Jersey Boys - Productions

Productions

Jersey Boys premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse at University of California, San Diego, in an out-of-town tryout on October 5, 2004 and ran through January 16, 2005 The musical began previews on Broadway on October 4, 2005 and officially opened on November 6, 2005 at the August Wilson Theatre. The cast starred John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli, Christian Hoff as Tommy DeVito, Daniel Reichard as Bob Gaudio, and J. Robert Spencer as Nick Massi. The musical is directed by Des McAnuff, the then-artistic director at La Jolla Playhouse, with choreography by Sergio Trujillo. It uses many of the group's hit songs to tell the turbulent story of Frankie Valli and the The Four Seasons' rise to fame. The Broadway production has had 38 previews and 2241 performances as of April 10, 2011. On June 25, 2011 the musical became the 25th longest-running show on Broadway.

The first national tour of Jersey Boys began on December 10, 2006, at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco. On May 3, 2007, that leg of the tour's run ended in San Francisco to prepare for its Los Angeles premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre. The next day, a second company (including Steve Gouveia from the original Broadway cast as Nick Massi) debuted at the Curran and ended its run on September 30, 2007, before transferring for an open-ended run at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre. The Chicago production opened on October 5, 2007, with Michael Ingersoll, a Chicagoan, replacing Steve Gouveia, while Steve joined the First National Tour. The Chicago opening brought Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio to Chicago and was promoted prominently, including a December 9, 2007, puck-dropping at a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game.

December 10, 2010 marked the 4th Anniversary of the Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award-winning Jersey Boys National Tour. The Jersey Boys National Tour opened at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco and has gone on to play 38 cities since then. Jersey Boys recently played at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia where it broke the box office record 8 times before moving on to a return engagement in Boston.

A special holiday return engagement played at the Curran Theatre from November 20 – December 30, 2007, starring Rick Faugno as Frankie Valli, Andrew Rannells as Bob Gaudio, Bryan McElroy as Tommy DeVito and Jeff Leibow as Nick Massi. The majority of this cast became the original Las Vegas cast, which debuted at The Palazzo Hotel on Sunday, May 3, 2009, in the newly built Jersey Boys Theatre. The show temporarily closed on January 1, 2012 and reopened on March 6, 2012 at Paris Las Vegas.

The musical made its West End debut at London's Prince Edward Theatre in February 2008. The creative team were the same that brought the production to Broadway. Principal cast were Ryan Molloy as Frankie Valli, Stephen Ashfield as Bob Gaudio, Glenn Carter as Tommy DeVito and Philip Bulcock as Nick Massi. The production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical.

The Australian production opened at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne in July 2009. In particular the Melbourne cast has received high praise from audiences. The Melbourne production closed on July 25, 2010 and opened in Sydney in September. The Sydney production closed in December 2011 and opened in Auckland in April 2012, running through to June 17, 2012.

The San Francisco/Chicago cast appeared on stage in the 2007 Emmy Awards in a tribute to HBO's The Sopranos.

Due to the success of the First National tour stop at Toronto Centre for the Arts in Toronto, Ontario from August 21 to December 6, 2008, an open-ended run began performances on December 12 with a new, mostly Canadian cast that includes Jeremy Kushnier and Jenny Lee Stern from the First National Tour, This production celebrated its 500th show on February 27, 2010. The production closed on August 22, 2010 on the show's second anniversary.

A new international tour opened in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands resort with an all South African cast on 23rd November 2012. It will return to South Africa in 2013 before embarking on a further tour of Asia.