When I was growing up in Southern California, the radio dial of our family car was always tuned to one station, K-Earth 101. It was an oldies station, which in the late 90s and early 2000s meant it played music exclusively from the 50s and 60s. While other kids were listening to emotive grunge coming out of Seattle or poppy boy bands from Florida, my brother and I sang along with Jackie Wilson, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Sam Cooke, and one of my personal favorites, The Four Seasons. For me, there is no greater decade for music than the 1960s. For every hit single, there are dozens of untold stories of how it got there. Stories of overcoming adversity, defying the odds, never giving up on a dream, persevering, and persistence paying off. One such story is that of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.

Jersey Boys is a jukebox musical that tells the story of The Four Seasons (Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massi). Unlike other Jukebox musicals, Jersey Boys follows a more documentary-style telling of how four working-class Italian-American kids from New Jersey went from singing at bowling alleys and running into trouble with the law to finding their signature sound and becoming international stars. The show is structured into four "seasons" (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter), with each band member narrating a different part of the story from their own point of view while celebrating classic hits like Sherry, Big Girls Don't Cry, and Beggin. 

Those classic hits featured in Jersey Boys played routinely on K-Earth 101. My grandmother would ask my brother to sing the high notes and for me to sing harmonies. When I found Frankie Valli on a certain man’s playlists in college (totally not pirated through LimeWire), I thought it was more impressive than keg stands. Can’t Take My Eyes Off You was on my wedding playlist. My husband (whose playlist impressed me so) took me on a rare date night to see Frankie Valli perform at the Genesee Theatre in Waukegan in 2025 as part of "The Last Encores" tour. To say the Four Seasons has a special place in my heart would be an understatement. So when the opportunity arose to see Jersey Boys, I was beggin to see the show, not only to check off an item on my musical theatre bucket list but to experience a show that never seemed to have a negative review.

So why is it so hard for me to say that Jersey Boys fell flatter than a B-Chord?

Every play, particularly musicals, can have issues. Audiences generally forgive quite a bit out of respect for the art, the actors, the crew, and magic-makers. But it wasn’t just a few issues with Jersey Boys at CIBC; in fact, I can’t pinpoint just one thing. Maybe it was the speakers that played too loud, the lights that practically blinded the audience, or the mics that cut in and out as frequently as the actors’ accents. Perhaps it was the lackluster stage energy, where the actors moved like they were simply blocking their marks and delivering their lines to show they memorized them versus actually embodying them. Maybe it was the fact that the narrators were telling us what happened to these band members rather than actually showing the audience what happened, one of the cardinal sins of storytelling. There was nothing particularly bad about the production, but there certainly wasn’t anything to write home about. Even the singing felt flat. While the four main actors looked and sounded the part, they delivered the classic songs with the same energy they delivered their lines, as if proving they memorized them versus actually singing them. 

To say I was disappointed in this musical would be an understatement. Broadway in Chicago tickets for Jersey Boys run from $100-$400, with orchestra seats easily $200 a piece, and they’ll most likely sell out. For such a price tag, one would expect hallmark elements of a Broadway show to be on display, from the triple threat of actors who can sing, act, and dance, projecting to the very back rows of the dress circle, to the spectacle and stagecraft where music, script, and lights collide to create that theatre magic, or just having that wow-factor that you can’t place but that leaves you wanting more. Jersey Boys has none of that. Even the playbill for this run is minimalist, artistically vacant, and seems intent on offering less while demanding more (read: $$$).

Jersey Boys relies almost entirely on the nostalgia of the 1960s and Frankie’s falsetto that can be replicated but never duplicated. Compared to musicals like Tina Turner: The Musical or Beautiful: The Carol King Story, this jukebox musical has no story to fall back on when we strip away the familiar classic oldies. While the play doesn’t shy away from The Four Seasons’ real-life challenges with gambling, run-ins with the law, adjacency with the mob, and struggles to break into the industry, there’s nothing particularly captivating about the story. Not every story needs to be dramatic, but it should resonate with the audience in some way. The only time the audience for Jersey Boys had any resonating reaction at CIBC was when a d-level curse word was uttered a few times by the cast. Pearls were clutched, and tongues were tsked. And it is in that reaction that I argue that Jersey Boys has had its run as a musical. It can join the ranks of musical classics that have also run their course like The Music Man or Hello, Dolly.  

If I set aside my personal nostalgia for The Four Seasons music and those days of oldie stations and pirated music, a fog lifts, and I’m objectively seeing a musical that feels dated, lacking, and not all that compelling a story. Jersey Boys requires your nostalgia in order to keep you in your seats. It's that same nostalgia that gasps and shakes its head when an actor emotes and uses the word bull*%$, outdated and old-fashioned. I might be alone in this box seat, and I might lose a millennial card when I note a musical only 20 years old needs to be retired with musicals from 70 years ago, but a curtain eventually closes on every show and decades of music are relegated to their own oldies station. As beautiful as nostalgia can be, it can also hold us back from asking or demanding different things. There are no shortage of stories to be told. There will always be songs to write and artists to honor through biographical jukebox musicals. It remains to be seen, but Jersey Boys might just be on its last encore tour, even if it doesn’t know it yet.

Jersey Boys is now playing at the CIBC Theatre (8 W Monroe St, Chicago) through November 22nd. Tickets are available for purchase at BroadwayinChicago.com [https://www.broadwayinchicago.com/shows/jersey-boys-3/].