Pantomime also inspired the most ground-breaking aspect of Drood: audience participation. From pantomime, he retained the concept of the "Lead Boy,” always portrayed by a young female in male drag, which permitted him to write a love song sung by two sopranos. From the Dickens work, Holmes took the central plot and most of the featured characters. Holmes conceived the show’s central premises by drawing on his recollections of Dickens' novel and pantomime as a youth, and his later experiences with Victorian-style music hall performances. She had seen Holmes' performance and wrote suggesting he write a full-length musical. After a nightclub appearance where he performed "story-songs" and shared humorous anecdotes, Holmes received a note from Gail Merrifield, director of play development at the New York Shakespeare Festival and Joseph Papp's wife. 1 Hit, " Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" and wrote songs for the Platters, the Drifters, Wayne Newton, Dolly Parton, Barry Manilow, and Barbra Streisand, first became interested in writing a musical in 1983. Holmes, a singer-songwriter who recorded the Billboard No. Holmes drew on these experiences when impresario Joseph Papp, the creator and head of the New York Shakespeare Festival, approached him to write a new musical. By age eleven, he was fascinated by mystery books and first discovered the unfinished Dickens novel. At age three, he was taken to the theater for the first time: a modern "panto" with a cross-dressing lead boy and audience sing-alongs. Rupert Holmes, the major creative contributor to the musical Drood, spent his early childhood in England. Īt the time Dickens died, British pantomime styles, distinguished by the importance of audience participation and conventions like the principal boy, reached their height of popularity, and music hall performances with raucous, risque comedy and a distinct musical style rose to prominence. A century later, there were several "collaborations" between the late Dickens and other novelists, numerous theatrical extrapolations, and three film adaptations of the story. Almost immediately, various authors and playwrights, including Dickens's own son, wrote their own endings. He left no notes about how he intended to finish the story. It began publication in 1870, but Dickens died suddenly that year from a stroke. The musical stages Charles Dickens' final and unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood in a style hearkening to British pantomime and music hall genres that had reached a height of popularity around the time of Dickens' death.Īs with most of his other novels, Dickens wrote The Mystery of Edwin Drood in episodic installments. The Roundabout Theatre Company revived the musical in 2012. After being revised, it transferred to Broadway and ran until May 1987, sometimes billed simply as Drood, followed by two national tours and a London West End production. The musical debuted at the New York Shakespeare Festival in August 1985. Holmes received Tony awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. The musical won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical from among eleven nominations. The show was the first Broadway musical with multiple endings (determined by audience vote). The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a musical written by Rupert Holmes based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel of the same name.
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