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Executive editor {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. It's not long into "Jersey Boys" that you can easily see why the musical is on track to become The Rev Theatre Co.'s biggest ever.

The Auburn theater company's first show of 2024 — and potentially its biggest seller in 66 seasons, Artistic Producing Director Brett Smock told the opening night audience — has it all. The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is like some midcentury American super text, cramming its neon sights and nasal sounds into a narrative that combines the romanticized criminality of "Goodfellas" and the chopped-up melodrama of "Behind the Music." There's a reason it has succeeded where most jukebox musicals have stalled.



It's not just a fun show, it's an irresistible one. Jeffrey Keller is the show's Ray Liotta, charismatically telling the story of the quartet's bumpy road to Billboard dominance between his run-ins with the law as founding member Tommy DeVito. But the musical has an even more obvious "Goodfellas" connection in none other than Joe Pesci, who introduced Valli to key collaborator Bob Gaudio.

The diminutive future Oscar winner is realized on the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse stage with all his explosive charm by Matthew J. Hoffman. Similarly hilarious turns come from company members Jared Svoboda and Matthew Krob as a pair of practical joker hoodlums, John Leone as emotionally vulnerable mobster Gyp De Carlo, Andrew Be.

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