Those four blue-collar bad boys from Jersey are back with far more glitz and spiffier staging than they ever saw in the ’60s as The Four Seasons.

Jersey Boys, which had its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in 2004 with Des McAnuff directing, went on to win four Tonys in its Broadway run and is now on national tour. This touring show plays through Aug. 31 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. It will open in San Diego in October.

It’s still a great success story, how these four high school dropouts who flirted with crime as a profession and could easily have ended up in the slammer instead became one of the biggest vocal quartets of the ’60s. (Actually, a couple of them did do brief time, but got sprung in time to make it big.)

Impetus for the group was Tommy DeVito (Deven May), a petty criminal who latched onto Frankie Castellucci (Christopher Kale Jones) and got him to change his last name to something easier to spell.

The oft-renamed group was a trio for a time, until songwriter Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen) was introduced to them. The rest is musical history.

There are musicals and there are concert shows. Jersey Boys is somewhere in between, with enough history to make it seem like a plot and enough music to keep the fan base happy.

Actually, “happy” is too mild a word. Maybe it says something about the aging of our population, but this show strikes a chord of remembrance unlike any I’ve seen. In its last incarnation, the Four Seasons mega hit “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” brought the audience to its feet and the show to a brief halt. The same thing happened this time.

Jones may not have quite the upper register of John Lloyd Young (who played Frankie on Broadway) or David Noroña (who played him in La Jolla), but he’s got power and that’s good enough. Bergen’s Gaudio is nothing short of terrific, and Deven May and Michael Ingersoll are fine as DeVito and Nick Massi, respectively.

Jersey Boys is beginning to look like a franchise. There are two touring casts and a theater in Las Vegas is being readied for a permanent show.

Aging boomers who danced and romanced to tunes like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “My Eyes Adore You” will fall in love all over again and likely leap to their feet, as did the opening-night audience.

Jersey Boys plays through Aug. 31 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Shows Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7:30 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 213-972-4400 or visit www.centertheatregroup.org.

To those who like their Bible stories straight: This show is not for you.

But those of a more contempo mindset who find all that strange Biblical language a bit off-putting, there’s Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s second musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The show has been extended through July 15 at Coronado’s Lamb’s Players Theatre, directed by Robert Smyth.

Played out on Mike Buckley’s glitzy set – with tinsel palm trees, wildly colored floor tiles and a pit that looks like it belongs on a movie set upstage center for the band – this production screams out Biblical epic.

Joseph is the Old Testament story of “Jacob and Sons” (as the neon lights blare) – Jacob the shepherd (Keith Jefferson) and three of his 11 sons, of whom Joseph (Spencer Moses) is the obvious favorite. Jacob even says so, and bestows on him the famous, fabulous long patchwork coat of many colors.

The three other brothers in this show (Steve Limones, Jon Lorenz and Lance Smith), understandably annoyed by this “favorite son” business, sing about it: “Being told we’re also-rans/does not make us Joseph’s fans.” Joseph’s question, “Could it be that I was born for higher things than you?” does not help, and the brothers begin to plot his demise. Failing that, they sell him into slavery in Egypt, where he survives by interpreting dreams, his fame spreading until eventually he even curries favor with the pharaoh.

The next time his brothers see him, Joseph is No. 2 in pharaoh’s court. And since the message of the story is family and forgiveness, a happy ending is obligatory.

But I warned you, this isn’t your standard Bible story. Along the way, we find that The King (a.k.a. the pharaoh) now sports a gaudy white Elvis suit. There’s a whole famine scene with French peasants reminiscent of Les Mis. Jacob does a “Canaan Days” rap and even the “Jeopardy!” theme is tossed in.

Narrator Deborah Gilmour Smyth holds the piece together with that gorgeous soprano voice, and the rest of the cast adds energy and spice to the story.

This Joseph is a show by, and perhaps for, the young: the tunes are, by and large, loud, bouncy and repetitive; the lyrics a bit plebeian, and all is suffused with that persistent, thumping beat.

Lamb’s first produced this show in 1994 and has brought it back periodically ever since. It looks like it’s settling in for another long, profitable run.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat plays through July 15 at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado. Shows Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. matinees Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 619-437-0600 or visit www.lambsplayers.org.

