealership — now has the Jersey Boys Theatre, which will be the hit show’s exclusive home on the West Coast.

Des McAnuff, who introduced Jersey Boys at La Jolla Playhouse in California, is hopeful the musical will survive and thrive in Sin City. “It’s demonstrated that it has very broad appeal. I think that has to do with the fast-paced story, which has a combination of ingredients: immigrants and family, and rock ‘n’ roll and the Mafia, which are kind of our mythology in America.”

Visit USA Today for the entire article, which includes additional thoughts about Jersey Boys in Vegas from Bob Gaudio and Frankie Valli.

By Audrey Rockman, Jersey Boys Blog Special Correspondent

In the Four Seasons tradition, the big SPRING Four Seasons/JB bus tour is just around the corner- on May 25. With memories of the successful, inaugural tour this WINTER, I’ve named this one- The Memorial Day Memory Tour and final plans are in place. The adventure will begin in Union- just like the name of the group that we’re endeavoring to learn more about. Everyone will meet at Yesterday’s Treasures on Stuyvesant Avenue (transportation from the train station will be facilitated) at 10:30 am Sunday morning.

The agenda will start out with a bang as we visit and drive past almost a dozen sights in the Belleville/ Bloomfield/ Newark neighborhood. We’ll have lunch with ‘neighborhood’ ambiance at the famous Dickie Dee’s and drinks at the Belmont Tavern, before driving past five former homes of the Seasons members, as well as other haunts and locations like the first place Tommy brought Frankie up on stage. After the many sights in that area, it’s on to some northern Gaudio country in Bergenfield (while seeing photos of the Seasons’ homes just off the beaten path). Read the rest of this entry »

Ellen Sterling of BroadwayWorld.com states that it has finally happened. A hit Broadway musical — a Tony Award-winner — has arrived in Las Vegas and it is the closest thing to both a Broadway experience and a genuine hit Broadway show this city has ever seen.

But, as of tonight, we have Jersey Boys — a full-length, absorbing show with wonderful music, terrifically clever sets and excellent performances. We couldn’t ask for more.

The performances are all so strong that you actually believe you are, first, watching Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and, second, that you didn’t walk into the theater knowing anything about them. You cheer their victories, feel saddened by their sadness and — as if you’d never heard it before — love their music. And, when you think of how familiar the group and their music is to generations of Americans, you have to know how great the accomplishment of these four performers — and, for that matter, the entire cast — is.

Jersey Boys stayed strong last week at the Broadway box office. For the week ending May 4, 2008, the show grossed $1,159,358 and also had the highest attendance of any show on Broadway–with a 100.2% attendance rate!

The 36 shows on the boards grossed $20,335,690 for the week ending 5/4/08, down over 9% from the previous week.

Below are the Top 10 Grosses from BroadwayWorld.com for the week ending May 4, 2008.

1. Wicked $1,439,333
2. The Lion King $1,229,650
3. Jersey Boys $1,159,358
4. Mama Mia! $962,416
5. The Little Mermaid $926,863
6. Mary Poppins $849,175
7. Spamalot $842,570
8. The Phantom of the Opera $836,268
9. Gypsy $750,482
10. South Pacific $748,618

CelebrityNews24-7 has posted their recent Q&A with Bob Gaudio–the man who wrote most of The Four Seasons hits, co-founded the group, and sang on stage as part of the group until the early 1970s. Here’s a preview of the interview:

RL: What is the magic and the lasting appeal of the Four Seasons as the Jersey Boys? Why now 40-45 years later is it part of an era that’s bigger now than it was back then?

BG: That is a difficult one to answer especially for me. This is the first time that I have been able to be an audience participant, to sit in the audience and feel what they must have felt during that era of the sixties and the seventies. I have to credit the writing and direction of Des, Marshall and Rick. It is so well put together that I think it would stand up even if the songs weren’t that popular. I think it is just the show is so well done otherwise it is just a bunch of familiar songs.

