October 20, 2013
Jersey Boys musical is currently performing at Uihlein Hall Marcus Center For The Performing Arts in Milwaukee, WI through October 27, 2013.
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Jersey Boys sings a definitively American tune – Reviewed BY Mike Fischer, Special to the Journal Sentinel
Late in “Jersey Boys,” the musical about the Four Seasons now back at the Marcus Center, Frankie Valli sums up his life by telling us he’s “still chasing the music, trying to get home.”
The strategic choice to showcase Valli’s disconnect between where he is and the place he’d like to be — in a hard-lived life where music both separates him from home and holds out the promise he’ll get there — tells us a great deal about why “Jersey Boys” has been so successful.
Yes, the harmonies in all those well-loved hits are still amazing and faithfully reproduced here, in a show that satisfies every nostalgic twinge by refusing to tinker with what already works.
Even as Frankie and his mates were reaching for heaven with their distinctive sound, “Jersey Boys” never lets us forget that their personal lives featured jail time, mob ties and broken marriages. Both the songs as well as this show reflect a long string of exits featuring wives, girlfriends and daughters, as well as friends, band mates and business associates.
Hence the decision by book writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice to use the four seasons of the year as a frame, with each band member taking one and telling a different version of their collective story. For despite the timeless sound that the Four Seasons achieved together, their history unfolds in time, ruthlessly marching on and running down.
Appropriately, brash Tommy DeVito goes first as “Spring,” when it’s easiest for us to mask what’s selfish and cruel as youthful capers and headstrong pranks. As Tommy, Nicolas Dromard makes clear that if Tommy is a goofy clown, he’s also a bullying lout who struts like a rooster but never learns to walk like a man.
Bob Gaudio — the missing piece this group sorely needed — handles “Summer.” Jason Kappus plays him as a sunnier version of Frankie himself, traveling the same road from innocence to experience without the accompanying heartbreak. Like the season he embodies, Kappus offers light and humor as an antidote to some of this show’s darker moments.
As bassist Nick Massi, Brandon Andrus captures the color and underlying sadness of autumn. Andrus’ quirky, deadpan comedy is already baked into his role. But Andrus also captures the melancholy that’s just beneath the surface, in a man who knows the end is coming and is too tired to stop it.
“Jersey Boys” is a quintessentially American story about a dream we’re all chasing, one song at a time.
Read the complete review {Via JSOnline.com}
Tickets are selling fast for Jersey Boys performances at Marcus Center. Click here to Buy Jersey Boys Milwaukee WI Tickets NOW!
September 5, 2013
Jersey Boys musical on national tour is currently performing at Walton Arts Center through September 08, 2013.
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The show provided entertainment for a wide variety of music lovers – Reviewed via UATrav.com.
While the average age of the audience was on the greater half of a century, the show provided entertainment for a wide variety of music lovers.
“Jersey Boys” tells the rise and fall of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons with their hits such as “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”
Using a unique narrative twist, each member of the Four Seasons had a season of narration, beginning with spring and Tommy DeVito and ending with winter and Frankie Valli, which also paralleled the beginning and the end of the Four Seasons.
“Jersey Boys” had a proper mix of acting and musical arrangements, and the songs were incorporated in a fashion that allowed them to spur on the plot.
The actors, especially Nick Cosgrove who played Frankie Valli, performed the hits to a tee. One patron who sat on the third row was moved to a standing ovation in the first act.
The action scenes of the play, however, featured very coarse language, which the official website promotes as “authentic Jersey language.”
Sexual humor is also weaved throughout, and there were points at which the jokes fell flat on the Fayetteville crowd, though many younger members of the audience snickered quietly.
The performance ended with a standing ovation, and a few middle-aged women dancing in their seats.
Read the complete review {Via The Arkansas Traveler}
Jersey Boys musical run through September 08, 2013 at Walton Arts Center. Jersey Boys Fayetteville AR Tickets are selling fast online, buy before they go on sale completely.
March 1, 2013
The Jersey Boys Musical national tour currently performing at Hershey Theatre through March 03, 2013. David N. Dunkle reviewed the musical at PennLive.com. Here is the review:
Although billed as a “jukebox musical,” the show offers relatively few complete songs by the Four Seasons, a pop group out of New Jersey that scored a string of memorable hits during the 1960s. Many of their memorable hits are truncated or split into two or more parts in favor of “Rashomon”-style exposition about the group’s undeniably interesting back story.
It’s an interesting tale of a band’s rise to fame, as it evolved from the so-so Four Lovers into the high-flying Four Seasons, but eases into repetitiveness as each original member takes his turn telling his version of the group’s highs and lows. Forward momentum is maintained through a narrational gimmick that divides the show into four “seasons.”
