#64: Jekyll & Hyde

October 25, 2025
  • Performances: 1,543.
  • Open / Close: April 28, 1997 – January 7, 2001
  • Theater: Plymouth Theatre.
  • Tony Awards: Nominated for four, including Best Book of a Musical, Best Costume and Best Lighting. Robert Cuccioli did not win for Best Actor in a Musical but he did win the Drama Desk Award for his performance. The scenic design also won a Drama Desk award which is surprising because, at least on the bootlegs, it’s pretty pedestrian.
  • Fun Fact: Before turning to Broadway shows, Frank Wildhorn first distinguished himself as a writer / composer of pop songs for people like Kenny Rogers, Trisha Yearwood and Patti LaBelle. Possibly his most successful pop song was “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” that he wrote for Whitney Houston.

Podcast

While it’s appropriate to focus on “Jekyll & Hyde” as part of celebrating spooky season, it is a musical that, if there was a just theater god, would be forever relegated to the dustbin of Broadway history. There are many musicals I don’t like but this is one I actively despise, partially for its innate flaws but also for its utter failure to achieve anything close to what it was aspiring for.

Despite this – or maybe because of it – this podcast episode is delightful! It gave me the opportunity to catch up with classic literature maven and host of the podcast “Didn’t Read It,” Grace Todd, to get extremely snarky about all that is wrong with “J&H.” We touch on everything from its complete abnegation of the original story to the lackluster and lazy staging of the Broadway production. And even after more than 30 minutes of criticism, we really only scratched the surface.

By all means, please just listen to this episode and DON’T, for the love of god, spend any of your precious time watching this musical or listening to its music. You’ll only encourage the man behind it, the notorious Frank Wildhorn, to do more violence to the good name of musical theater. If you do have time to spare, check out the podcast Grace and I did together called “Convince Me I Care.” It’s a lot more fun than Jekyll or Hyde!

The Tony Award performance that jumps right into intensity of “We Go Together,” hula hoops and all.
Regardless of what you think of the revival’s approach, you can’t deny that Billy Porter is just exceptional.
The Macy’s parade features Brooke Shields at the top and at the end, but also has a lot of “We Go Together,” so of course, hula hoops again!
It’s a bad clip filmed off TV, but features a nice bit of Rosie O’Donnell.
To understand in depth how this production was different, this special dives pretty deep.
Not great quality but a more extended look at Brooke Shields as Rizzo.