Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys is a jukebox musical with a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. It is presented in a documentary-style format that dramatizes the formation, success and breakup of the 1960s rock 'n' roll group The Four Seasons. The musical is structured as four "seasons", each narrated by a different member of the band who gives his own perspective on its history and music. Songs include "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Sherry", "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)", "My Eyes Adored You", "Stay", "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", "Walk Like A Man", "Who Loves You", "Working My Way Back to You" and "Rag Doll". The musical premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2004 and ran on Broadway from 2005 to 2017. Since its debut it has been on two North American national tours and two national tours of the UK and Ireland. The show has been produced in London's West End, Las Vegas, Chicago, Toronto, Melbourne and other Australian cities, Singapore, South Africa, the Netherlands, Japan, Dubai, and China. Jersey Boys won four 2006 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and the 2009 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Development In the early 2000s, Bob Gaudio, an original Four Seasons member, sought to make a musical from the band's discography; he noted in a 2008 interview that he was inspired by the success of Smokey Joe's Cafe and Mamma Mia! into believing that a rock-and-roll musical with existing songs could work. He hired book writers Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman, who had difficulty finding a willing director until Michael David of Dodger Theatricals recommended them to Des McAnuff. Brickman 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!; Gaudio liked the idea, noting that although biopics were a common format in film, such a story format was still relatively rare on stage and that, to his knowledge, none had been tried at the time. Brickman was drawn to the project because "it's a classic American story.