There’s no real depth here, though there are some heartfelt moments, as when Valli mourns the death of his daughter. Many scenes resemble a seres of greetings-from-the-shore postcards featuring the group’s highs and lows. The standout in the early going is Colby Foytik’s charming portrayal of Tommy DeVito, a fast-talking, quick-tempered Jerseyite who was the driving force behind the group’s formation.
All in all, “Jersey Boys” is a mixed bag that sometimes drags a little but manages to charm audiences anyway. The relationships may be thinly sketched at times, and the downsizing of some classic songs is a bit troubling, but when the lights stay on this is an award-winning show with a good heart that always seems to draw a crowd.
Read the complete review {Via PennLive Blog}
Jersey Boys performances in Hershey Pennsylvania through Sunday, March 03, 2013. Buy Jersey Boys Hershey Theatre Tickets Online at discounted prices, SAVE $10 when you spend $350+ by using code AFF$10.
December 29, 2012
The Jersey Boys Musical first national tour currently performing at Fisher Theatre through January 6, 2013. Jenn McKee reviewed the musical at PrideSource.com. Here is the review:
The show tells the story of the 1960s pop sensation Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, consisting of: band founder and leader Tommy DeVito (John Gardiner), who has run-ins with the law and runs up gambling debts; routine-obsessed bass Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda); talented young songwriter Bobby Gaudio (Miles Jacoby); and the young guy with the angelic, high voice that made everyone sit up and take notice, Frankie Valli (Nick Cosgrove).
What you’ll notice within minutes of “Jersey Boys” is what capable hands you’re in, in terms of the storytelling. Book writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice masterfully cherry pick salient details from the group’s biography, and not a word or moment is wasted; meanwhile, director Des McAnuff keeps the pace snappy without ever losing clarity, so that even though we’re quickly hopping to different locales in the opening moments while absorbing the necessary exposition, the energy stays high, and the audience stays engaged.
It doesn’t hurt either, of course, that the cast is uniformly outstanding.
Lomenda is hilarious as quirky Nick; Gardiner makes Tommy self-assured and witty, but also low-burn menacing; Jacoby’s Bobby is unabashedly candid, aware of his strengths and weaknesses, and wise beyond his years; and Cosgrove is a knockout, with vocals that soar.
Klara Zieglerova designed “Jersey Boys” steel-girded set, which features a raised bridge across the stage that provides a second level for the play’s action. Jess Goldstein’s costume design helps The Four Seasons come to life more fully on stage, while also, with other characters, hinting at the passage of time. Michael Clark’s Roy Lichtenstein-inspired projections sometimes help establish setting, sometimes just echo the action; and Howell Binkley’s lighting design keeps the audience’s eye where it needs to be as the fast-paced tale unfolds. Finally, Sergio Trujillo’s choreography perfectly captures The Four Seasons’ crisp, synchronized dance moves; it’s a joy to watch.
Interestingly, “Jersey Boys,” in some ways, shouldn’t work as well as it does. When biographical adaptations try to focus on a broad range of time (as “Jersey Boys” does) instead of a specific, pivotal moment, they often feel shapeless, baggy and unsatisfying. And as a rule, I’m not a big fan of the juke box musical – the shows often feel painfully labored and self-conscious. But Brickman and Elice have cracked the code by letting each of the band members tell their side of the story, and incorporating The Four Seasons’ ear-candy music at perfect, and thematically relevant, intervals.
Read the complete review {Via PrideSource.com}
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December 8, 2012
Jersey Boys Musical is currently performing at Orpheum Theatre TN through December 16, 2012. Jon W. Sparks reviewed the musical at CommercialAppeal.com. Here is the review:
“Jersey Boys” is making a return engagement to the Orpheum, bringing the memorable tunes of The Four Seasons and enough sharp writing and storytelling to make the production more than a collection of hits.
Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice wrote the book, and their approach and style make all the difference. They found the story of the rise, peak and breakup of the group to be compelling and they gave it a Rashomon-like narrative, with each of the four members telling their own version of the tale.
The result is a story arc with changing perceptions, but with plenty of the songs that to this day have that pure pop appeal; the group has sold 175 million records, after all. For a production with so many songs, however, there is a lot of dialogue, and it is as catchy as the tunes.
The performers are fine, conveying plenty of energy and wit. The arrangements are carefully re-created from the original and not “Broadwayed up,” as Elice puts it, so what you hear is what you heard on the radio back in the day. The singing reminds us of the groups’ vocals but doesn’t quite replicate them, and sometimes the punch is missing.
And while the music is pleasantly pop and OK for any ears, be advised that the language used by those boys from New Jersey gets pretty rough. A warning in the lobby advises that “Flashing strobe lights, loud gunfire and authentic, profane, Jersey vocabulary are special effects used in this production …”
Read the complete review {Via CommercialAppeal.com}
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December 2, 2012
Jersey Boys Musical in Cincinnati OH and is currently performing at Procter & Gamble Hall (Aronoff Center) through December 09, 2012. Jackie Demaline reviewed the musical at communitypress.cincinnati.com. Here is the review:
There are two things that have made bio musical “Jersey Boys” a mega-hit since it opened on Broadway six years ago.
