Jekyll and Hyde’s
But how important are the critics? With $2 million in advance ticket sales and a plot familiar to the many tourists attending Broadway shows this summer, Jekyll and Hyde may be unstoppable. It already has a cult audience, dubbed “Jekkies,” developed over the musical’s long and tortuous march to Manhattan. First produced in 1990 at Houston’s Alley Theatre, Jekyll and Hyde seemed designed to capitalize on the success of British musicals based on 19th-century melodramas like Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. Even as the show headed back into development, the score was partially recorded in London by Linda Eder, the play’s star, and Colm Wilkinson, fresh from his success as Jean Valjean in the original London and New York productions of Les Miserables. Five years later Jekyll and Hyde was remounted in Houston, where it once again closed after receiving a mixed reception. That didn’t stop the release of a second, more lavish recording featuring Eder and Australian stage star Anthony Warlow. “This was the first time a show bound for Broadway had two studio recordings made of it before opening in New York,” says Leavitt, who adds that a third recording is already planned.
