Arts Report: Jersey Boys

Rob and I met up with a few friends last night to see Jersey Boys at the Curran Theater downtown. This musical depicts the rise of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, the group that produced “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and 25 other hits.

Ikon arranged for our tickets and, once again, they were comically terrible (a few months ago, Ikon got tickets for the last row of seats at the opera). We were in the back row and I was against a wall that obscured the left side of the stage. Look for seat #2 at the very top on this diagram. Somehow I managed to be above the chandelier?! Oh well!

The show started at 8:00 with a frenetic pace. I had some doubts for the first 20 minutes due to poor sound quality and hyperactive set changes every 15 seconds. But after that rough start, things really improved. The singing in this show is pretty incredible and they did a nice job of integrating clips of the actual band. I didn’t realize before that the Four Seasons were behind all those hits.

Jersey Boys really hits its stride after intermission. This act is much smoother, with fewer set changes and less biographical ground to cover. By the end, the whole theater was standing and dancing along to the music. Even the fancy Italian women in front of us who were dressed like Karl Lagerfeld were jumping around. I halfway expected panties to be thrown on stage by some of the AARP set in the crowd.

I’m not really a huge fan of popular theater, but Jersey Boys ended up winning me over and being a fun way to spend an evening. If you go see this show, you should note before hand that only three actresses are going to play every single female character. And since there are different women in different outfits in every scene, those are some hard working ladies!