Devil Dog Six is either a one-trick pony or a six-pony trick, depending on your perspective. Deep down (or as deep as it goes), it’s a plea for woman power and racial tolerance, played by six actors taking 21 roles.

Set in Louisiana, the plot concerns female jockey Devon Tramore (Jo Anne Glover) and the strange journey she takes after being thrown in a race and suffering a serious brain injury.

Moxie Theatre’s world premiere production of Mary Fengar Gail’s horse race-centered play Devil Dog Six runs (often literally) through June 30 at San Diego Repertory’s Space Theatre. Esther Emery and Jennifer Eve Thorn direct.

Dr. Maywood (Tim Parker) tries to tell Devon’s mom Josselin (Terri Park) and dad Bernard (Mark C. Petrich) that her brain is swollen and she may never walk again, let alone ride. Horse trainer Joss will hear none of it: “We want her back on the track,” she says, as if her decision is all it takes.

Consigned to bed rest, quiet, darkness and the admonition to “refrain from thinking thoughts of any kind” – not Devon’s style – she finds escape by leaving her body, at last attaining the freedom she seeks. Of course, she returns to the track, where she can see but not be seen. She first wants to see Devil Dog Six, the horse her mother has trained and Devon intends to ride, and then Devil’s groom (and her boyfriend) Fonner Brighton (Laurence Brown).

The play careens between the hospital, Devon’s imaginary self and her real self, which more and more has a disconcerting habit of whinnying, stomping and eating only cereal and greens. “I speak horse,” she says, and the strange thing is that when she does, we almost understand her, so the horselike behavior seems, well, almost natural.

In her “real” persona, she puts up with the disapprobation of fellow jockeys (“She gloated when she won”) and her parents’ dismay that she has taken up with Fonner, a groom, for heaven’s sake, and also black. But “better Fonner than a horse,” Joss finally concludes.

Devil Dog Six is a fanciful piece that demands the suspension of disbelief, or at least the willingness to forgo logic. Think Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes, both of whom Gail reports as literary influences.

Emery and Thorn are blessed with six terrifically talented actors with the versatility to pull off their multiple characters. My favorites are Park (who even gets to play a nurse who doubles as Haitian voodoo princess Retama Salano) and Brown, totally believable as horse, jockey, groom or either of his other personae.

Devil Dog Six is a slight but engaging piece with a feminist tinge that allows escape from the grind of the daily news and our harried lives. The racing scenes are a particular hoot, with all the actors playing horses and galloping in distinctive styles around the stage (it looks funnier than it sounds).

Devil Dog Six plays through June 30 at the San Diego Repertory Space Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 619-544-1000 or visit www.moxietheatre.com.

The Nubian princess Aida, reduced to slave status in Egypt, struggles with the conflicting emotions of forbidden love for her Egyptian captor Radames and loyalty to her people in Aida, which closes a two-week run June 24 at Starlight Bowl. Elton John and Tim Rice wrote the music and lyrics. The show is directed by Carlos Mendoza.

This Disneyfied version of the beloved opera has pretty spiffy stagecraft (very tall sets, a stage that can revolve in both directions at once, fine lighting and good costumes) and variable choreography and singing. The music is a hodgepodge of rock, pop, rhythm and blues and gospel elements.

Marja Harmon’s Aida is the most successful (she’s had plenty of experience, having done a national tour). Harmon has a lovely, listenable voice, helped by the fact that she is not asked to blare out a rock or R&B sound.

Kelli Provart, who was in the original company and has a tour as the Egyptian princess Amneris under her belt, is funny as the clotheshorse who sings “I would rather wear a barrel/than conservative apparel/for dress has always been my strongest suit,” but she has a brash and strident voice that I find difficult to listen to.

Todd Fournier’s Radames can’t seem to decide what style to sing, and changes wildly within songs from crooner to rock star and back again. It’s disquieting.

But I should point out that I rather like the Verdi version, and can’t really understand why John and Rice thought a pop version a good plan. Clearly, they were right – the show ran four years on Broadway and won four Tonys.

Me? I’ll stick to the operatic version.

Aida runs through June 24 at the Starlight Bowl. Shows Thursday through Sunday at 8 p.m. For tickets, call 619-544-7828.