Posted: 3/14/23 at 7:49pm
I was 11 when Bonnie & Clyde and Wonderland both bombed, so the Wildhorn vs Broadway saga was basically over when I got into theatre. My question is, why didn't Linda Eder become a theatre star? Was it the Wildhorn connection? Were her acting skills weak? None of the above?
Posted: 3/14/23 at 8:13pm
She’s not an actress but she can sing a song.
Posted: 3/14/23 at 8:13pm
She was never all that interested in being an actress and her J&H stint confirmed that, as I have understood it. She makes a killing on the concert circuit and I believe she has a family member that needs special care, which she can provide. She’s extremely happy doing her thing In Minnesota. Her annual holiday concert here is a personal tradition and so special, since her family & friends attend.
Posted: 3/14/23 at 8:36pm
It is true that her voice made up for the acting. The whole musical was awful so she didn't stick out but I bet in a better production her lack of skills in acting would've really hurt her if she had decided to continue
Posted: 3/14/23 at 9:26pm
Her voice was so incredible to hear live in that show. She is definitely not an actor, but she knows how to sell a song, and her vocals practically ripped the roof off the theatre. I was surprised when it was announced that she was doing the show on Broadway. She had already been singing those songs for so long that I figured she would have been over it by the time it reached Broadway. I agree that she seems more comfortable doing concerts, and as we’ve discussed many times here before, Broadway’s performance schedule is grueling, and it’s easy to get burned out.
Younger members of the board may not know that when the original concept album for Jekyll & Hyde was released, theatre fans went bonkers for the music. It was 1990. Les Mis and Phantom were still hot on Broadway, and everyone was wondering what would be the next big thing. So, when the album came out with Colm Wilkinson, who was huge at the time, and the new and amazing Linda Eder, people were using the music for their ice skating routines, kids were singing “This Is the Moment” at their high school graduations, and even CNN was using part of the music to go to commercial during their coverage of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. They even released the Piano Vocal Selections for the concept album, which seemed pretty rare. It got even more popular when the expanded album with Anthony Warlow and again, Eder, was released a few years later. To hardcore theatre fans, Eder had already become this mythic, unseen unicorn for her vocals on the album, and luckily she delivered the goods when we finally got to see her live.
Posted: 3/15/23 at 7:53pm
Although not on Broadway, she did perform as an actress in the shows "Camille Claudel" and "The Civil War".
Posted: 3/15/23 at 8:43pm
I don’t know much about her work but her “don’t rain on my parade” recorded on one of her albums is in my opinion so shockingly powerful it makes Lea Michele sound quite thin. Very impressive.
Posted: 3/15/23 at 9:48pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_6n3drbhV0 Linda Eder
Posted: 3/15/23 at 10:17pm
Patti LuPone FANatic said: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_6n3drbhV0 Linda Eder"
Was this on the tour she did with Bacharach? I remember that banter before the song.
I was there the first night she sang Don Quixote. It was a thank you concert she did in Denver right after J&H closed there on the pre-Broadway tour. (The show sold out there) Our jaws just dropped. And the Ellie Caulkins Theater went nuts.
Posted: 3/16/23 at 2:37pm
From various interviews, I gather her main ambition was never to be mainly a theater actor. She did theatrical work while she was with Frank Wildhorn because that was the kind of music he primarily wrote, but after they separated she didn’t do any more acting, though surely she could have gotten a Broadway gig if she’d wanted.
She once said she’d planned to stay with J&H on Broadway until it recouped, but left after 17 months to give birth to her son. The show went on to run nearly 4 years but never did recoup.
I saw her in the pre-Broadway tour at the Fox in Atlanta and she damn near blew the roof off that giant barn with her voice. Her concert work is also stellar, and her interpretive and patter skills have grown exponentially over time. It would be fun to see her take on a featured role on Broadway today that would let her voice soar without having to carry a show. But from her YouTube posts, it seems she’s perfectly happy living in the country with her horses and doing concert work and master classes.
Updated On: 3/16/23 at 02:37 PM
