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Music and lyrics by: Bob Gaudio
Lyrics by: Bob Crewe
Book by: Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice
Directed by: Des McAnuff
Synopsis: Based on the life story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons: Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi. The musical chronicles the lives of a group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks who became one of the biggest American pop music sensations of all time. They wrote their own songs, invented their own sounds and sold 175 million records worldwide – all before they were thirty.
NEW YORK TIMES:
" A rush of vertigo, pleasurable but a little scary, descends around the middle of the second act of "Jersey Boys," the shrink-wrapped musical biography of the pop group the Four Seasons...the real thrill, at least for those who want something more than recycled chart toppers and a story line poured from a can, is that Mr. Young has crossed the line from exact impersonation into something more compelling."
Read the whole review HERE.
USA TODAY:
"But even when commerce trumps creativity, creative folks can benefit. That's the happy lesson of Jersey Boys (* * * out of four), the flawed but unexpectedly winning homage to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons"
Read the whole review HERE.
VILLAGE VOICE:
"But we've seen it all before, and Des McAnuff's production, with most of its numbers delivered by the four stand-ins lined up downstage concertizing, doesn't make it seem any more exciting than the last 86 times around. The four good actors who play the roles are so non–Italian American– looking that they might as well be doing Forever Plaid, and though they blend nicely, the sound design is so metallic that John Lloyd Young's falsetto, as Frankie, has an uncomfortable ring of Alvin and the Chipmunks; the real Frankie had a riper, rounder, choirboy tone. For those who crave a wallow in the nostalgia at the end of the tunnel, Jersey Boys does no harm; it's a painless, if low-octane, evening."
Read the whole review HERE.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
"This latest example of the burgeoning jukebox musical genre eschews the common method of shoehorning pop songs into a contrived plot. Instead, it relates the rags-to-riches story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, taking care along the way to provide pitch-perfect versions of their many chart-topping hits. Unfortunately, the group's story is not particularly interesting...As depicted in Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice's book, this generic tale of Jersey boys making good, breaking up and making up becomes an accumulation of incidents that don't add up to a particularly interesting tale. "
Read the whole review HERE.
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