“JERSEY BOYS” OH, WHAT A NIGHT AT THE PALACE!

THE JERSEY BOYS: CHRIS STEVENS AS NICK MASSI, TOMMASO ANTICO AS BOB GAUDIO. JONNY WEXLER AS FRANKIE VALLI AND COREY GREENAN AS TOMMY DEVITO
PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

Rarely has a musical the ability to raise the rafters quite like “Jersey Boys,”  the show about a quartet of young guys, blue-collar workers, from the Garden State.  With  book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, and music by Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob Crewe, “Jersey Boys” tells the tale of how Frankie Valli becomes lead singer of The Four Seasons. The transformation is not an easy one, and the four have some hard choices to make along the way, but that "rocky road” is a spectacular journey you won’t want to miss.

Waterbury’s Palace Theater will be rolling out the red carpet for these sensational, harmony driven lads on Friday, March 23 and Saturday, March 24 and you definitely want to cheer on this smash 2006 tony Award winning show. With a sweet, honey-dipped sound and a dazzling dream, these young kids flirt with crime and the wrong side of the law but, ultimately, set their careers straight towards stardom.  Finding members who fit their sound was the first hurdle.  Claiming a name that suited their voices was the second.  Avoiding arrest by the cops, reconciling family life with long stints on the road, a gambling addiction and burden of debt all conspire to almost bring them down.

 But Frank Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi  persevere and go on to sell 175 million records worldwide, all before they hit thirty, with Gaudio and Bob Crewe, their producer/lyricist writing many of the show’s thirty three songs, including five #1 hits and 11 that made the Billboard’s top ten. Come snap your fingers and hum along to “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Oh, What a Night,” “My Eyes Adore You,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” and “Working My Way Back to You.”

For tickets ($57.50 and up), call the Palace Theater, 100 East Main Street, Waterbury or go online to www.palacetheaterct.com. Performances are  Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. 

 Let a quartet of talented guys from Jersey adore you with their eyes and serenade you with their great voices as they work their way into your heart. Oh, what a night! Join the 24 million who have loved this shows they enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and deservedly so.