A new production of “Jersey Boys” at Circa ’21 in Rock Island has just about the two best men possible at the helm, on and off stage.

Less than year after Michael Ingersoll directed Bear Manescalchi as Frankie Valli in the popular jukebox musical about Valli and The Four Seasons in Memphis, the pair is back for a run that will open Friday, May 3 and run through July 6, 2024.

Manescalchi, 36, is back at Circa in his fifth production of “Jersey Boys,” after being part of the cast of a successful Murder on the Orient Express here. Among his long list of theater credits are Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors , Motel in Fiddler on the Roof , Watson in Baskerville, Twelfth Night (Musical), almost four productions of Sister Act (one canceled due to COVID), singing on Disney Cruise Line, and performing at Universal Japan.

“Sister Act” was the first show he sang falsetto in and people encouraged him to do Frankie (who famously sang in the high falsetto range) in “Jersey Boys,” and his first production was in 2022 in Kansas.

The star and Circa director worked in the same roles for the 2005 musical in Memphis, Tenn. (Playhouse on the Square), for a month-long run last June and July.

Ingersoll played Nick Massi (one of the Four Seasons) in the very first Broadway tour in 2006, the second person ever to play the role.

“There’s never a guarantee that anything that hits on Broadway is going to hit in the country,” he said Wednesday. “Jersey Boys” had very gritty material and a lot of profanity (they toned down some language for the Circa production).

“The stakes were so high to have a hit that would survive outside of New York, that the entire creative team reassembled for the national tour,” Ingersoll said. “It was the entire Broadway process, with all the Broadway set and Broadway technology, but we opened in San Francisco.”

After they opened, it was such a hit, the show stayed for nine months – then in Los Angeles for three months and two and a half years in Chicago, and he played the part a total of 1,300 times.

“The show became so popular by the time I was out of it, there were four companies,” Ingersoll said. Then, six companies over four continents.

“Jersey Boys” ran on Broadway until Jan. 15, 2017, for 4,642 performances, now the 13 ^th longest running show in history.

“The reason ‘Jersey Boys’ is a success is that it is a fantastic play with music. The writing is what sets it apart,” Ingersoll said, comparing it to a lesser jukebox musical about a more popular group – The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.”

That show opened on Broadway the same year, 2005, received scathing critical reviews, and only ran for 94 performances.

“The difference is the writing,” Ingersoll said, noting “Jersey Boys” was co-penned by Oscar winner Marshall Brickman (“Annie Hall,” “Manhattan”). The story focuses on four poor, working-class guys, trying to get out of poverty “by way of this incredibly risky medium, and that’s why it’s compelling,” he said.

“A lot of people can see themselves in this story. A lot of us are striving – we start in difficult places, we want to get to a better place,” Ingersoll said. “We want to provide for our families. That’s all they wanted to do. Those stories, and the fact they tanged with the Mafia a little bit; they sold 100 million records.”

The single greatest thing that makes the show work is, while the audience is familiar with the songs (like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” December 1963 (Oh What a Night”), they learn things about the group that they didn’t know, he noted.

“When you recontextualize it, and they hear it live, it’s like hearing it again for the first time, and that’s why it works,” Ingersoll said. “That’s why people cry at many of the celebratory moments.”

He first directed it two years ago in Arrow Rock, Mo., and Circa is his third time directing it. Ingersoll and his wife run a Chicago-based concert production company, called Artists Lounge Live .

“This play changed my life and career forever,” he said of “Jersey Boys.” “I’ve been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and I’m nobody, because the show is so big.”

Ingersoll doesn’t like the more common jukebox musical formula of taking pop songs and forcing them into an unrelated narrative, though “Mamma Mia!” (songs of ABBA) made that work to tremendous success.

“You can count on one hand how many times that’s been successful,” he said. “If Jersey Boys” was about a girl named Sherry and big girls who didn’t cry, it wouldn’t work. It was due to the surviving Four Seasons team were willing to tell their story as it happened.

In the biographical Carole King jukebox musical, “Beautiful,” the popular singer-songwriter emerges unscathed, and it’s a nice show, but without much of the drama and grit “Jersey Boys” has, Ingersoll said.

“It doesn’t hook me the way this one does, because Frankie and Bob and Tommy were gonna say, let me show you when we were not great. Let me show you what we did very, very wrong,” Ingersoll said. “That’s what hooks people. It’s really difficult to root for a hero who never says, ‘I was wrong, I struggled, I did this terribly.’”

“Look at our lives – when we can see other people on stage, especially famous people, it takes it from being their story to our story, and that’s what good theater is,” he said.

Frankie Valli goes from a teenager to age 60 in the musical. The guys desperately needed each other to succeed, Ingersoll said.

When Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi met, they were just four teens singing together under street lamps, scraping for gigs and money in their working-class neighborhood, according to a Circa synopsis.

