Special to The Washington Post Frankie Valli doesn't call 'Jersey Boys' a musical; he consistently refers to the Broadway show as a play. So does Rick Elice, co-author of the hit that won the 2006 Tony Award for best, um, musical. The two have a point. Sure, audiences turn up large in New York and wherever the international smash has expanded (it's now at the National Theatre for a 10-week run). And yes, they reasonably expect to hear the 1960s and '70s chart-toppers Valli cranked out with and without the Four Seasons -- pop candy from 'Sherry' and 'Walk Like a Man' to the lounge standard 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You.' But it's the dark 'Behind the Music'-style drama that's clinched the theatrical appeal of 'Jersey Boys' -- the true tales of growing up tough in Newark and making hit records, with mobsters as part of the scenery and big-time loan-sharking as a major plot twist. A young Joe Pesci hung around with the neighborhood guys, adding to the 'Goodfellas' aura, and while the fictionalized Tommy DeVito that Pesci played in Martin Scorsese's 1990 film is not based on the Tommy DeVito of the original Four Seasons, the guitarist-singer's massive debts and mob ties did indeed lead to a major turning point for the band by 1970. 'It's the real `Sopranos,' ' jokes 'Jersey Boys' co-writer Marshall Brickman, 'with a real soprano.' He's referring to Valli, of course, whose soaring range and gutsy delivery helped define the Four Seasons' radio-ready sound. The group's music is handled with care (and flair) in director Des McAnuff's Broadway staging. The actors who play the Seasons sing and play their own instruments; the songs aren't pressed into the service of a made-up narrative, the way familiar tunes were creatively repurposed in, say, Abba's 'Mamma Mia!' and the Billy Joel-driven 'Movin' Out.' Instead, Elice (pronounced 'Ellis') and Brickman took McAnuff's suggestion, piecing together a stage biography that leads fairly naturally to live performances of the group's songs. And once the theatrical team heard what Valli, DeVito, Bob Gaudio and Nick Massi had lived through, they figured they'd better tell the saga fairly straight -- even if that meant doing it from four points of view (one for each season, natch). Bass player Massi split from the group in 1965 and died in 2000; DeVito was bought out. Gaudio and Valli forged a handshake partnership that has long outlived the band. It was Valli and Gaudio -- a teenage songwriting success with 'Short Shorts' who went on to pen hits for the Seasons and produce records for Michael Jackson and Neil Diamond -- who peddled the notion of a Broadway show to potential writers. 'Bob and Frankie had approval over the final script,' says Elice, chatting with Brickman after a Saturday night performance of the show in New York. ('Jersey Boys' was the first musical for the urbane Brickman and the eager Elice, but it won't be their last. They're hard at work on 'The Addams Family' musical, scheduled to star Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth on Broadway in the spring.) The pair approached DeVito by phone, warily; from Las Vegas, DeVito said: 'Don't listen to those guys. I'll tell you what really happened.' 'Hearing Tommy chime in with another version,' Elice says, 'that was the eureka moment for us.' Though jukebox musicals were in iffy favor after a string of Broadway duds, 'Jersey Boys' found a sweet spot. McAnuff's savvy staging and the Damon Runyonesque characters -- plus a base line of respect demanded by Valli and Gaudio, who didn't want their story given the cartoon treatment -- chased any silliness away from the project. And when the show debuted at San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse in 2004, the group's fans, firmly ensconced in Broadway's ticket-buying demographic, showed up in droves. 'We had no idea,' says Brickman, a head writer in the late 1960s for Johnny Carson's 'Tonight Show' and a co-writer of Woody Allen's classic '70s films 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan.' 'There was a whole subculture under our radar.' 'And guys,' Elice adds immediately. 'Lots and lots of guys. More than you would ever see at a regular Broadway musical.' If Valli is surprised at the venture's success, the singer doesn't show it the next afternoon as he prepares for a Sunday evening concert at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. And it quickly becomes clear why Elice says, when asked about his 'Jersey Boys' writing process, 'All I had to do was listen.' The diminutive, septuagenarianValli is understated, businesslike and not given to anything that sounds like embellishment, yet his casual reminiscences seem drawn from a mythic trunk of by-my-bootstraps showbiz tales. There's the time, for instance, when a woman 'discovered' him as a teenager and immediately tried to lure him to Manhattan. 'I thought she was stroking me,' Valli says with a grin. 'I said, `Yeah, all right. Well, I hang out on this corner; if you want to get in touch with me, meet me there.' Maybe a month later, she came looking for me and took me to New York.' He got a recording gig and naturally was hooked. It was a long way up, though, as 'Jersey Boys' makes clear. 'It's amazing when you know what you want to do, but you don't know how to get there,' says Valli, who changed his name from Francis Castelluccio to get noticed. 'Nobody was sending me to special music schools to find out if I had special talents. I remember when I told my father I wanted to be a singer, he thought I'd lost my mind. He wanted to know what kind of work that was.' A rare one-note cackle escapes from the usually cool facade. He talks at length about his musical influences -- Sinatra, Stan Kenton, the Four Freshmen -- and laments the demise of popular across-the-spectrum radio. 'What music business?' he grouses, while acknowledging that at least touring, if not recording, has become more lucrative. He recalls long weeks on hot buses and quick turnarounds in run-of-the-mill venues; as the names of top clubs start tripping off his tongue, it's as if he's suddenly speaking in Rat Pack-ese: Copacabana, Palumbo's, Twin Coaches, the Roostertail. The band's efforts to hush up its way-under-the-table financial troubles now strike him as ironic: 'We were afraid that everybody would find out that there were guys who were arrested and guys who did time. Today, you need to get arrested to have a career,' he says dryly. 'It's a total turnaround.' The thrice-married Valli has kids ranging in age from 15 to 50, and he has grandchildren, too. Some, but not all, of the personal tragedy he has endured is in the show. 'Tell the story,' Valli declares, professing disdain for sugarcoated celebrity biographies. 'We're all human beings, we're all here doing the best we can, and we all make mistakes.' (Begin optional trim) Back to showbiz, Valli tells an anecdote about seeing late-career Sinatra, and correcting a fan who said he felt let down. 'Finally I turned to this guy. I said, `Excuse me -- do you know how old this guy is? Did you really come tonight and expect him to sound like he did when he was 21? You should stay home and listen to the records. So now he's in the winter of his life, and you want to sit here and critique him?' The guy said, `You're right -- I never thought of it that way.' 'And basically,' he continues, 'that's what it is. There's not a night goes by, I don't care who the singer is. ... Some days the sun comes out, some days it rains or snows.' (End optional trim) Valli fills the 7,000 seats at the Mohegan Sun to capacity, backed by a young-looking rock combo, a crackerjack horn section and a fresh-faced quartet of backup singers: the newest Four Seasons. By 7:20 Valli hits the stage; wearing a suit and open collar, he looks sharp, and his energy is good. Valli doesn't sound like he's 21, but he tosses the crowd a few high notes early in 'Dawn (Go Away)'; by the end of the evening, the audience is well into it. The most durable Jersey Boy slaps hands with fans at the lip of the stage -- not undies flung at his feet, exactly, but enough adoration to explain why he doesn't yet coast on the vintage pop catalogue he controls with Gaudio and the newer cash cow that is the 'Jersey Boys' musical. Er, play. 