Jekyll and Hyde Touring Again

[grandpianoalex]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 1:36pm

It looks like Jekyll and Hyde is going out on tour again. Saw it posted on Tom McCoy's Facebook that he's one of the producers. It goes up in August. Also just saw "Celebrity Attractions" announce it in their 2012-2013 season.

Interesting that it's going back out again...

[bwayfan4life]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 1:45pm

I hope they do the original pre-broadway tour version. It was amazing.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 1:48pm

The first pre-Broadway tour was fantastic. I didn't see the post-Broadway tour, but I heard it was far superior to the Broadway production with most of the score changes restored back to the pre-Broadway version. Did anyone see it? I always wondered what staging it used.

[uncageg]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:07pm

I saw the pre-Broadway tour in Denver. It was much better than what ended up on broadway. Those of us who saw it pre-Broadway were lucky enough to see the really cool mirror effect in the confrontation scene. It has been so long ago but I do remember I thought the set and lighting for the Board of Governers scene.

Just an aside...Denver pulled in the highest grosses for the tour and Linda Eder came back and did a thank you concert at the Auditorium Theatre right next door to the theater where the show played. I was at that concert. Since she was new to everyone, she blew everyone away in concert especially when she did "Don't Rain on My Parade" and "Don Quixote".

[philly03]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:07pm

The second Broadway tour was largely the Broadway production, with additional directing/choreographing (By Jerry Mitchell actually!) and some tweaks. They re-added popular songs like "I Need to Know," and most importantly "Bring on the Men" but it followed the same structure. It was staged/designed pretty much like the Broadway production, without the red box. It was better than what played on Broadway, however.

With this piece (and pretty much every Wildhorn piece), it will be in the hands of a new director (a not so new director to Wildhorn musicals) who will get to aim the story as he wants. Though obviously, songs like "Bring on the Men" won't be cut again as that was one of the most stupid cuts ever.


Jekyll was also pretty much lined up for a revival in '12-'13, though I'm sure plenty of the proposed producers pulled out after Bonnie and Wonderland. But perhaps they will tour and bring it back the way it came in.

[gvendo2005]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:10pm

One wonders if this will bear any relation to the version that Mitchell Jarvis was just doing a reading of in New York last month.

[bwayfan4life]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:17pm

I saw the pre-broadway tour in New Orleans shortly before it went to broadway. The effects and stagiing where amazing. In addition to the the scenes mentioned, the one I will never forget is the scene when Lucy was killed, everthing was white and when Hyde stabbed her, the blood was all over, you could hear the reaction all through the audiance.

[HumATune]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:24pm

I wonder if they'll include "If You Only Knew" and where they'd insert it.

[uncageg]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:26pm

I forgot about that bwayfan, that scene was done very well.

Does anybody remember why the creator of the confrontation scene mirror pulled the effect for the Broadway run? I remember reading about it. Part of me wants to say it was either over compensation or rights to the effect. Another part wants to say it it also had something to do with all of the changes. I am probably wrong!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:32pm

That Lucy death scene was absolutely chilling in the first pre-Broadway tour. I remember the audible gasps from the audience when Hyde suddenly appeared out of nowhere in Lucy's bedroom.

The second pre-Broadway tour was when things started to go a little bit awry. Bring on the Men looked as if it were taking place at Mardi Gras. Cut and shuffling to the book were made with little care. And set reduction had already begun. Most of the show remained the same, but the changes that were implemented were already looking cheap and/or out of left field. Still, it was better than what wound up on Broadway, which was a completely different show and an embarrassing mess, which was a massive disappointment after the tidal wave of positive buzz from the Alley production and the first tour.

[bwayfan4life]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:33pm

I also wonered if it was the size of the theatre, but I did hear it was what you stated. Sad really, because the broadway version was quite boring after seing the tour. I often wondered how or why they would do that. It might still be running today if it had not been changed.

Updated On: 1/18/12 at 02:33 PM

[philly03]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:33pm

I forget the story as well uncageg, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with the rights of the effect, and I'm sure the director change from Greg Boyd to Robin Phillips (who also designed the set) had something to do with it. The staging wasn't as gothic or "huge" when it came to NY either in the smaller Schoenfeld.

[philly03]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 2:39pm

In my opinion, the absolute worst version of this show toured in the UK, before a proposed West End run. Talk about a mash up of songs/scenes/books cuts and rewritten. That Jekyll was awful, but the Lucy, Louise Dearman was quite good. I think she is in Wicked in London now.

