Broadway Legend Joined: 10/19/06
I personally like "Good N Evil" better than "Bring on the Men." It fits the theme/tone of the show a *lot* better, but maybe that's me.
I agree with her.
BRING ON THE MEN is hands down the better song not only as a song, but as she said, an introduction of Lucy.
But I enjoy GOOD AND EVIL.
Just not as much
Yes, I agree with Linda! I personally liked "Good n Evil" but ironincally enough, I've been listening to the J&H soundtrack lately (with the original Bway cast) and the character of Lucy wasn't "properly introduced". I do think "Girls of the Night" was a HUGE loss too. LOVE that song!
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/28/05
I have only seen the tour with Chuck Wagner that was on during the Broadway run, which was still much closer to the double disc album than the Broadway version. I loved the double disc album, and I loved the tour, the Broadway version was not bad, but could have been so much better. So yes, I agree.
I saw the tour prior to Broadway that had the concept album's music intact. It was far better than what ended up on Broadway. When the tour of the B'way production came back through Denver, it had "Bring on the Men" back in the show. Thank goodness. I love the music from this show and they butchered it on Broadway. Also, does anyone know the story regarding the transformation scene and why they lost the rights to use the mirror effect on Broadway. I read it a long time ago when it happened but forget the specifics. I can remember that scene getting great applause on the pre Broadway tour with the mirror.
Swing Joined: 3/10/08
I agree with Linda. "Bring on the Men" was a fabulous intro for her character.
The best Jekyll and Hyde was the original production at the Alley Theatre directed by Greg Boyd. It had book problems and the show did not have enough shape to know where the act breaks should be but there were absolute brilliant performances by Wagner and Eder. Perhaps Wagner's best work ever! I never thought Cuccioli was as good. IMHO. I know others feel differently. Boyd directed with flair and it was truly scary and it felt differently in that small thrust house.
Boyd should have directed on Broadway after a bonafide show doctor was brought in.
Wildhorn takes a lot of abuse, but I think his scores are mostly brilliant. What a lot of people make fun of about his songs are the lyrics. Wildhorn doesn't write the lyrics. He writes exciting, singable, hummable tunes that reach great momentous (that's right, you heard me) climaxes. What Wildhorn needs is a top notch lyricist. I thought Knighton did pretty well in Scarlet Pimpernel.
Yeah, I enjoy Wildhorn's music. He has just worked with so many TERRIBLE lyricists. Andrew Lloyd Webber has this same problem.
I actually don't know the answer to the mirror question. Maybe it was the original director's idea and he pulled it because he was replaced when the show moved to Broadway and said it was his idea & didn't want to get the credit taken away? Or maybe didn't Amadeus use some mirror trick and the producers of that said 'no, no, no!' I'm not sure though.
And I really hate that the producers closed the show the way they did. It defanetly could have played ATLEAST 6 more months than what it did...but they were too "greedy" so to say with the star-casting, even though to my suprise David Hasselhoff did absolutely nothing for the show.
But if they had got Donny Osmond to a contract for even March as rumored, the show would have soared while he was there I bet.
It had been doing moderate business...
https://www.broadwayworld.com/grossesshow.cfm?show=JEKYLL%20%26%20HYDE&year=2000
Interesting! We need a Jekyll Love thread!
It's funny that people think the lyrics are bad to Jekyll & Hyde when the lyrcist is in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. So the lyrics might be very general, and sometimes utterly childish rhymes, but a lot of it I thought was decent.
And what..Frank Wildhorn only wrote one international best hit (for Whitney Houston), but he's no song writer either.
Personally, I liked them both. And consider myself a Wildhorn fan anyway...from work to work it's always different, and doesn't all sound super similar (like IMO Boublil & Shonberg stuff).
I thought Nan was OK. She must have liked the actual book THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL because especially for the book of the musical for SP1 they were very similar in events (the guillitone is mentioned first in both).
I wish I could have heard something from Dracula though. I feel like Hampton & Black could have either done some glory for Wildhorn or they just did something awful.
Philly, I think it was something to that effect, but I also seem to remember it had something to do with the person who designed the mirror effect. It was really cool and ashame they couldn't use it on Broadway. It also surprised me that they didn't try to come up with something other than what they did.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/23/05
I think Bring On The Men would have worked better than Good and Evil. It makes more sense. Especially with Jekyll's line, "It made me think. We all have choices to make." Cuz one of the lyrics is, "They say we may not pass this way again"
Someone mentioned they were listening to the OBC recording latly. I cannot listen to that recording ever. I always listen to the 1994 Concept album with Anthony Warlow. Besides the fact his voice is beyond incredible it has so many great songs that were cut and it seems its just a better show than when it made it to bway.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/19/06
For those of us who didn't see it...what is this "mirror effect"?
Wildhorn takes a lot of abuse, but I think his scores are mostly brilliant. What a lot of people make fun of about his songs are the lyrics. Wildhorn doesn't write the lyrics. He writes exciting, singable, hummable tunes that reach great momentous (that's right, you heard me) climaxes.
Wildhorn takes a lot of abuse for good reason. His tunes meander terribly and reach many anti-climaxes before hitting somewhat of a high at the end, but you can't recognize it because he beat it out of you with the anti-s...
In my earlier post I said "not to mention" the insipid lyrics, because those are awful too, but also to keep the focus on the bloated, flabby score.
And as one detractor, I couldn't care less if the fella is in the songwriter's hall of fame, or even if he ascended into the heavens as an immortal lyricist, the lyrics are still stilted, on-the-nose, rudimentary, and insipid...
Not to say there aren't some good moments in the score, but they are few and far between, and getting from on to the next is painful, sorry to say...
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