"JERSEY BOYS" LIGHTS UP THE CONNECTICUT SKIES AT A.C.T.

Four guys singing under the streetlamp on a New Jersey corner enjoy the saving grace of redemption when they each could have been destined for a jail cell. Music helped them to escape the fate as juvenile delinquents and led, in a round about fashion, to their amazing success, ultimately, as the Four Seasons, Venture to A.C.T. of CT in Ridgefield for the mostly joyful story of Frankie Valli and friends in the exuberant “Jersey Boys” delighting audiences now extended until Sunday, November 17.

Rarely has a musical the ability to raise the rafters quite like this 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.

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, eventually, set their careers straight toward 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 Gian Raffaele Dicostanzo’s Frankie Valli, Christian Engelhardt’s Bob Gaudio, Matthew Stoke’s Tommy DeVito and Anthony

Cangiamila’s Nick Massi persevere and go on to sell 175 million records worldwide, all before they hit thirty, with Gaudio and Justin Michael Duval’s 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,” and so many more.

Watch how the brash and bold Tommy DeVito takes full credit for forming the group, discovering the angelic voiced Frank Valli, and steering them to stardom but never claims the ultimate sin that almost destroys them. Christopher D. Betts directs this great gift of momentum, motives and music.

For tickets ($72 and up), call A.C.T. of CT, 38 Old Quarry Road, Ridgefield at 475-215-5433 or online at www.actofct.org. Performances are Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.and Sunday at 2 p.m., with no performance Thursday, October 31 and an additional performance Wednesday, October 30 at 7 p.m.

Let a quartet of wildly talented guys 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 multiple millions who have loved this show as they reunite to enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor they cherish and deservedly so.