As the quartet rises to international stardom, however, they celebrate the highs and endure the lows that come hand-in-hand with fame. Each member of the group takes a turn narrating events in this stage tale, illustrating how a ragtag group of guys from New Jersey – and their decades-long friendships – became music history.

In “Jersey Boys,” actor Joe Pesci (“Home Alone,” “My Cousin Vinny,” “Goodfellas”) plays a pivotal role in the formation of the popular band. Growing up near Newark, N.J., young Pesci was friendly with Tommy DeVito and the rest of the band and Pesci connected DeVito (the band’s behind-the-scenes leader at the time) with writer Bob Gaudio, who would later pen nearly all of the Four Seasons’ most popular songs.

“Later on, Tommy ended up working for Pesci, because Pesci became a far bigger star than DeVito did,” Ingersoll said. “Tommy got a job driving him around.”

Pesci showed up for the “Jersey Boys” musical premiere in L.A.

Manescalchi loves playing the evolution of the group over the years, and the strong storytelling.

“It’s nice working with Michael, because he really gets how important it is,” he said. “I worked for someone fresh off the Broadway tour at Bradway Palm (in Florida), and they had a very different approach. They had different things they thought were important about the show, I thought was contrary to telling the story.”

“The story is what makes this piece compelling,” Manescalchi said. “It takes you on a journey and makes you feel something.”

Ingersoll credited Nick Massi (who died in December 2000, before “Jersey Boys” was created) with the harmonic structure that made the Four Seasons’ vocals so famous.

“They’re really fun to sing; it uses my whole range, basically,” Manescalchi said, noting he enjoys doing the iconic high falsetto Valli notes. He was trained at American Musical and Dramatic Academy in L.A.

Another favorite role of his was the lead Seymour in “Little Shop of Horrors,” which he called “one of THE great shows of all time.”

“I’m always so grateful to get to do a piece like that,” he said.

“Jersey Boys” is “an unkillable play,” Ingersoll said. “It is an unkillable script; the most solid script in the modern era I’ve ever come across in terms of its writing.”

“Also, remember that 50 years of familiarity with the material, and writing that solid, the play can still really connect with people – whether you’re talking a community theater level or a Broadway level,” he said. “That’s what makes a good piece of art.”

The biggest X factor in a “Jersey Boys” success is who can sing Frankie, 24 songs, and stay vocally healthy for a two-month run. “Bear is amazing that way, in terms of consistency, staying vocally healthy.”

“Frankie’s falsetto has a coarseness and a grit and an aggressiveness, and an urgency behind it,” Ingersoll said. “Mixing falsetto with that is a whole different ball game.”

“Bear freaking delivers it and he should get credit for delivering it,” he said of his star.

“I do my best to get that rougher edge,” Manescalchi. “It’s not easy.”

He tries to make smart choices, and stays healthy to protect his voice – no smoking or drinking, and getting enough sleep.

“It takes a lot of discipline to make good choices,” Ingersoll said. “Those are choices a pro makes, and Bear is a pro.”

“Sleep is the most important thing,” Manescalchi said. “I just try to live a healthy lifestyle. It’s all about longevity of your body.”

The impressive song list in the show includes “My Eyes Adored You,” “Working My Way Back to You,” and the show-stopper “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”

Ingersoll got called by Circa owner Denny Hitchcock after he reached out to Playhouse on the Square in Memphis.

“The director that was lined up to do this show, couldn’t do it a few months out,” Ingersoll said. “I got to learn about Circa, which was wonderful. From my point of view in terms of camaraderie, this is easily one of the most cohesive, generous, professional groups I have ever worked with on any level, and I mean that.

“When you try to put up a show this big in 13 days, which no one should do by the way…if you have even one problem individual, it is so freaking hard,” Ingersoll said.

“The reason this play is going to make people very happy to see it is because of the dedication, professionalism and generosity of these people here,” he said.

Under veteran music director Ron May, the show quartet is completed by director Ingersoll as Tommy DeVito (until May 15), Kyle DeFauw as Nick DeVito and Kelly Brown as Nick Massi. Additional members of the cast include Sara Leigh, Bobby Becher, Derrick Bertram, Brad Hauskins, Tristan Tapscott, JJ Varik, Tom Walljasper, Molly Wiley and Rachel Winter. And the musical’s ensemble includes John Michael, Hanna Marie Felver, Sophia Kilburg and Nathan Moreno, Adam Cerny and Kiera Lynn act as understudies for numerous roles.

“Jersey Boys” will be performed Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 p.m., and Wednesday matinées at 1:15 p.m. Pre-show entertainment featuring the theater wait staff the Bootleggers will also precede all performances. Ticket prices are $63 for the Friday-through-Sunday dinner-and-show productions and $56 for all Wednesday performances.

Reservations are available through the Circa ’21 ticket office, 1828 3 ^rd Ave., Rock Island, or by calling 309-786-7733 ext. 2.