This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Rebecca Spencer: I'm backstage as the swing, stage left, and they're running through, the Board of Governors just happened, and I'm just backstage kind of tracking a little bit, and we were in preview, and all of a sudden, I'm just standing there by myself, stage manager's console is stage left, and I'm just standing behind that, and all of a sudden I hear Bob Cuccioli singing, seven years ago, I started out on this alone, and now alone, I'll see it through to its conclusion, and guess what? It was seven years that I waited to come to Broadway, and that was my Broadway debut, too. I'd never been on Broadway yet. I'd done Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, you know, the whole thing, but I'd never, so I was going, wow, that's the lyric that existed in 1990. It was fascinating.

[0:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theatre history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff.

[1:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Today, it is spooky season, and we are discussing the gothic pop musical Jekyll and Hyde, which was a listener request from Julia and Will. Jamie also wrote in and said she had been working on a production of it pre-COVID. You know I love hearing from you listeners, so thank you so much for writing in and allowing me to create this special episode.

[1:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, here to chat with me about this show that taught me how to spell façade is someone who has no façade. She's as genuine as they come. She originated the role of Lisa Carew. Yes, Emma was called Lisa. It's a whole story. We'll get into it. It's very complex. In the very, very, very first production of Jekyll and Hyde, she is multi-talented, has been seen at the Hollywood Bowl, and has many albums that you can listen to on Spotify. Everyone, please welcome the incredible Rebecca Spencer.

[2:09] Rebecca Spencer: Yay!

[2:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There you go.

[2:41] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah. It's an interesting story, and stop me whenever you want to, but I'll try to make it short. It began at UCLA long before I became part of it, and Frank Wildhorn went there. I think it was UCLA, college. He did it, and Chuck Wagner played the Jekyll back then because they went to college together.

[3:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Chuck Wagner, for those who may not know, original Prince in Into the Woods.

[3:02] Rebecca Spencer: Exactly. Then we had these auditions in New York, and it was around 1990. That's a long time ago. Anyway, and all of a sudden, I got this call to go to audition for this new musical for this role. I ended up booking the role of Lisa Carew, the fiancée to Dr. Jekyll, and that whole cast was considered the 1990 world premiere of Jekyll and Hyde that was performed at the Alley Theater, directed by Greg Boyd, and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell back then.

[3:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No way. I had no idea.

[3:39] Rebecca Spencer: What a great creative time it is. Anytime you're doing an original show, it's amazing. It's scary. It's fun because every day, once you get into production, past the rehearsal period, you are being blown on saying, We're going to cut this verse. We're going to cut this scene. We're going to change out this scene. All of that is spooky, on top of the fact that we extended a couple weeks there at the Alley Theater, which became the fan base happened.

[4:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So Alley Theater in Houston, for those who may not know, Houston, Texas, and you guys were only supposed to run for four weeks, right?

[4:17] Rebecca Spencer: Yes, exactly.

[4:18] Rebecca Spencer: And then you ended up extending twice. So we're talking, it took off.

[4:26] Rebecca Spencer: It really did.

[4:27] Rebecca Spencer: I even heard Frank Wildhorn say that fans broke windows at some point. It was a rowdy whole thing. I don't even know what that story is about. He just randomly said it in an interview.

[4:38] Rebecca Spencer: I was 30 back then. I don't care. I'm talking about my age. And I remember going, it was like rock and roll. It was like the show would, you know, there would be, you know, Linda Edder's big song, you know, the roles of Lucy or whatever big songs happen or the ensemble. It was like a rock concert. And then when we'd leave the theater, we were greeted like a rock concert. I'd never experienced anything like that. And I'd already done tours and stuff like that, but not to this, because it was so cutting edge.

[5:04] Rebecca Spencer: And new.

[5:07] Rebecca Spencer: It was brand new. And what was so great, starting from my audition in New York for that part, there were a lot of other gals that had better credits than me, but somehow I got in, right? And it just happens. And I remember Frank Wildhorn giving me, after I sang a couple of pieces for my audition, which were all legit. None of them were pop songs that I sang for him.

[5:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, interesting.

[5:30] Rebecca Spencer: But they wanted that palette at that time, you know, to see. And then what was great about Frank, he had put out a concept album with Colm Wilkinson, I think, and Linda Edder. And then they gave me this concept album on a cassette. This is how far we go back. Just to make sure that I was interested, so I'd come back for the callback. I'm going, interested. And the song that I loved was, This is the Moment. It wasn't even my song. And so I just remember going, I love this. Oh, I guess I'm not singing this song. But it was fascinating to listen to how produced it was. And Frank had this, and I quote him on this, I think, he had this concept, you know, back when Cole Porter and all those guys of the Tin Pan Alley and, you know, the early American songbook, all of those guys, you see several songs that they've written, either in a movie, in a Broadway show, or it's been like Harry Warren has done it from 42nd Street, you know, in the revivals and stuff.

And what was he always felt that to get the songs out there was important before the show was done. And so it created a buzz. So he had that whole marketing sort of Grammy award winning composer sort of train of thought, but then you have to enter into the book, you know, with Leslie Bricusse.

[6:49] Rebecca Spencer: And so my short story is, I did the fiancée named Lisa Carew in 1990, had an amazing time, learned a ton. Then they decided to recast it, except for Linda Edder. So pretty much everybody got recast except for Martin Van Turen. And then they did a tour. And Greg Boyd was still part of as the director from that. At that point, Jerry Mitchell left that creative team. And, you know, I don't know how this all happened. And then fast forward, I'd gone on, I'd moved on, I'd stayed friends with Frank and everything. And I thought, you know, they went a different way for the vocals that they needed. Anyway, you know, and I didn't have a really any hard feelings because I went on to do Phantom, you know, so I was working, I was working.