RL: Frankie continued on and was the front face of the Four Seasons.
You had driven the bus, you created the bus, you built the bus and yet you are not anywhere near as well known as he is still to this day. Does that irk you, do you laugh about it?

BG: It is chosen place to be for me. I don’t know if I was side by side with him in the performance dept. if things that were accomplished could have been accomplished. There is an outside view that I have always had of our partnership. The 45 years of handshake. I think it was an important thing that I could look in and be a lot more objective. I was not caught up in the limelight. I still feel that way today. I am thrilled. I’m certainly a lot more recognizable now, but not to the point where it is hindering.

Joe Brown of the Las Vegas Sun states that Jersey Boys provides a true theater experience. It’s the first show at the Palazzo, and it fits neatly in its custom-built theater with a retro-looking lobby and bars. There are a few Broadway-style touches: the performers’ names are posted in the lobby, there’s a real Playbill, and — a rarity in Vegas — an eight-minute intermission.

The show might be nicknamed “Dreamboys” — much like “Dreamgirls,” it’s a zippy trip through the four-decade rise and rise and fall and rise of a classic pop group. Funny, sentimental, and most of all fast…But the show devotes tender loving care to the music, and that’s what it’s all about.

According to Brown, Jersey Boys has the snap and crackle of a perfect pop song. If this show doesn’t make it in Las Vegas, it’s hard to imagine what could.

John Altieri touched so many people in his short life–family, friends, many Jersey Boys’ fans, and his many colleagues. Along with Erich Bergen’s moving tribute, fellow castmates Eric Gutman and Taylor Sternberg have honored John with very touching words and stories on their blogs.

To All Jersey Boys Friends, Family and Fans…

This weekend was very odd. It was for everyone, one of the most amazing things we could ever be a part of. The opening of Jersey Boys in Las Vegas. Every cast member from every company, every one of our parents, every reviewer who ever “got” the show, every fanatical fan, and all the writers and creative team members were responsible for getting the show to this point. It was, for me anyway, a moment that I hadn’t had since the opening of San Francisco, back in December of 2006. For those who weren’t there this weekend, it was one of the craziest parties I had ever been to. Somehow, in Vegas, things that you just imagine happening, actually happen. There we were on the dancefloor, with four 50’s style microphones, singing Happy Birthday to Frankie Valli, turning around, watching a video montage, then watching the entire screen drop down to reveal 2 dozen go go dancers on a giant stage right out of that scene in Sweet Charity. Hell, if Jersey Boys doesn’t end up working in Las Vegas, you could just run that party every night.

All that being said, there was of course a cloud hanging over our heads regarding the health of our dear friend, John Altieri. The best thing about John was that there was not a selfish bone in his body, something that I said about him even before he got sick. He continued to live like that right until the end, by waiting to leave us until the morning after the opening night party. That was John. Making sure people had fun. I cannot even tell you the amount of times this man made me laugh. While John and I were part of a family on the road, we got closest at the end of our run on tour, in Seattle. We shared a dressing room, and we both decided to go to Vegas together. He was so excited about coming out here and starting something new. I was so excited to come out here with him and share this experience with a friend who had done this with me before. He was going to be starting training as a Yoga teacher, something that I was so excited about as well, because he told me he was going to get me off my ass and in to a Yoga class. I cant even tell you the amount of money I spent on Yoga clothing getting ready for that. Read the rest of this entry »

More critical acclaim for the Jersey Boys in Las Vegas! Here’s the latest:

From the Toronto Star: The Las Vegas premiere of Jersey Boys at the elegant new Palazzo Hotel was the cheering, stomping, hats-in-the-air triumph everybody hoped it would be, largely thanks to the efforts of three Canadians: Des McAnuff, Sergio Trujillo and Jeremy Kushnier.

Sure, the show still moves “like a joyride in a stolen Cadillac,” as I (Richard Ouzounian) described the original production, but repeated viewings reveal that this is a solid story about love, loss, success and compromise with enough dramatic meat to send any serious theatre fan home happy.

