At the New Theatre and Restaurant outside Kansas City, Missouri, audiences are flocking to a nearly sold-out run of Jersey Boys. Some have even attended more than one performance of the Four Seasons jukebox musical to see how the two actors rotating in the lead role of Frankie Valli approach the role differently.

They may have to look closely, though, as the two performers sharing the role are twins.

“I’ve had this dream of doing twin Frankies,” said Coby Oram, who’s currently alternating performances as Frankie with his identical twin brother, Chris Oram. The idea first bubbled up when Coby was cast as a swing in a cruise ship production of Jersey Boys, in which two performers shared the role of Frankie. Coby’s immediate thought: “Where’s Chris? Why aren’t we doing this together?”

Now in their late 20s, Chris and Coby Oram grew up in Utah, where they attended a performing arts high school and frequently shared the stage in both musicals and straight plays.

“I think Chris has always been a bit more of the favored performer, if you look at just kind of what roles were given throughout middle school and high school,” said Rachel Fonseca, a close friend of the Orams who traveled to see them in Jersey Boys. For example, in their senior year production of Grease, Chris was cast as Danny, while Coby played the Teen Angel. Since then, Fonseca thinks both have come into their own as performers. “What’s been cool to watch is them doing things that they didn’t think they could do,” said Fonseca.

Their road to becoming professional actors, however, was not straightforward. After graduating high school, the Orams reevaluated their relationship with their ADHD medication, left the Mormon Church, and had moderately successful auditions on American Idol in 2018. Now, nearly a decade later, they are sharing the stage once again, and in a dream role.

“I’m not positive, but I don’t think there is a single set of identical twins outside of the two of us, inside of that pool” of performers who can play Frankie Valli, said Chris Oram. 

“If there are, we would like to meet them!” Coby added.

Since the role is so demanding, some productions will hire a primary Frankie and an alternate to cover two or more performances a week. Coby recalls having to perform the role on his own in a summer stock production. “I learned pretty quickly why people like to hire alternates,” he said. “Doing it eight times a week, I had no work-life balance.”

Chris’s first time performing as Frankie came with similar struggles. A week into performances at Derby Dinner Playhouse in Indiana, the alternate for Frankie went out on parental leave—meaning that Chris would cover every performance for two weeks.

“I went from two weeks straight of rehearsal to a week and a half of performances,” he recalled. “Finally, getting one day off and the next day I’m on for a two show day, and continuing for two weeks, doing nine shows a week—it was trial by fire.”

For this production, the twins have enjoyed rediscovering their bond after months apart.

“We found ourselves synchronizing,” Coby said. “Like, starting to have the same reactions to things again, which is just like a twin thing. We’ve almost kind of been losing that, and then we got to find it again in a professional setting.”

Larry Raben, who directed the New Theatre’s production of Jersey Boys, raved about the Orams.

“If anyone ever has the chance to work with identical twins on a role like this—if they’re both talented, I would say go for it!” said Raben, who had previously worked with Coby on a different production of Jersey Boys. “These guys were just thoughtful every step of the way about this journey. It did my heart good and the audience is loving them.”

From an audience perspective, the Frankies may look identical, but the differences in performances are there. Rachel Fonseca has seen both, and her verdict is that Chris’s approach is more bright-eyed, whereas Coby’s is “very grounded and very sure of himself. They truly are so different down to their souls and their personality. That definitely comes out in their performances.”

If you happen to miss Jersey Boys at the New Theatre and Restaurant during its run (it closes June 22), not to worry: The Orams said they recently signed contracts to continue as “twin Frankies” aboard a cruise ship production in the coming months. You can follow their adventures at @oram.bros on Instagram.

Jacob Aloi is an arts journalist based in Minneapolis. He is currently a staff arts reporter and newscaster with MPR News.