I'm sure in an effort to jam pack the best songs into the show, they put "The Girls of the Night" after "In His Eyes" and a reprise of "Facade," then what followed was "No One Knows Who I Am"... Oddly enough, they then put "A New Life" with "Dangerous Game" following it, and finally the "Sympathy, Tenderness" reprise.

And of course, they needed "This is the Moment" to be reprised by a chorus for the wedding.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/18/12 at 5:54pm

Blaxx will be ecstatic over this news. He does so love Wildhorn.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 10/26/14 at 2:28pm

Has anyone seen the tour?

[sctrojan65]

Posted: 11/3/14 at 9:42pm

This musical was not my favorite. I saw it way back when it first toured prior to hitting Broadway for the first time. The music, I remember, was nice. The vocal performances were very good. But I didn't find any of the characters to be particularly sympathetic characters, and I just couldn't connect with them, or the story in general.

[Elfuhbuh]

Posted: 11/3/14 at 10:20pm

"Has anyone seen the tour?"

Ooh, yes, I saw the tour on Saturday, so I'll tell you all about it!

First of all, the set was VERY minimal, with the stage set up a bit like a rock concert. There were set pieces, such as the shelves in Jekyll's laboratory and the tables and chairs in The Red Rat, that actors brought on and off the stage. Overall, it was not a visual replica of either the original or revival Broadway productions, but given the scale of this version, I think the simplicity was a good thing.

The actor playing Jekyll/Hyde, Mr. Aleks Knezevich, was EXTREMELY talented. His voice had the entire audience melting in their seats, and his distinction between Jekyll and Hyde acting-wise was spot-on. I hope he gets to go into more professional work in the near future, because he really has many things going for him. The rest of the cast was fine, too, but this is one production where the lead truly stands out, which is always a good thing.

Looking at the song list in my program, it seems to mostly reflect the original Broadway arrangement (except in this version, Bring On the Men was used instead of Good N' Evil). However, there were many differences in the script, and the first Alive actually was presented the same way it was on the 1994 Concept Recording (meaning the song was performed in its entiretey instead of being split apart), and the reprise at the end of Act One was just a brief snippet of, "FOR I FEEL I'LL LIVE ON FOREVER--" and onwards after Hyde murdered the Bishop. The other changes to the script were good, however, and the show as a whole really felt as if it flowed smoother than it has in the past.

Also, the rock orchestrations were not used here, thank God; the orchestrations are identical to the original Broadway production.

Unfortunately, they did the Umbrella Dance during Murder, Murder.

**SPOILER TO ANYONE WHO CARES**
We get to see Hyde attack Lucy, only instead of smacking her with his stick, he feels her up for a moment before biting extremely hard into her shoulder, causing Lucy to run offstage. (Strangely enough, Lucy was beginning to sing Dangerous Game as she was being felt up before the bite interrupted her; don't know why they decided to include that.) Also, Lucy's murder was particularly chilling here, as Hyde slowly pushed his knife into Lucy's skull as she trembled silently with pain; I feel this was a lot more disturbing to watch than the typical stab in the back scenario, so kudos.

Another funny tidbit was that, during Bring On the Men, most of the "female" dancers were actually men dressed in drag. Once the audience picked up on this, everyone was laughing their lungs out.

Confrontation went back to the classic Jekyll-Hyde-switcheroo that we saw in the original Broadway production. There was a big screen that went in front of the stage as this happened, and the lights switched frequently between a deep red for Hyde and a bright white for Jekyll.

Overall, I really enjoyed this production, and I feel that anyone interested in Jekyll & Hyde should check it out if the tour goes near their home.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/3/14 at 10:41pm

It sounds like they're using the standard licensed MTI libretto. The version of "Alive" in the MTI libretto includes Lucy singing a bit of "Dangerous Game" and that has been in place in various productions prior to the original Broadway staging so it's nothing new. It's just never been recorded for any of the English language cast albums. They're probably using the MTI orchestrations as well or a reduced version which are actually not identical to the orchestrations used on Broadway. A lot of the underscore and transitional music is different and it's scored for a larger orchestra than what was used on Broadway originally.

[Elfuhbuh]

Posted: 11/3/14 at 10:56pm

Hmm, interesting, thanks for the info! I haven't watched a lot of productions outside of the Broadway versions and one or two German productions, so this was something I didn't know. Did Kim Scharnberg do the orchestrations for the other productions prior to the Broadway productions? It has him credited in the program, but I'm not entirely sure about the story there.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/3/14 at 11:03pm

I think he orchestrated all of the major US productions and they were often very different from one version to the next. Someone else can verify. I don't know if all of the foreign productions used his stuff though. If I didn't know better I wouldn't believe that the same person who orchestrated the original Broadway production also orchestrated the revival. (Yikes!)