Now that the 90s are very much over, we love talking about things that make us feel old while pretending we hate it. Oh please, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
I rest my case. For collegiettes, Jersey Boys on Broadway tour provides a sweet spot between nostalgia and feeling “old”-which I am not totally sure is warranted before like, 60, these days anyway.
This is not photoshopped. She is real
Still, in a show revolving around Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons hits, you can sing along to the stuff you listened to every time your grandparents had to pick you up from school, you were dragged to your cousin’s tap recital, or you frequented car shows at a 50s themed diner in your home town -and find comfort in knowing you were never actually alive for the release of any of it (unless you’re a “non-traditional student” senior citizen or immortal, in which case you better have already seen them live or something, or you’re doing your longevity or immortality wrong).
On second thought, if you’ve seen Jersey Boys without Hayden Milanes as Frankie, you did it wrong. Multiple-time Jersey Boys-goers and I would agree that it is worth an extra shift at work. A Tampa native, former Disney employee, and fellow competitor of mine at the Florida State Thespians Festival, Milanes is the perfect company for the UCF student’s time travel back to the 60s (the other, blue-collar-and-not-the-Beatles-60s). Just when you thought you couldn’t hit notes like Mariah without a uterus, or having actually been the original Frankie (and therefore the unusual male possessor of an intense falsetto voice), Hayden came to O-Town to prove otherwise. In fact, if I didn’t study biology for two years before the inevitable major switch or keep up with modern science enough to know that it wasn’t possible at that time, I could only assume that vocal cords generated from the isolated stem cells were involved in Hayden’s birth (after being stolen from THE Frankie Vallie’s sweet, sweet hair…why am I not writing sci-fi right now?). Hayden could put Nick Pitera’s two-in-one character rendition of Whole New World to shame (by the way…Aladdin came out almost 22 years ago. Sorry.)
While Hayden will win your heart the quickest-and undoubtedly for the long run, thanks to his spot-on vocal imitation-the rest of the cast’s musical performance never missed a beat (which is an awful metaphor that I hope to never use again in a musical blog again). Also, Quinn VanAntwerp bought my boyfriend and I a drink at the after-party and John gave me an awesome balloon, which obligates me to mention them specifically. He played Bob Gaudio, a former a member of the Royal Teens whose sole hit was “Short shorts”. Yeah, that wasn’t an original jingle composed for Nair commercials. Don’t you feel more cultured now?
Further your pop culture knowledge (or simply enjoy a Tony award-winning show that lovers of Broadway everywhere have on their list) and head to the Jersey in a classier fashion than via MTV reality show. Rather than witnessing the drunken antics of some lucky bafoons, you’ll see a tale of talented Rock Hall-of-Famers that earned their fame through practice, perseverance, and only a little bit gambling. Just, don’t buy drinks from the bar. This ain’t no Mad Hatter happy hour, and I would love for you to be able to eat next week. Price aside, it’s make liking pop music (from some era) okay for a whole night. Plus, there’s virginity loss, jail, and enough f-bombs to warrant avoiding downtown for an entire week. If that sounds intense, you really need to see more theatre.
Tickets are available on ticketmaster.com, where you can get not-so-bad seats for a not-so-bad price, because what the Bob Carr lacks in aisles that allow you to pee without disturbing the experience of hundreds on the way, it makes up for in stadium seating.