Jersey Boys Sets Box Office Record In Cleveland, OH

 Jersey Boys set a worldwide production box office record with the week ending July 21, 2008 at Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare Theatre. The Tony® and Grammy® award winning Best Musical that tells the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, grossed $1,883,450 last week, shattering all records set by the production in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, London and other tour cities.  Jersey Boys opened to critical acclaim on June 20 at Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare Theatre, where it played its final performance on July 20, 2008. The national tour will next play Dallas, Texas, July 23 through August 16, 2008.

This figure also represents a new PlayhouseSquare record for gross sales in one week.  The previous record was established by the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, December 11-16, 2001. While the Radio City record took fourteen performances to set the previous mark of $1,854,894, Jersey Boys beat the previous mark by $28,556 and established the new record with only eight performances.

Additionally, Jersey Boys broke the PlayhouseSquare Attendance Record for a regular 8-show week.  The previous record was set in June of 1993 by the original tour of The Phantom of the Opera.  Phantom's weekly attendance record of 24,466 was unbroken for the past 15 years until Jersey Boys established a new record of 24,655.

Over the course of the five-week, forty performance Jersey Boys engagement (June 18 – July 20, 2008), 104,248 patrons flocked to PlayhouseSquare in downtown Cleveland and the total engagement gross was $7,731,637.

Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons – Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi, and how this group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American pop music sensations of all time. They wrote their own songs, invented their own sound and sold 175 million records worldwide – all before they were 30.

Jersey Boys is directed by two-time Tony® Award winner Des McAnuff.  The musical, which won a total of four Tony® Awards and continues to set new weekly box office records at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, is written by Academy Award winner Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crewe and choreography by Sergio Trujillo.

The cast of the US Tour stars Erik Bates (Tommy DeVito), Joseph Leo Bwarie (Frankie Valli), Steve Gouveia (Nick Massi), Andrew Rannells (Bob Gaudio), with Jonathan Hadley and Joseph Siravo.  The ensemble includes Matt Bailey, Sarah Darling, Christopher DeAngelis, John Gardiner, Buck Hujabre, Jamie Karen, Renée Marino, Brandon Matthieus, Denise Payne, Michael Pearce, Zachary Prince, Nathan Scherich, Brian Silverman, Courter Simmons, Taylor Sternberg and Kara Tremel.

Jersey Boys premiered at La Jolla Playhouse, October 17, 2004, where the musical played a record-breaking run prior to the Broadway production. Jersey Boys opened at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway to critical acclaim on November 6, 2005 and continues to set new weekly box office records, remaining among the five top grossing shows in New York.  The Jersey Boys National Tour opened to rave reviews in San Francisco on December 1, 2006 and played a 44-week, record-breaking run.  The show is currently playing in New York, London, Las Vegas, Chicago, in cities across the U.S. on a National Tour, and will open in Melbourne, Australia in March, 2009.

The Original Broadway Cast Recording of Jersey Boys, produced by Bob Gaudio, received the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album and has been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Jersey Boys: The Story of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons (Broadway Books) is the official handbook to the smash Broadway hit and is now on sale.