There are the songs, which pushed The Four Seasons to the top of the charts back in the Sixties – “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Oh, What a Night” and many, many more that sold a ka-zillion records.
The other thing? You couldn’t make this story up.
Broadway in Cincinnati presents the smooth-as-silk, entertaining from start-to-finish first national tour at the Aronoff Center through Dec. 9. If you love Sixties music, this is your show.
If you missed “Jersey Boys” in its sold-out Cincinnati debut a couple of years ago, it’s a bio musical that gets everything right in the telling of the rise and falling apart of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.
Tommy DeVito (John Gardiner), Frankie Valli (Nick Cosgrove), Bob Gaudio ((Miles Jacoby) and Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda) each tell a part of the story from their point of view and it’s compelling stuff, interspersed with solid performances of hits, hits, hits – “My Eyes Adored You,” “Stay,” “Let’s Hang On,” “Rag Doll.”
“Jersey Boys” presents the facts of Four Seasons life: playing bowling alleys, brushes with the mob, endless miles on the road, heavy-duty partying, falling in and out of love.
Read the complete review {Via communitypress.cincinnati.com}
Jersey Boys musical tour will be at Procter & Gamble Hall (Aronoff Center) through December 09, 2012. Buy Jersey Boys Cincinnati OH Tickets Online at discounted prices, SAVE $10 when you spend $350+, Use code AFF$10.
July 4, 2012
Jersey Boys national tour is currently performing at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium and continue through Sunday July 15, 2012. The review of Jersey Boys musical by Louis Hobson at Calgary Sun is presented below:
It’s a big, brassy, crowd-pleaser of a musical about the rags-to-riches story of Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi who, as The Four Seasons, were the chart-topping sensation of the 1960s.
From the nightly standing ovations this musical is receiving at the Jubilee Auditorium, their music is every bit as infectious today as it was when it first made history.
The moment Joseph Leo Bwarie (Valli), Preston Truman Boyd (Gaudio), John Gardiner (DeVito) and Michael Lomenda (Massi) belt out such Four Seasons anthems as Sherry, Walk Like a Man and Big Girls Don’t Cry, you can feel the electric charge that surges through the audience.
It takes almost 40 minutes of the first act for this to happen because it took years for DeVito, Valli and Massi to find Gaudio, who was to write the songs that exploited Valli’s incredible falsetto.
Before that they covered other people’s music, but once Gaudio joined the group, the magic happened for The Four Seasons, as it does again for Jersey Boys.
As far as this Jersey Boys goes, Boyd brings as much magic and electricity to the show as Gaudio brought to the music. He is a mesmerizing quadruple threat of a performer who can act, sing, dance and play keyboard. He gives Jersey Boys the boost it needs and his part of the storyline brings some genuine tension and pathos to the musical.
Then there’s Bwarie. Without a ticking time bomb of a performer like Bwarie you simply can’t have a Jersey Boys. Valli had a distinctive sound and an amazing falsetto and Bwarie goes beyond just replicating it. He doesn’t just sing from his diaphragm and voice box. Bwarie’s sound comes from his heart and soul.
Jersey Boys works a bit like a concert inside a musical. When the quartet sings The Four Seasons’ hits and the audience goes wild, it’s near impossible to tell whether Bwarie, Boyd, Gardiner and Lomenda are accepting the applause as their characters or themselves. Either way, it is a love affair between performers and audience.
Jersey Boys is not the kind of musical you analyze. You just sit back and revel in its flash, glitz and pulsating energy.
Read the complete review {Via CalgarySun.com}
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June 23, 2012
Jersey Boys second national tour is currently performing at Winspear Opera House and continue through Sunday July 15, 2012. Jersey Boys musical reviewed by Mark Lowry at The the Star-Telegram.
On its second national tour stop in Dallas, this time at the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Winspear Opera House, Jersey Boys is still too good to be true. The 2006 Tony Award-winner for Best Musical, which chronicles the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons — and is packed with their unforgettable music — is playing through mid-July in the Lexus Broadway Series.
And there’s good reason to believe that the show will continue packing the houses for its five-week stop here. That’s partially because the show, a jukebox/bio musical, is better put together than any other example of this genre (the book is by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice; music is by Bob Guadio and Bob Crewe, two of the original Four Seasons).
But more to the point, it’s because the music is so impeccably performed by the foursome in this case, not least of which is Brad Weinstock nailing the booming falsetto voice of Valli.
When they start such songs as Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Dawn (Go Away) and Walk Like a Man, the crowd goes wild.
