ABSTRACT
The teeny-bopper fans of 1960s and 1970s rock-and-roll were now prime ticket-buying age, and producers were hungry to usher them to a comfortable seat in a Broadway house. But while the term “jukebox musical” had been used for decades to categorize shows fashioned around pre-existing music, in the early 2000s, critics and Broadway fans used the term dismissively. New Jersey, the plot of Jersey Boys is reminiscent of mob movies like Goodfellas. It is perhaps not as surprising, then, that actor Joe Pesci, who starred in Goodfellas, grew up with Frankie and Tommy; indeed, the writers kept with that detail and wrote in young Joe Pesci as a supporting and operative character. Jersey Boys was a critical success, garnering eight Tony nominations and winning four, including the 2006 Tony Award for Best Musical. The critical success of Jersey Boys proved that “jukebox musical” no longer need be a pejorative term.