Los Angeles Times: “Jersey Boys,” the musical biography of Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons, opened Saturday at the new Palazzo Resort-Hotel-Casino, and Vegas finally has a Broadway show that fits right in with the flashy sensibility of the place…And the best thing about this version of “Jersey Boys” is the way it captures a group of Italian American kids’ slow, then suddenly meteoric, ascent out of obscurity.

Besides, it’s all so stylishly packaged, with a video-enhanced scenic design throughout that contributes to the production’s visual sleekness. From costumes to lighting, the aesthetic mix of urban blight and showbiz razzle-dazzle is mesmerizing.

Joey Flores has created a very moving tribute to John Altieri.

Kate Burton with John Altieri (Photo by James Sims at BroadwayWorld.com)

We are very sad to report that Jersey Boys national tour cast member/Vegas cast member John Altieri has passed away.

John, who played Bob Crewe (and many other roles) so wonderfully on the JB national tour, and was scheduled to play the same role at The Palazzo, passed away Sunday, May 4. Watching John take on the role of Crewe in both San Francisco and Los Angeles was truly one of the most memorable parts of the evening–with the audience’s nonstop laughter and applause following some of Crewe’s most hilarious lines. Off-stage, I will always remember meeting John for the first time at the stage door, back in SF in December 2006, as he thanked us for creating the blog and for supporting the cast. At the Opening Night party in Los Angeles, John was once again so gracious and welcoming, as we congratulated him on his performance. John Altieri was a truly kind, extraordinarily talented, funny, and appreciative gentleman who will be greatly missed.

Our thoughts and prayers are with John Altieri’s family, friends, and colleagues during this very difficult time.

Check out The Strip Podcast for photo coverage and a video of last night’s magnificent Jersey Boys Vegas Opening Night festivities.

On Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs blog, he has posted a review of Jersey Boys’ Opening Night at The Palazzo. Jones raves about the cast, the show (that has not been “Vegas-ized”), the book, the choreography, that is “as smooth and sexy as ever”, and the nine-piece band that sounds sharp.

Jones states, “As beautifully and as expertly as this show is put together, and with so many great songs and performances, Jersey Boys is mighty satisfying and sets a new standard for musical theater in Las Vegas.”

Visit Jones’ Theater Dogs blog for the full review and for extensive coverage and photos of last night’s Jersey Boys’ opening night bash.

Photos courtesy of Audrey Rockman.

Here are the latest updates from JERSEY BOYS on Broadway:

After originating the role of Lorraine (and so many other roles) in Jersey Boys, the incredibly talented Erica Piccininni will be playing her final Jersey Boys performance today. All the best wishes to Erica and her husband in their future endeavors as they begin their new journey in California!

Swing cast member Heather Ferguson, who has been with the cast since Jersey Boys began back in the fall of 2005, will take over the role of Lorraine and the many other characters. We wish the always-amazing Heather all the best as she officially takes on her new roles and are looking forward to seeing her on stage soon! Congratulations, Heather!

Travis Cloer will be going on as Frankie Valli next Saturday night–May 10 at 8:00PM!

Photo by Jeff Scheid.

Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review-Journal gives Jersey Boys an “A”! Here’s a portion of what Weatherford had to say about the new hit in Vegas!

Early on in “Jersey Boys,” there’s a shout-out to New Jersey and a built-in pause that gives home-staters an anticipated chance to hoot and holler.

In the second act, there’s a plot turn that brings up Las Vegas, and only the faintest snicker of reaction to the home turf of the Palazzo’s new production.

Why? By then, the audience is deeply caught up in the drama of a tense scene. You read that right: the drama of a tense scene, in a Broadway musical on a Las Vegas stage.

It might stand out more on the Strip, but the absorbing story that propels this musical biography of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons has surprised audiences around the country. Those who expect perhaps a “Forever Plaid”-style revue get a crackling, cinematic staging of a saga so messy it can only be true.

Visit Las Vegas Review-Journal for the full review.