Jersey Boys Second National Tour Kick start performances at Forrest Theatre from Dec 06, 2011 and play through Jan 14, 2012. When the national touring company of “Jersey Boys” came to Philadelphia’s Forrest Theatre last year, it broke all box office records — more than 140,000 people saw it during its run.
So when the producers launched the second national touring production of “Jersey Boys” they chose Philadelphia as its first stop. The show is now playing at the Forrest Theatre through Jan. 14. “Jersey Boys” tells the story of Frankie Valli and the 1960s pop singing group the Four Seasons
“Philadelphia was an important city in launching the career of the Four Seasons,” says Rick Elice, who wrote the book for “Jersey Boys” with Marshall Brickman. “When the group came to Philadelphia in 1962, the city embraced them so wholeheartedly that their lives were irreversibly changed. They sold more than 120,000 records and they were stars.
“What makes this story so compelling is that this group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American pop music sensations. They wrote their own songs, invented their own sounds and sold 175 million records worldwide — all before they were 30.”
“Jersey Boys” also launched Elice’s career. The show was his first Broadway credit and it won the Tony, Olivier, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Grammy awards for Best Musical. He and Brickman also wrote the book for “The Addams Family,” now playing at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. And Elice wrote the book for last year’s Off Broadway hit, “Peter and the Starcatcher,” a prequel to the story of Peter Pan. Elice is hoping that it will move to a Broadway theater.
When “Jersey Boys” first opened at the LaJolla Playhouse, no one was more surprised at its success than Elice, Brickman and its director Des McAnuff.
“We were shocked when we first did it in LaJolla,” recalls Elice. “On opening night, the audience loved it and this was Beach Boy-territory, not Four Seasons. Marshall and Des said this must be some mistake, but the second night response was the same.”
“Jersey Boys” opened on Broadway in 2005 and became a hit. Today there are six productions of “Jersey Boys” playing worldwide.
“This is a great show,” says Elice. “It has great music and all those Four Seasons hits. It delivers a great story and the audience has a great time. Bob Gaudio and Frankie took what was essentially a low art form and elevated it on to the stage. They did to music what Roy Lichtenstein did for pop art; they took blue collar music to regular people.”
Elice says while the story and the music remain the same, new technology has improved the staging. “We didn’t have LED technology when ‘Jersey Boys’ first opened in 2005. In those days all we had was a single projector to project the slides. The show has now been refitted and its staging and projections are much more dramatic and very high-tech.”
Read the complete story {Via The Morning Call}
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