On January 15th, 2017, the long-running hit musical Jersey Boys will play its final performance on Broadway after only 11 years and 4,642 performances. Oh, What a Run!
When the show first came to Broadway in the fall of 2005 after a successful out-of-town tryout at the La Jolla Playhouse in California, there wasn’t a whole lot of anticipation for it. Ever since Mamma Mia! became the hit that it was, producers were willing to cash in on it by creating their own jukebox musicals. Yet the shows that came after that such as Good Vibrations, All Shook Up, and Lennon had failed. So a lot of the New York theatre critics went into Jersey Boys expecting to hate it like they did with previous jukebox musicals, but they came out of the August Wilson Theatre pleasantly surprised. Jersey Boys not only became the hit of that season, but many people felt that it broke the mold of the jukebox musical by telling the true story behind the music as opposed to a made up story centered around a music catalogue. It was probably even more evidenced by the fact that it won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2006.
I had the great pleasure of seeing the show on my very first trip to New York on January 13th, 2007 with most of the original cast intact (Tony Award winner John Lloyd Young had the matinee off, so I saw his alternate Michael Longoria in the role of Frankie Valli). It was not only the second show I ever saw on Broadway (the first being Beauty & the Beast for those who’d like to know), but the first show I ever stage doored.
Since then, I was able to see the show twice more on tour. The first in Cleveland back in 2008 (featuring a pre-Book of Mormon star Andrew Rannells as Bob Gaudio) and the second in Durham last year.
A film adaptation was released in 2014 directed by Clint Eastwood and featuring several members of various stage companies (including John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli). While the film did fall about $13,000,000 short of turning a profit and had a very mixed response from both critics and audiences, I myself really liked it.
If it hadn’t been for the success of Jersey Boys, we probably wouldn’t have had other jukebox/biomusicals such as Million Dollar Quartet, Motown, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and On Your Feet!. I also probably would have never gotten into the music of the Four Seasons had it not been for this show.
On the bright side, the August Wilson Theatre shall finally be an option for any producers who have a show they’d like to bring to Broadway. And while Jersey Boys is still out touring on the road, it seems it could be up for licensing soon for schools, community, and/or regional theatres to produce.
If you are planning to be in New York before January 15th, you should definitely see Jersey Boys on Broadway! It not only has one toe-tapping song after another, but also a story that should keep you engaged from beginning to end. Not to mention that Dancing with the Stars alumni Mark Ballas will be entering the company next month as the final Frankie Valli.
When the show first came to Broadway in the fall of 2005 after a successful out-of-town tryout at the La Jolla Playhouse in California, there wasn’t a whole lot of anticipation for it. Ever since Mamma Mia! became the hit that it was, producers were willing to cash in on it by creating their own jukebox musicals. Yet the shows that came after that such as Good Vibrations, All Shook Up, and Lennon had failed. So a lot of the New York theatre critics went into Jersey Boys expecting to hate it like they did with previous jukebox musicals, but they came out of the August Wilson Theatre pleasantly surprised. Jersey Boys not only became the hit of that season, but many people felt that it broke the mold of the jukebox musical by telling the true story behind the music as opposed to a made up story centered around a music catalogue. It was probably even more evidenced by the fact that it won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2006.
I had the great pleasure of seeing the show on my very first trip to New York on January 13th, 2007 with most of the original cast intact (Tony Award winner John Lloyd Young had the matinee off, so I saw his alternate Michael Longoria in the role of Frankie Valli). It was not only the second show I ever saw on Broadway (the first being Beauty & the Beast for those who’d like to know), but the first show I ever stage doored.
Since then, I was able to see the show twice more on tour. The first in Cleveland back in 2008 (featuring a pre-Book of Mormon star Andrew Rannells as Bob Gaudio) and the second in Durham last year.
A film adaptation was released in 2014 directed by Clint Eastwood and featuring several members of various stage companies (including John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli). While the film did fall about $13,000,000 short of turning a profit and had a very mixed response from both critics and audiences, I myself really liked it.
If it hadn’t been for the success of Jersey Boys, we probably wouldn’t have had other jukebox/biomusicals such as Million Dollar Quartet, Motown, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and On Your Feet!. I also probably would have never gotten into the music of the Four Seasons had it not been for this show.
On the bright side, the August Wilson Theatre shall finally be an option for any producers who have a show they’d like to bring to Broadway. And while Jersey Boys is still out touring on the road, it seems it could be up for licensing soon for schools, community, and/or regional theatres to produce.
If you are planning to be in New York before January 15th, you should definitely see Jersey Boys on Broadway! It not only has one toe-tapping song after another, but also a story that should keep you engaged from beginning to end. Not to mention that Dancing with the Stars alumni Mark Ballas will be entering the company next month as the final Frankie Valli.