Le monde des musicals

The story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons – Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi – and how this group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American and International 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. Their songs include 'Sherry', 'Walk Like A Man', 'December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)', 'Big Girls Donít Cry', 'My Eyes Adored You', 'Let'ís Hang On (To What Weíve Got)', 'Bye Bye Baby' 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You', 'Working My Way Back to You', 'Fallen Angel', Rag Doll' and 'Who Loves You'.

Act I
Spring
"Ces soirées-là", a modern pop-rap song that was released in 2000, is performed. Tommy DeVito arrives, introduces himself and explaining how the song is a cover of The Four Seasons' "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)". He offers to tell the story of the band, explaining how he started out with the group "The Variety Trio" with his brother Nick DeVito and friend Nick Massi, eventually discovering teenager Frankie Castelluccio and taking him under his wing, teaching him everything he knows ("The Early Years: A Scrapbook"). During these early years Nick Massi helped train Frankie to sing, Tommy went in and out of prison, Frankie changed his last name to Valli, Tommy and Frankie developed a good relationship with mob boss Gyp DeCarlo, and Frankie fell in love with and married Mary DelGado. Musically, the band was still struggling and kept changing their name and sound but without any dramatic success. One day friend and fellow Jersey boy Joe Pesci comes up to Tommy and says that he knows a singer-songwriter who'd make the perfect fourth for their band: Bob Gaudio.

Summer
Bob Gaudio takes over the narration, telling the audience that no matter what Tommy says, he wasn't plucked from obscurity by him, since he already had a hit single with "Short Shorts". Bob goes with Joe Pesci to see the band perform, and is immediately impressed by Frankie's voice. Bob performs a song he'd just written: "Cry for Me" on piano, which Frankie, Nick Massi and then Tommy joining in with vocals, bass and guitar respectively. They negotiate an agreement, though Tommy is at first skeptical that Bobby (then still a teenager) will be good for the band. The band eventually gets a contract with producer Bob Crewe but only to sing back-up ("Backup Sessions"). Crewe insists that the band has an "identity crisis" and needs to make a firm decision on a name and a sound. The band name themselves after The Four Seasons bowling alley, and Bobby writes them three songs that finally propel them to stardom: "Sherry", "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Walk Like a Man". In the wake of their success, Bob also chalks up a personal first by losing his virginity ("December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)"). The band's success means that they tour a lot more, along the way discovering the girl band The Angels ("My Boyfriend's Back"). Unfortunately, the constant touring strains Frankie's marriage to Mary, and they eventually divorce ("My Eyes Adored You"). The band continues to enjoy chart successes ("Dawn (Go Away)") until after a concert the band is approached by a loan shark out to claim money owed by Tommy ("Walk Like a Man (reprise)").

Act II
Fall
The second act opens with "Big Man in Town". Nick Massi explains that Bob was so focused on the band's musical success and future that he couldn't see that the band had been in trouble for some time. Tommy's been racking up debts, and a forgotten bill during a previous tour lands the band in jail over the weekend, which strains things between Tommy and Bob. Nick observes that Tommy became jealous of Frankie's success and closeness with Bobby, and attempted to seduce Frankie's new girlfriend Lorraine. The two never confronted each other about it, but the old friendship was not what it used to be. When the loan shark approaches the band for the $150,000 owed by Tommy, Frankie goes to Gyp DeCarlo for help despite Tommy's insistence that he doesn't need it ("Beggin'"). The band, Gyp, and the loan shark come to agreement: Tommy is to be "sequestered" in Las Vegas where the mob can keep an eye on him, and the band will willingly cover the debt, along with an additional half a million in unpaid taxes that Tommy kept hidden from the group. At this time, Nick declares that he's tired of everything and wants out ("Stay/Let's Hang On!").

