Oh What a Night!

Jersey Boys

“Who Loves You?” Chicago audiences, that’s who, because, “Oh What a Night!,” theatre history is being made here in the Windy City. The very first “built-in Chicago Production” of the multi award-winning musical, JERSEY BOYS, has opened with a bang. This highly entertaining production promises to be a very popular and long-running theatrical offering. The show is especially tailor-made for all those Baby Boomers who grew up with the music of the Four Seasons. And the professional quality of this show is just like a little bit of Broadway has dropped into the intimate North Southport Theater.

It’s been almost 20 years since this extraordinary show opened on the Great White Way, but time can’t diminish the pure power and entertainment value of this magnificent musical. Repeated viewings don’t lessen the drama and emotional impact of how a young phenom named Frankie Valli and his buddies, the Four Seasons, evolved into the most popular singing group of their era. And the music—Oh, What a Night! Every song is a classic and is performed perfectly. Each inspires the audience to nod their heads, shake their shoulders, tap their toes, snap their fingers and (I must confess) even sing along. These are the tunes that evoke such fond memories of our teenage years, a more innocent time, when popular music stirred our souls and made everyone simply want to just get up and dance!

It’s true that the jukebox musical gets a bad rap. The genre has been around, at least since the early 1970’s; but the new millennium has witnessed the creation of even more of them. However, with JERSEY BOYS, an entirely new standard of excellence was set. Instead of a fictional tale inspired by or fashioned around the songs of a composer or 

pop/rock group, Tony Award-winners Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (THE ADDAMS FAMILY and this show) crafted a documentary style musical about the legendary Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, depicting the formation of the group and using their own music, composed by Bob Gaudio with lyrics by Bob Crewe, as its score. This 2006 Tony, Olivier and Grammy Award-winning musical is back in Chicago again, but this time it boasts a spectacular homegrown cast and crew. This much-welcome production, which feels fresh and professionally performed and produced, offers as great a show as the original Big Apple success.

For anyone unfamiliar with their story, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi were a quartet of talented blue collar, Italian-American bad boys from the Garden State. They wrote their own music and invented that unique, harmonic “Four Seasons sound.” Together they struggled and fought to be taken seriously and recorded. Eventually the group evolved into one of pop music’s most famous and original boy bands. Their smash hits, most of which are featured in this energetic, entertaining and slickly polished musical, include early classics like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like a Man,” as well as many of their later beloved songs like “Big Man in Town,” “Working My Way Back to You,” “Rag Doll,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and, during the show’s emotional finale, depicting the Four Seasons’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “Who Loves You?”

Multiple Jeff Award-winning Director/Executive Producer, 

L. Walter Stearns, and Director/Choreographer, Brenda Didier, have expertly guided this superb production. They’re paired by the gifted, generously-accoladed Musical Director Eugene Dizon, who joins forces with the fiercely talented Linda Madonia, to make this musical sing. The production features a stellar cast of actor/singers/musicians who perform with perfect pitch and polished choreography. This musical also showcases the crisp, stylized and uniform choreography by Mercury Theater’s Jeff Award and BTAA-nominated dancing expert, Christopher Chase Carter.

The beauty of this production is Gaudio’s music, performed as it was meant to be sung. The cast is led by the astoundingly accomplished Michael Metcalf as Frankie Valli, who recently starred in BrightSide Theatre’s concert production of CHESS. The multitalented Andrew MacNaughton (who will be remembered as the singing and tapping Monster in Mercury’s YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN) tears up the stage as Bob Gaudio. In a welcome return from his hiatus in the Chicago Theatre scene, the exquisitely gifted song-and-dance man, actor Adrian Aguilar owns the stage once again, this time as the quartet’s founder, Tommy DeVito. And, in his Mercury Theater debut, the musically adept Jason Michael Evans returns to Chicago from his National Tour of ANASTASIA to star as bass-baritone, Nick Massi. Each of these four terrific performers bring to the stage all the drama, heartbreak, humor and every note of that incredible 60’s and 70’s sound. 

Great performances are also turned in by the fantastic, hard-working supporting cast. Recently seen in Jim Hensen’s EMMET OTTER’S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS, handsome and talented Adam Fane gleefully plays the flamboyant astrology-obsessed music producer, Bob Crewe. Kayla Shipman is terrific as Mrs. Frankie Valli, a feisty Mary Delgado, and lovely Maya McQueen is luminous as Frankie Valli’s talented daughter, Francine. Chicago’s talented Renaissance Man, Carl Herzog, appears as godfather Gyp DeCarlo, and several other characters. 

The capable and clever Dan Gold takes the stage as Tommy’s younger brother, Nick DeVito, among many other roles. The fabulous and funny Eric A. Lewis displays his capable talents as Barry Belson, and others. Haley Jane Schafer portrays, among several roles, Lorraine, a newspaper reporter who falls for Frankie Valli. Isaac Ray brings his musical talents to the stage as Barry Belson, and more. The incredibly ingenious Jason Richards, who’s been seen on almost every stage in the city, is excellent in several roles, primarily as loanshark, Norm Waxman. And skilled comedian and musical talent, Grant Alexander Brown, provides plenty of laughs as an energetic and engaging young Joe Pesci—yes, THAT Joe Pesci.

The unseen artistic heroes behind this production include Linda Madonia’s accomplished 6-member band, who can be seen behind the smokey glass balcony of Bob Knuth’s terrific, two-level Scenic Design. The LED screens that line the left side of the proscenium feature the colorful Digital Visual Media Design by G. “Max” Maxin IV. Denise Karzcewski’s brilliant concert quality Lighting dazzles and Stefanie M. Senior’s Sound Design guarantees that every spoken word, lyric and note of music can be easily heard. Rachel Boylan has designed an amazing array of colorful, often glitzy Costumes, bedecked with Kevin Barthel period-perfect Wigs. 

Audiences who’ve seen this show before, as well as theatergoers attending this Tony Award-winning musical for the first time, are guaranteed to leave the Mercury Theater happily humming the hits of the Four Seasons. There’s so much to love in this Broadway calibre Chicago production of their energetic, well-written and slickly-produced musical. The show offers a talented cast telling the backstory of an internationally popular musical group, whose falsetto lead singer and closely blended harmonies made the Four Seasons so unique. The musical’s pumping, brassy musical accompaniment recreates their signature sound and keeps toes a-tapping. This joyous, powerful, heartfelt biographical story is sure to bring audiences to their feet clapping, dancing and singing along. It’s a not-to-be-missed spectacle and, “Oh, What a Night!”

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas 

Presented March 15-May 19 by Mercury Theater Chicago, 3745 N. Southport Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the box office, by calling 773-360-7365 or by going to www.info@mercurytheaterchicago.com.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.