The Mystery of Edwin Drood - Don't Quit While You're Ahead

Drood (originally The Mystery of Edwin Drood) is a musical based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It is written by Rupert Holmes, and the first Broadway musical with multiple endings (determined by audience vote). Holmes received Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score. The musical won five Tony Awards out of eleven nominations, including Best Musical.

The musical first debuted as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival in August 1985, and, following revision, transferred to Broadway, where it ran until May 1987. Two national tours and a production in London's West End followed. Though the show has yet to have a Broadway revival, it continues to be popular with regional, amateur, and student theater companies and has seen numerous foreign productions.

The opening night cast of the Broadway production starred George Rose, Cleo Laine, John Herrera, Howard McGillin, Patti Cohenour, and Jana Schneider, who were all nominated for 1986 Tony Awards for their performances, as well as Betty Buckley in the title role. Donna Murphy, Judy Kuhn, and Rob Marshall were also members of the ensemble. (Marshall, who would later become best known as a choreographer and theater/film director, also received an early choreography credit as assistant to Daniele.) Before the show ended its run, Murphy, who was understudy to Cleo Laine and Jana Schneider, took over the title role. Other notable replacements during the show's run included Alison Fraser (taking over for Jana Schneider), Paige O'Hara (taking over for Donna Murphy as Drood), as well as Loretta Swit and later Karen Morrow, who stepped into Laine's roles.

In 1988, several months after closing on Broadway, a slightly-revised version of Drood began its first North America tour at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, DC, with Rose, Schneider and O'Hara reprising their leads, and Jean Stapleton playing Laine's role. During the tour, Rose was succeeded by Clive Revill. The show, now licensed by Tams-Witmark, has since has enjoyed a second U.S. national tour, a 1987 West End run at the Savoy Theatre in London, a production at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada; and numerous regional and professional and amateur theatrical productions worldwide. In 2007--08, a London revival, presented as a chamber piece and directed by Ted Craig, ran at the Warehouse Theatre.

Most recently, in the summer of 2009, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival put on a production of Drood, starring resident actors Aled Davies as The Chairman, Lynn Allison as Princess Puffer, and Sara M. Bruner in the title role.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Drood
• Don't
• Quit
• While
• You're
• Ahead
• Rupert
• Holmes
• Cleo
• Laine
• Betty
• Buckley
• Mystery
• of
• Edwin
• George
• Rose
• Jana
• Schneider
• Howard
• McGillin
• Broadway
• Musical
• 1986
• Tony
• Award

[jaspar38]

I think it was Weber.

[JonMeFree]

Ahh, the flawlessness of Edwin Drood. How can this video not get you excited about the upcoming Roundabout revival?

[purser132]

AWESOME show !!!!

[tommytimp]

@sarmadasco The show makes perfect sense. (I saw it thrice and it was the first show I ever did in stock.) This video is just odd. In context the whodunit makes sense, it's just odd that a Bway show would do this kind of "popping" for promo purposes, Holmes's success in the pop fieldnotwithstanding. I guess if you can cross over you give it a try.

[sarmadasco]

@tommytimp On its own....very weird. If you read Dickens or saw the show.....not so weird as the show revolved around androgyny and murder and every night, if I recall, in the Broadway production, the murderer changed so you never were sure who did what to whom. For a music video, seeing it for the 1st time, reaction is 'WTF"? Put it in context, though, and it is all perfectly explainable and apropos, for a video of this sort, I mean, for a Broadway show. Read the Dickens novel of the same name!

[njames74]

Thank you for posting this -- I have been looking for this for 15 years! In the summer of 1986, I had a VCR tape running all weekend hoping to catch this on VH1, where it originally aired as a contest. I'm not sure, but I think the Grand Prize was a trip to NYC to see "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" on Broadway.

[kricert]

Wow, that's just brilliant stuff! Is it possible to get other songs as well? Anywhere?

[MusicalBoy81]

sorry for the repeated post lol my bad. @PatrickLMT maybe they mean like who finished him off but good observation

[MusicalBoy81]

only George Rose could get excited about a random dead body. He's so epic. lol at 3:54 the drain its just to funny

[MusicalBoy81]

only George Rose could get excited about a random dead body. He's so epic.