Winter
Frankie takes over narration, explaining that though he owes Tommy a great deal, he's aware that their relationship wasn't ideal, and he never understood why Nick decided to leave. Frankie and Bob find replacements to keep the band a quartet ("Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'Bout Me)") until Bobby announces that he's never been comfortable in the spotlight and that Frankie should be a single, i.e. Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In his personal life, Frankie's relationship with his daughter Francine is strained and he breaks up with girlfriend Lorraine ("Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby, Goodbye)"). Frankie continues to have success thanks to Bobby's songs, and hits jackpot with ("C'mon Marianne") and the almost-never-released ("Can't Take My Eyes Off You") which Bobby fights to get airplay for. Along with the success of "Working My Way Back to You", Frankie and Bobby finally finish paying off Tommy's debts, and Frankie's life is good until his daughter Francine dies from a drug overdose ("Fallen Angel")

Finale
Bob Crewe describes The Four Seasons' 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which reunited the original four members on stage one last time ("Rag Doll"). Each member takes a moment to address the audience in turn, explaining his pride at having been with the band and briefly notes what he did afterwards ("Who Loves You").

Aucun intérêt … A mon avis, qui il est vrai est fort peu partagé.

1 Jersey Boys peut-être considéré comme un juke-box musical autour de la musique de The Four Seasons

Development
After the success of Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story and Mamma Mia!, Bob Gaudio, an original The Four Seasons member, and producer Bob Crewe, sought to make a similar jukebox musical from the discography of The Four Seasons. They hired book writers Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman, and director Des McAnuff. McAnuff suggested creating a show about the band's history, instead of repurposing their songs for an independent story the way ABBA did with Mamma Mia!. Brickman was drawn to the project because: "It's a classic American story. It's rags to riches, and back to rags."
Little was known to the public about the group's history prior to the premiere of the musical, because the magazines of the era didn't write about them much. In their research, Brickman and Elice were surprised to find that the members had prison records, which might have prevented their music from being played if it had been publicized when they were active. According to Gaudio, "Back then, things were a little clean-cut, don't forget, so the idea of our story getting out was horrifying to us." Other bands of the time projected street-tough images, but The Four Seasons cleaned themselves up in order to be palatable for mainstream listeners.

Brickman and Elice also used material from interviews with surviving Four Seasons members Gaudio, Frankie Valli and Tommy DeVito. Brickman noted that each member had their own perspective on what happened during their tenure as a group. Of the three, they approached DeVito last, who told them, "Don't listen to those guys. I'll tell you what really happened." Elice said that getting DeVito version's was a "eureka moment" and the contradiction in their stories ended up being incorporated in the musical for a Rashomon effect. The writers were also contacted by family members of the late mob boss Gyp DeCarlo to ensure that he would be portrayed respectfully.

Although Gaudio was part of the initial development team, he wasn't involved in the creative process during tryouts, and only met the cast once the show had premiered. Gaudio, Valli and DeVito had decided to step back from the show's creative process because they lacked objectivity, and they left it to Brickman, Elice and McAnuff to take the story to the stage. However, Gaudio and Valli still had final say on whether to end the show if they didn't like it.

Productions
Jersey Boys premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse at University of California, San Diego, in an out-of-town tryout on October 5, 2004 and ran through January 16, 2005 Christian Hoff, David Norona, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer played The Four Seasons. At the end of the tryout, Norona, who originated the role of Frankie Valli, had to be replaced because his voice blew out. John Lloyd Young, who had originally auditioned for the role of Tommy DeVito, got the part.

The musical began previews on Broadway on October 4, 2005 and officially opened on November 6, 2005 at the August Wilson Theatre. The cast starred John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli, Christian Hoff as Tommy DeVito, Daniel Reichard as Bob Gaudio, and J. Robert Spencer as Nick Massi. The musical is directed by Des McAnuff, the then-artistic director at La Jolla Playhouse, with choreography by Sergio Trujillo. The Broadway production had 38 previews and is still running. It reached its 3000th performance on February 7, 2013, making it the 18th longest-running show on Broadway.
The first national tour of the musical began on December 10, 2006, at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco and went on to play in 38 cities. Jersey Boys recently played at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia where it broke the box office record 8 times before moving on to a return engagement in Boston.

