Everyone’s heard of Jersey Boys. Thirteen million people have seen the show, totaling more than $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. The cast members have performed on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today show, Dancing with the Stars, and at the Emmy Awards. Their recording has gone Platinum, selling more than a million copies in the United States alone. There are six companies performing it around the world right now: New York, Las Vegas, London, Australia…the boys are everywhere.
My first experience with the production of Jersey Boys came via my then soon-to-be wife. Knowing my love for anything new on Broadway, Cara gave me tickets to the show for my birthday in March of 2007. We had lived together in New York for less than a year and, although we were both working, our budget still dictated we sit in the very back row of the August Wilson Theatre.
The performance of Jersey Boys that night was mind-bogglingly fast and endlessly passionate. The show just drives; taking the audience on a ride that culminates in a raucous standing ovation. (I’ve checked the show reports—every company of Jersey Boys around the world has received a standing ovation every single night since they opened.)
Jersey Boys tells the story of the Four Seasons: Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massi. Each member of the Seasons narrates a fourth of the show, offering their own version of the events that led this band to fifteen Top Ten hits and a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As they step on stage, the four actors playing the Seasons transform into rock stars. They sing, dance, play instruments, and live through two-and-a-half hours of the true-life events (mafia connections, robberies, gambling debts, drug overdoses, etc.) that brought the band together and, eventually, tore them apart.
That night in March, I was blown away by the show, and by the ensemble of actors and musicians backing the performers playing the Four Seasons. One of them, it turned out, is friend of mine. Colin is younger than me, a fresh face in New York, and an amazing performer. Reading the playbill, I realized that he was fairly new in the show and doing a smash-up job playing Hank Majewski, a member of the ensemble.
At the end of this performance I jumped to my feet with everyone else. I knew that there was a role in it for me. I just had a deep-inside-my-gut feeling that one day I would play Hank Majewski…