Spotlight On: The Mystery of Edwin Drood

The audience chose the murderer at each performance of Broadway's whodunit musical based on an unfinished novel by Charles Dickens.

ABOUT THE SHOW

Theatregoers take a trip back in time to a Victorian music hall where a rowdy ensemble of actors mounts a staging of Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel. Everyone on stage is a suspect in the murder of young Edwin Drood (Stephanie J. Block)—and it’s up to the audience to choose the killer. Is it John Jasper (Will Chase), Edwin’s protective but slightly maniacal uncle? Rosa Budd (Erin Davie), his reluctant betrothed? The debauched Princess Puffer (Chita Rivera)? Each performance ends differently, depending on what the audience decides.

DETAILS

Spotlight on: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (musical revival)
Opening Night - November 13 2012
Final Performance - March 10 2013
Complete Broadway Credits (IBDB.com)
Website

TRIVIA

Rupert Holmes is one of the few dramatists to single-handedly create the book, music, and lyrics for a Broadway musical. He won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score when The Mystery of Edwin Drood was originally produced on Broadway.
The show’s title was shortened to Drood during its original Broadway run.
The original Dickens novel was being published serially in magazines at the time of the author’s death, leaving it unfinished - and creating an opportunity for Broadway to get one of its first interactive musicals.

CAST ALBUM

SHOW SCRIPT

HISTORY

The Mystery of Edwin Drood, adapted from Dickens by Rupert Holmes, debuted at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Delacorte Theatre in Central Park in August, 1985. The show transferred to Broadway the following December, winning 5 Tony Awards including Best Musical. This is its first Broadway revival.