You'll find yourself humming, perhaps occasionally belting, "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)," "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" or "Sherry" days after seeing "Jersey Boys."
But earworms are only some of what you take away from Michael Brindisi's tuneful and entertaining staging of this musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
The production that opened Friday at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres — the first locally produced version of the Broadway touring show — also introduces the world to Will Dusek, who plays Valli. A recent Illinois Wesleyan University graduate, Dusek has charisma, solid acting chops and that rare, straight-from-the-soul falsetto necessary to channel the rock icon.
Close your eyes and you can almost believe that Valli himself is in the room, his thrilling vocals bearing wings that sweep you up into the ether.
Dusek's rangy talent helps to loft Brindisi's production into something more affecting and meaningful than your typical jukebox musical.
Performed on a Nayna Ramey set dominated by a slanting boardwalk and in Rich Hamson's snazzy period costumes, the songs in "Jersey Boys" are woven around a tight story by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice that gives us a peek at the drama behind the singers and their biggest hits.
The principals take turns narrating a season — spring, summer, fall and winter — in the group's life. Valli, Tommy DeVito (David Darrow), Bob Gaudio (Sam Stoll) and Nick Massi (Shad Hanley) hail from a place best known for waste dumps, freeways and mob control. As Tommy explains, there were only three possible life paths for young Italian Americans like them: join the army, "get mobbed up" or become a star.
They mix and match two of the three, pursuing music in an industry that at first does not know what to make of a group that sounds like a girl with three guys or an African American quartet. But through all their drama and heartbreak, they deliver hits after hits and by 1990 are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