In May 2007, while the first national tour continued, a second company (including Steve Gouveia from the original Broadway cast as Nick Massi) debuted at the Curran and ended as an open-ended run at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre, beginning on October 5, 2007. The Chicago cast appeared on stage in the 2007 Emmy Awards in a tribute to HBO's The Sopranos. A special holiday return engagement played at the Curran Theatre from November 20 – December 30, 2007, starring Rick Faugno as Frankie Valli, Andrew Rannells as Bob Gaudio, Bryan McElroy as Tommy DeVito and Jeff Leibow as Nick Massi. The majority of this cast became the original Las Vegas cast, which debuted at The Palazzo Hotel on Sunday, May 3, 2009, in the newly-built Jersey Boys Theatre. The show temporarily closed on January 1, 2012 and reopened on March 6, 2012 at Paris Las Vegas.

The musical made its West End debut at London's Prince Edward Theatre in February 2008. The creative team were the same that brought the production to Broadway. Principal cast were Ryan Molloy as Frankie Valli, Stephen Ashfield as Bob Gaudio, Glenn Carter as Tommy DeVito, Stuart Milligan as DeCarlo and Tom Lorcan as Donnie/Knuckles. The production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical.

The Australian production opened at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne on July 4, 2009. Principal cast members were Bobby Fox as Frankie Valli , Stephen Mahy as Bob Gaudio, Scott Johnson as Tommy DeVito and Glaston Toft as Nick Massi. The Melbourne production closed on July 25, 2010 and the Sydney production opened in September 2010 with the same principal cast. The Sydney production closed in 18 December, 2011 and the show opened in Auckland in April 2012, running through June 17, 2012.

Due to the success of the national tour's long stop at Toronto Centre for the Arts in Toronto, Ontario in autumn 2008, a Toronto production opened on December 12, 2008 with a new, mostly Canadian cast that included Jeremy Kushnier and Jenny Lee Stern from the first national tour. This production closed on August 22, 2010, on the show's second anniversary.

An international tour with an all South African cast ran in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands resort from November 23, 2012 to January 27, 2013. The production is scheduled to open in Johannesburg, South Africa at the Teatro at Montecasino from April 3, 2013 and at Artscape Cape Town from June 19, 2013.

Act I
"Ces Soirées-Là (Oh What a Night) - Paris, 2000" – French Rap Star Yannick and Backup Group
"Silhouettes" – Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, Nick DeVito and Frankie Castelluccio
"You're the Apple of My Eye" – Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi and Nick DeVito
"I Can't Give You Anything But Love" – Frankie Castelluccio
"Earth Angel" – Tommy DeVito and Full Company
"Sunday Kind of Love" – Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi and Nick's Date
"My Mother's Eyes" – Frankie Valli
"I Go Ape" – The Four Lovers
"(Who Wears) Short Shorts" – The Royal Teens
"I'm in the Mood for Love" / "Moody's Mood for Love" – Frankie Valli
"Cry for Me" – Bob Gaudio, Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi
"An Angel Cried" – Hal Miller and The Rays
"I Still Care" – Miss Frankie Nolan and The Romans
"Trance" – Billy Dixon and The Topix
"Sherry" – The Four Seasons
"Big Girls Don't Cry" – The Four Seasons
"Walk Like a Man" – The Four Seasons
"December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)" – Bob Gaudio and Full Company
"My Boyfriend's Back" – The Angels
"My Eyes Adored You" – Frankie Valli, Mary Delgado and The Four Seasons
"Dawn (Go Away)" – The Four Seasons
"Walk Like a Man" (reprise) – Full Company

Act II
"Big Man in Town" – The Four Seasons
"Beggin'" – The Four Seasons
"Stay" – Bob Gaudio, Frankie Valli and Nick Massi
"Let's Hang On! (To What We've Got)" – Bob Gaudio and Frankie Valli
"Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'Bout Me)" – Bob Gaudio, Frankie Valli and The New Seasons
"Bye Bye Baby" – Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons
"C'mon Marianne" – Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons
"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" – Frankie Valli
"Working My Way Back to You" – Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons
"Fallen Angel" – Frankie Valli
"Rag Doll" – The Four Seasons
"Who Loves You" – The Four Seasons and Full Company

Aucun dossier informatif complémentaire concernant Jersey Boys

Aucun dossier informatif complémentaire concernant Jersey Boys