Drood Question (May contain spoilers)

I can only go by what I heard at the time the show was running on Broadway. Since there were no Interwebs back in the Stone Ages of the '80s, you had to use the really weird thing called word-of-mouth. I know who I saw the two times I was in the audience.

Rosabud was picked a lot for the murderer. Patti had a great way of standing very coquettishly and batting her eyes when it came time for the voting. She really milked it, too, but so did everyone else during the voting. She was very funny.

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The script is definitely slanted so that Bazzard (the understudy who longs for a bigger role) is most often picked to be Datchery.

It tends to be different in every production ... although Cleo Laine was the Opening Night murderer, more often than not audiences during the run picked Rosa Bud or Helena Landless.

During the long run of a production, the most often picked murderer was Reverend Crisparkle. It all depends on how the actors mug for the audience!

And if you listen to the various endings, there is less difference in the lyrics than one would imagine!

First of all, Husk, the phrase is "bawled out." I don't want to think what yours might mean.

But as to your question, I'd heard that Laine was often picked simply because people wanted to hear her sing another song.

I think that Puffer has the best confession song if she is chosen as the murderer.

Slight thread jack but...looking at the awards that it was nominated for just about ALL the leads were nominated except for Betty Buckley. I've only listened to it...never seen the show.
Can anyone speculate why all the leads BUT the title character was nominated for a Tony/Drama Desk Award?

I never saw it, nor do I know anything beyond the concept, but if I would imagine they either did a "show of hands" type thing and hoped for a strong majority, or did an applause-o-meter type thing. I don't think getting the vote scientific was incredibly important.

Updated On: 7/8/09 at 07:01 PM

Actors were dispatched to all areas of the theatre and votes were taken and the process was pretty thorough. I think it was done by a show of hands for the respective candidates, though I don't remember exactly. They did have a blackboard in the lobby that had the tallies of votes for each of the murderers for each performance. When I saw it, I voted for Helena, but Rosa Bud was picked as the murderer. And since Patti Cohenour basically got to go berserk in her confession, it certainly was entertaining, though I was momentarily bummed that Helena didn't win.

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