Boomers on Broadway The music a generation loved best is bringing audiences across America to their feet. You’’re seated in a darkened Broadway theater, and onstage Frankie Valli, the leader of the 60’’s pop group The Four Seasons, is crooning, "Sherry, Sherry baby, Sherry... You’’re 40-something (okay, maybe 50) , and you know you shouldn’’t, but before you can stop yourself, you’’re on your feet. Your hips are swaying and you’’re singing with the melody. You’’re back in time, on the dance floor at the high school sock hop. You’’re home. And that’’s exactly where Marshall Brickman, co-writer of Jersey Boys, wants you to be. His musical, featuring The Four Seasons’’ infectious blend of doo-wop, R&B and pop, is the latest in a slew of shows celebrating the music of the 60’’s and 70’’s. The man on center stage is not the real Valli, with his three-and-a-half-octave range and otherworldly falsetto. He’’s a young look-alike actor named John Lloyd Young, who, while in character, explains how he carried on even after the group disbanded. "I’’m still out there singing," Young says, as a determined Valli. "Like that bunny on TV with the battery, I just keep going, and going, and going, chasing the music, trying to get home. Based on the production of Jersey Boys, which opens this month, and the success of other Broadway shows like Mamma Mia!, featuring the music of ABBA, All Shook Up (Elvis Presley) , and Lennon, baby boomers share Valli’’s point of view-and have been flocking to theaters as a way of getting "home". After all, music is a medium of memory. And while younger audiences may want to learn where today’’s music came from, boomers are leaving the theater feeling, well, 16 again. " There’’s an impulse toward nostalgia, when things were a little more coherent, a little more solid, a little r," says Marshall Brickman. "And let’’s face it. The people who were out to The Four Seasons in the back of a 56 Chevy in 1962 are now of an age where they can afford to pay for a Broadway ticket. " According to Age Wave, a San Francisco-based marketing firm, consumers over age 50 account for half of all the discretionary spending power in this country. Mamma Mia! , which opened in London six years ago and on Broadway in 2001, is the No. 1 show in the world, with 11 global productions. The show generates more than $ 8 million a week, bringing in more than 18,000 international ticket holders each night; 23 million people (and counting) have seen it. The cast album has gone platinum in the United States. The sheer entertainment factor is in part what entices theatergoers. These "jukebox musicals," as they’’re sometimes derisively called, are squarely aimed at boomers, who are often criticized as being fixated on their youth. A "The shows are pure fun, but what’’s wrong with having fun" says Leonard Stein-horn , associate professor at the American University School of Communication and author of the forthcoming book The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy. "It’’s music that people can sing and dance to. It gives them a warm glow from the past. " It’’s Brickman’’s first foray into writing for theater after years of working in TV and movies (including Annie Hall, for which he won an Oscar). He hopes folks leave the theater feeling a gamut of emotions. But what drew him to the project was not so much the music as the drama inherent in The Four Seasons’’ story. " We went to lunch with Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio ( chief songwriter for the Seasons) , and we said, ’’ Tell us the story of your lives,’’ " Brickman recalls. " It was almost Shakespearean. Their story has everything: love, jealousy, betrayal, death, and the Mafia. This is a great American story of blue-collar guys who make it, then watch it all come apart. As gritty and real-life as it is, Jersey Boys isn’’t a musical in the traditional sense of the word. It’’s closer to being a drama with music than anything else, since none of the 30 or so musical numbers pretend to be scenes, and characters don’’t sing to each other as they do in, say, Fiddler on the Roof. Not all of the boomer musicals are biographical revues, however. All Shook Up, a comedy that marries Shakespeare’’s Twelfth Night with Presley’’s motorcycle movie, Roustabout, employs a fictional hip-swiveling character named Chad who brings romance, rebellion, and rock ’’ n’’ roll to a small town. Mamma Mia! also spins a fictional tale, that of a young woman determined to discover which of her mother’’s former suitors is her father. Movin’’ Out, featuring the music of Billy Joel, at times evokes the classic West Side Story and seems more a ballet than narrative. And while Lennon emphasizes John’’s post-Beatle period with Yoko Ono, dramatizing real-life s such as the couple’’s 1969 honeymoon "Bed In" to protest the Vietnam War, the musical takes a big leap in having nine actors, including four women, play the legendary musician. Audiences reward it with standing ovations each night, but critics have been brutal. " In a way I understand the dismal reviews," says Lennon’’s widow, Yoko Ono, who gave permission to use the music, including three rare Lennon songs. " A lot of John’’s life was about promoting world peace. And right now we’’re in the middle of a war, so some people don’’t think it’’s right to have a show like this. People feel fluff (出错的) is the way to go in a musical today. But John’’s music alone is so beautiful, and beautifully done.” So what of the naysayer’s(唱反调的人) who quibble that 60’’s and 70’’s pop songs lack the heft(分量) and sophistication of Broadway scores of old Truth is, even those who object to some of John Lennon’’s controversial songs would have trouble arguing that he wasn’’t a serious musician. And theatrical producers, taking a cue from the popularity of revivals of earlier Broadway hits, are ever on the lookout for vehicles that preserve the dignity of older music, yet present it in an appealing way. " Ever since the Golden Age of Broadway, when a lot of hit songs were coming out of musical theater rather than recording studios, it’’s been hard to find top-quality music," Brickman explains. And many of the composers of 30 and 40 years ago are as emotionally relevant to their generation as Rodgers and Hammerstein or the Gershwin brothers were to theirs. " Boomers are the first mass media generation, and their common bond is music," says Stein horn. "It’’s no surprise that it continues to unite this generation. Perhaps we’’ll be seeing Mamma Mia! staged in old-age homes years from now. " Besides, as Brickman points out, everything old is new again, and that includes Frankie Valli, who, as most folks know, continued a career in music after The Four Seasons broke up. He now plays a character on the HBO series The Sopranos, in addition to doing roughly 100 concerts a year with a new group of musicians. When John Lloyd Young, Valli’’s Broadway counterpart, went to Las Vegas to see Valli perform as part of his preparation for the role, the actor realized it was as important to portray Valli’’s personal warmth as it was to copy his vocals. "There’’s just so much affection for him, and he gives that back," says Young. Marshall Brickman knows what he means, having seen Valli in concert at a New York college. "At the end of the show, he went down to the edge of the stage and held his hand out, and people touched it," Brickman remembers, shaking his head. "It was like Judy Garland at the Palace in Manhattan. I’’ve never seen anything like it. Or, as Valli himself sings, "Oh, What a Night. " "I love to perform, and it amazes me that people still come out," says Valli, now 68, who helped smooth the way for a Four Seasons musical. "I really hope we’’ve brought some joy to people who grew up when we were records, and they have a lot of things they can reminisce about when they hear our music. I was a poor kid who lived in a project until I became successful, so I know what it’’s like to dream, and have that dream motivate you to pull yourself up, out and above." It seems that all the boomer musicals are biographical revues.