How hot is Jersey Boys, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical tracing the lives and careers of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons? After launching a national tour and productions in Chicago and London, it just opened Saturday at a custom-built venue in Las Vegas. Just as Caesars Palace designed The Colosseum for Celine Dion, The Palazzo, a $1.9 billion, 50-story haven for trendy Vegas visitors -- home to Jay Z's 40/40 Club and the Strip's first Lamborghini dealership -- now has the Jersey Boys Theatre, which will be the hit show's exclusive home on the West Coast.
Mind you, what opens in Vegas doesn't necessarily stay in Vegas, particularly where musical theater is concerned. Productions of Mamma Mia! and Phantom of the Opera-- the latter was re-christened Phantom-The Las Vegas Spectacular-- have respectively run over five and just under two years. But versions of Broadway smashes Hairspray and Avenue Q each closed in less than a year.
Des McAnuff, who introduced Jersey Boys at La Jolla Playhouse in California, is hopeful the musical will survive and thrive in Sin City. “It's demonstrated that it has very broad appeal. I think that has to do with the fast-paced story, which has a combination of ingredients: immigrants and family, and rock 'n' roll and the Mafia, which are kind of our mythology in America."
McAnuff quips that Vegas in particular “has a history of having embraced the Mob." Four Seasons guitarist Tommy DeVito's gambling addiction is also documented in the show, he adds.
Bob Gaudio, another band member and principal composer for the group, adds that “having a Jersey Boys blackjack table" in the hotel casino “is also something of an accomplishment."
Valli himself concedes that generally, “I don't like (Vegas) as much as I used to. I miss the old Vegas, where every marquee had an important star's name on it, and every hotel had a lounge with three or four or five acts working three or four shows a night. The new productions they have now are incredible, but they don't touch people the way that Sinatra and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. did."
Still, having been able “to work in Vegas over the past 40 years so many times," Valli says, “it's nice to see the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons played there."
Valli is also pleased with the cast that McAnuff has in place, featuring Rick Faugno as him, Jeremy Kushnier as DeVito, Erich Bergen as Gaudio and Jeff Leibow as bassist Nick Massi.
“And if there's somebody we don't like," Valli reasons, “we can always make the director an offer he can't refuse."
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