review

milt thomas

Your first New Year’s resolution must be to see Riverside Theatre’s first production of 2024, Jersey Boys. The Jersey boys are in fact Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. You know the music: “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Sherry,” “My Eyes Adore You,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” “Walk Like a Man,” and their longest charting hit, “December 1963 (Oh What a Night),” among many other hits, 39 top 40 songs in all as the Four Seasons and Frankie Valli individually.

Singing and dancing their way through all their hits could be a great show by themselves, but Jersey Boys is more like a bio set to music, with all the drama, pathos and humor of their struggles and successes that will leave you wanting to offer Riverside Theatre more money for your ticket – well, maybe not that far. But it is certainly well worth the price and time, which passes by all too quickly.

The show opens with a joyful music and dance production set to “Oh What a Night,” sung in French. It is a great toe-tapping song in any language and an enthusiastic prelude to the story. As the lights dim, a man steps into the spotlight to tell his version of that story. Tommy DeVito is a founding member of what will become the Four Seasons, played by Brent Diroma. He’s a tough guy from Jersey who presents his version of how the band came into existence. He is also a small time criminal who serves several terms in the Big House when not an aspiring musician in a trio that performs covers (songs made popular by other artists) with his brother and a friend, Nick Massi (Jason Michael Evans).

The next big moment in the show comes when Tommy is introduced to a younger kid from the “hood,” Frankie Castelluccio, as a possible lead singer for his struggling band. Castelluccio enters the scene singing in a spot-on falsetto that we identify immediately as the future Frankie Valli.  But Tommy and his brother are headed to prison for a robbery, so in their absence, Tommy asks Nick Massi to teach Frankie singing technique. Then Massi goes to prison himself.

Everyone starts somewhere, so once the shady backgrounds have been dealt with (but not entirely), Tommy takes Frankie under his wing, managing their budding musical group at the same time shielding Frankie from the low lifes that surround them.  Tommy has a friend, Joe Pesci – yes, THE Joe Pesci (played for laughs by Logan Marks), who introduces Tommy and Frankie to a singer-songwriter. Bob Gaudio (Danny McHugh). Gaudio had written the hit, “Who Wears Short Shorts,” when he was 15 years old.

At this point, Gaudio takes over narrating their story. He joins their band and they play dives with little or no pay until Frankie introduces them to his friend and producer, Bob Crewe (Brian Golub), who signs them as a backing group. They quickly grow tired of this background gig and find themselves back to square one. Part of the problem is lack of a marketable name for the group. Tommy introduces a number of name changes, none of them memorable or inspiring. He’s a great small-time hustler but not ready for prime time anything. They commiserate back at the bowling alley where they began, wondering what to do next.

The audience is then treated to a “big reveal” of their new name, “the Four Seasons.” Now inspired, Gaudio goes on to write new songs that will quickly propel them to stardom: “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and “Walk Like a Man.”

As they say, the rest is history, at least their music history. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Besides the ups and downs of their professional relationship, the group’s little-known individual lives are also covered in the show – relationships, personal loss, drugs, gambling, mafioso. The key business partnership though is between songwriter Gaudio and singer Valli that began with a handshake, and continues to this day (Valli is 89 and Gaudio is 81).

For the audience, Jersey Boys is a blast, fast paced with music and dance (34 numbers in all), interspersed with backstory vignettes by rotating narrators and seamless transitions with creative stagecraft.

Besides the music and dance, there are many highlights. A scene involving Frankie takes place in a car with a sudden and shocking twist. One of the show’s funniest scenes occurs out of the blue when Nick Massi fires off a litany of pent-up pet peeves about his roommate on the road, Tommy DeVito, involving towels and tiny motel soaps.

The show keeps you drawn in from beginning to end, most of the time with enthusiasm for the music and the outstanding performances. Of course, any musical – and this show in particular – rests on the talented musicians, who are often heard but not seen. In Jersey Boys, they make a spectacular appearance onstage towards the end of the show.

These are just a few of the golden nuggets you will uncover from the treasure that is Jersey Boys, playing Riverside Theatre until January 28. Tickets are available at (772) 231-6990 or www.riversidetheatre.com.