'Jekyll and Hyde' to end stage season at Playhouse

The musical has a cult following, especially among the young, the director said.
By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Youngstown Playhouse will end the main stage season with a dark and creepy musical.
"Jekyll and Hyde," directed by David Jendre, is based on the classic 1886 book by Robert Louis Stevenson. The story was made into a silent film in 1920 starring John Barrymore, then two more film versions, in 1932 and 1941. The Broadway musical version, by Frank Wildhorn, music by Leslie Bricusse, opened in April 1997 and closed in January 2001 after 1,543 performances.
This Victorian thriller, set in London, is about one man's search to separate the good from evil in mankind. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a research scientist whose father is in St. Jude's, a hospital for the criminally insane. Jekyll applies for research funding, but more importantly, seeks to secure human subjects on which to experiment.
"Jekyll is not crazed, he is a very intelligent research artist," said Jendre. "But he is passionate, obsessed about his research, and that is his downfall. He creates a chemical potion that isolates the good and evil in humankind, but when he can't get patients for subjects, he begins to experiment on himself."
Lead actor
Vaughn Schmidt, a freshman musical theater major at Youngstown State University, plays the title role, and says this is one of his favorite musicals.
"Jekyll begins taking the serum himself, and the results were not quite as he had planned," said Schmidt. "He is aware that he has become evil, but at the same time, feels a freedom he has never felt -- that he can unleash his evil tendencies and thoughts. Even though he is aware of what happens to him, he continues taking the potion, because, as a researcher, he wants to find out where it will all go, what will happen. But the real horror comes when he begins transforming without taking the serum."
Schmidt said he first heard this musical when he was about 10. "My older sister had a cassette tape of it that I heard in her car," he said. "Then I heard it again as a high school freshman, and fell in love with it."
"I love dark shows," he added. "And the music in this one is perfectly matched to what is happening. The love scene music is beautiful, but in the scenes where Jekyll is transforming, the music becomes dark and menacing."
The cast is nearly all male, which typically proves challenging in finding the right people to fill the roles. But Jendre has drawn on the talents at YSU, and students make up the bulk of his players. "This show really has drawn a cult following, especially with the younger crowd," he said. "I am so excited to have all these university kids to work with. As a director, I like to be entertained. I adore these kids; they are such great actors and singers. It is a joy to work with them." Jendre is also very pleased to have Michael Moritz as music director.
As might be expected, a huge show like this has some neat technical effects. Stage manager Jack Ballantyne says the set is basically a scaled-down version of the Broadway production. "There are two gazebos on either side of the stage which serve as entranceways," he said. "Most of the stage is on a 30-foot platform, so actors appear on different levels. It gives more depth and dimension to the scenery. And the scenes blend into each other -- there are very few blackouts. It is going to be a spectacle. The audience will be entertained not only by the cast, but by the effects."