Musicals Blog

The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1985)

by Claire J Rottenberg


"The Mystery of Edwin Drood," based on the unfinished novel of the same name by Charles Dickens, was a very unconventional musical. The play was the creation of Rupert Holmes who wrote the book and lyrics, composed the music and arranged the orchestrations for the production. What made "Drood" truly unique, however, was its ending, which was decided upon by each audience. Holmes wrote different possible endings and, at each performance, the audience voted on different aspects of the story to lead to a conclusion for the play.

Joseph Papp produced "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," originally for a limited run at the New York Shakespeare Festival in the summer of 1985. It was a success and, after extensive revisions, Papp moved the production to Broadway in November of 1985. It ran for 608 performances, closing in May, 1987.

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" helped the careers of several, now well-known and successful, people. Graciela Daniele, now well-established in the realm of Broadway musicals, was the choreographer, and a bit player in the cast, Rob Marshall, is today a successful choreographer and director of Broadway and movie musicals. Judy Kuhn, who has achieved success on Broadway in plays such as "Les Miserables" and "Chess," also had a minor role in the original Broadway production of "Drood."

The original Shakespeare Festival production of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" was almost three hours long and it included 32 songs. The scaled-down, revised Broadway production left 21 songs in the play, which is still considered a very long score for a musical. Even with that many songs, however, none have become popular hits.

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" won 5 Tony awards, including the award for Best Musical and two awards for Rupert Holmes (Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score). Wilford Leach won the Tony award for his direction of "Drood" and George Rose won for Best Actor in a Musical. Graciela Daniele received one of the 6 additional Tony nominations for "Drood."