You might be a little confused in the opening number, though, which shows a contemporary French hip-hop version of Oh, What a Night. That’s to set up the idea that the Seasons’ music has transcended time, geography and style. From there, we get a somewhat chronological look at this story, from the formation of the band in the 1960s, to rising and then wild stardom, and, of course, the fall as members are released (some by their own choice), and then it fast-forwards to a performance at the group’s 1990 induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Read the complete review {Via Star-Telegram.com}
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May 7, 2012
Jersey Boys is currently playing on tour in Kansas City, MO and the performances at Music Hall Kansas City continue through May 20, 2012.
Jersey Boys Musical Reviewed by Russ Simmons at WDAF TV – FOX 4 – Here is the review:
The term “jukebox musical” is one that makes some Broadway purists cringe. It often refers to shows with weak or non-existent plots that are thrown together from existing music. They’re usually regarded as the poor stepchild of ‘real’ musicals.
The rousing, well-staged and engaging touring production of “Jersey Boys,” now on stage at Kansas City’s Music Hall, goes a long way to dispel the negative connotations usually associated with jukebox musicals.
“Jersey Boys,” the story of the pop music phenomenon The Four Seasons, might be more accurately described as a “musical docudrama.” It traces the history of the rise and fall of the group that achieved its fame and fortune in the time between the formation of rock and roll in 1950s and the British Invasion of the 1960s.
There’s a reason that The Four Seasons sold over 100 million records over the years. Their catchy songs with sophisticated arrangements and soaring falsetto lead vocals by Frankie Valli are considered pop classics. Their arrangements are faithfully replicated in “The Jersey Boys” by a crack band and talented acting ensemble.
The story unfolds in chronological order divided, appropriately, into four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. A different member of the group narrates each segment.
The group’s ascension to the top of the pop music charts was peppered with felonies, jail sentences, mob associations, affairs and divorces. The show’s amusing book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice provides us a sweeping overview of the conflicts that accompanied their artistic and commercial success.
Parents should be warned that the dialogue is filled with f-bombs and frank sexual dialogue. The Four Seasons may have sounded sweet, but they were closer to being ‘goodfellas’ than they were to choirboys. A movie version would, no doubt, garner an “R” rating.
“Jersey Boys” is an energetic crowd pleaser. As the group asks the audience the musical question “Who Loves You?” at the show’s finale, it’s clear that the affection goes both ways.
Read the complete review {Via fox4kc.com}
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April 12, 2012
Jersey Boys, the musical story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is back in Chicago at the Bank of America Theatre.
Jersey Boys, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi, young blue-collar gentlemen of the Garden State, working their way back to you, have returned to Chicago’s Bank of America Theatre for a nine-week stand.
Jersey Boys, coming on top of the initial Chicago run of a mere two-and-half years. And when you’re running that long in Chicago, where international tourists are thinner on the ground, you’re reaching a pretty hefty percentage of the local population.
So if you were one of the 1.3 million people who saw the theatrical story of Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi during that 2007-10 engagement, and I bet you are, and you are contemplating another go-around with the sweetie who loves you, a big juicy steak on the town, and some bonding time with the big-ticket “Bye Bye Baby” boys, you’ll want to know if the national tour compares sufficiently favorably with the dedicated Chicago company not to let you and yours down.
Joseph Leo Bwarie, the current Frankie, is one of the premiere Frankies of the franchise, for this show, soon to also be a movie, is most certainly now a franchise. Especially when you see Bwarie alongside the apple-cheeked Preston Truman Boyd, who plays Gaudio, you think at first that you’re suddenly watching “Sons of Jersey Boys,” but baby-faced Bwarie is deceptive in the early scenes, because he knows how to show some steel and take command of the show. Bwarie, whose fine performance is enough to merit a return for fans of this show (note that he does not perform matinees), doesn’t rely on tricks so much as, simply put, a beautifully clear and pure voice. I was struck by how many people around me were closing their eyes when he sung, even though he is very easy on the eyes. Not all Frankies have provoked that desire to lose oneself in the vocals.
Other notable performances here include John Gardiner as an especially irritating DeVito, which I intend as a compliment, and Michael Lomenda as an especially strange Massi, ditto. The tempestuous scenes between Valli and his first wife, Mary Delgado (scenes that terrified the creators of this show) pop better here than I’ve ever seen them, thanks to a very shrewd and concise performance from Kara Tremel, a Jersey girl of distinction, even though it’s tough for a girl to get a look-in with this gig.
Read the complete review by Chris Jones, Theater critic {Via WGNRadio.com}
Jersey Boys performances at Bank Of America Theatre (formerly Lasalle Bank Theatre) continue through Sunday June 03, 2012. Buy Jersey Boys Chicago IL Tickets, Get $10 OFF on Orders of $350 or more by using code #SpringSavings at Checkout!