You know, that's fine. Yeah. And so then seven years go by, and they had done a tour. And all of a sudden, the tour had Christiane Nolte, beautiful singer, played the Emma role. Now, they changed Lisa to Emma, because Lisa sounded too similar to Lucy, which was the hook, the hooker part, or you know, the bad girl part that Linda Edder created. And it was written for Linda. So then they come to New York, and they're having these auditions. And I thought, I'll go in. And then they said, the only thing was available was a swing. And so I didn't know what a swing was. But I said, you know what, I'll take it because I want to learn to direct. And so and then I thought, I didn't have to worry about keeping my voice up for this.

By the time Equity comes in, when they're looking at the preview, they go, this is a principal contract, this is the swing, you know, and so I wasn't really responsible for Linda Edder's part. I wasn't responsible for the Emma part. And there was a Lady Beckinsfield part. They were three female principals. I wasn't responsible for them, but all the other ones I was. Well, as crazy as this world is, all of a sudden, six months into the contract, Emily Skinner got Sideshow. And she was one of the main covers for both parts. So then I get this. I'm already getting chills because baby, you need to know this is like my generation of Broadway. This is when I was, I knew everybody and everybody's name in the ensemble.

So when you're telling me names like Emily Skinner, I'm getting real excited. So yes, Emily Skinner gets Sideshow. She goes off and for all great reasons for her career path. And so I was sitting there going, I don't know if I want to stay here more than like a year because I wanted to move on with my own career. I learned about directing. Robin Phillips was now the director. He was a British director. I learned a ton from him. It was like going to a master class every time we had just rehearsals. And he was very strict, but I learned so much.

[9:26] Rebecca Spencer: And so then all of a sudden I get this call from the stage manager's office because they were having these auditions and said, Rebecca, they want to see you for Emma. I said, what? To sing tomorrow for Emma. I said, what? So I was like, this is crazy. The director never knew that I had created the role, nor did I make it a big deal. There was an inside conversation with the cast, but I realized that I was about ready to hang up the ingenue world forever. Fine by me. And I had my run, and it's time for the next generation. But all of a sudden I got called in. The next day I went in and auditioned, and I got it. But I still stayed the swing. And then two weeks later, it was like two or three weeks later, they were in a rush to get somebody because I believe Christiane had to do a recording, some kind of an animated recording, which was a very good thing for her career, but they needed someone.

So it wasn't the same part, and I didn't have a real full rehearsal period for it because I wasn't supposed to rehearse it, but I watched the show as a swing. And so all of a sudden I had one piano audition. I had rehearsed it once or twice, and all of a sudden they're like, oh, by the way, you're going on, and you're going on for like a week. And I was going, this is like full circle. So the best part was I got to come full circle in the role I created with all of this mishegosh, but it's seven years later. And in the meantime, there's a couple of the folks, we just had a close cast. Our cast was phenomenal, and so many people went on to do stuff from that 1997 cast, let alone the 1990 cast.

I was surrounded by great, great artists. So I'm performing this piece on this night. Linda was very, very supportive, and all of a sudden I heard that Frank Wildhorn brought in the cast from either Civil War or Scarlet Pimpernel. Because he had all three shows at the same time. And he brought them in to watch the second act because in the second act, in his eyes, that beautiful duet that the two girls sing did not exist in 1990. Somehow it came in, I don't know if it came in by way of the tour, but anyway, all of a sudden I'm singing with one of my best buddies, Linda Edder, and I'm singing this song full out because our voices blended so richly. I had a little darker side to my voice than Christiane Nolde does, just the way we're made up. And it was so thrilling. And then it was like this, apparently there was like this amazing applause, but I was too worried about making my costume change.

[11:57] Rebecca Spencer: And God bless Linda, we were performing, because history was kind of being made, but nobody sort of, it wasn't like forecast, and we didn't have Facebook back then, you know what I mean, it was just emails. So all of a sudden, Linda's supposed to, from the swing, I knew that Linda would walk down, would take a step, and there would be a light change, and we'd go into the next scene, with Dangerous Games was supposed to happen, that big kind of sexy duet, and scary duet with Lucy and Hyde at that point. And so, all of a sudden, I was like, I ran out, I left, my light came down, I left the stage after that big duet, I thought, oh, I'm so happy it went well, and then I'm running, and the applause is still going on. And what I didn't know was, Linda didn't move on purpose. She told me, she goes, you deserve that applause.

[13:19] Rebecca Spencer: Who played the original Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd, the original original. He played the father. He played Sir Danvers back in 1990. We had a duet called Letting Go. It was cut from the show in 1990. By the time it made it to Broadway, that duet was cut. It was like reworked to a much shorter type of theme song. Yeah, a much shorter. And then we went into, we had his work and nothing more. They did this great quartet, you know. But what was so amazing, I got a letter a week after that debut, that sort of full circle. I call it a full circle, coming on for the role. Never expected it. He sent me a note that he had, I had lost touch with him since 1990. He sent me a note that I, out of pure coincidence, he had purchased a ticket for that Tuesday night of that week.

And he was in the house when Frank had that other cast watching Act Two. He had bought his ticket. So he was there to watch my full circle. And then he wrote me this note. I still have the letter. And I got it. I was like, oh, what are the universe? The miracles are, you know, it was like it just checked all the boxes of when you go full circle, you're supposed to move forward. You know, that's how I believe. And so after I did that for like six months, the gal, Emily Zacharias, who was who created the role of Lady Beckinsfield slash Guinevere, the dual roles, because everybody had a dual role, the facades, the confrontation all had everything to do with the duality of personality and humankind.

You were like, you were, you were a slummy in quotes person and then like a high class person. And so everybody was who pooh poohed his experiment and the brothel head of the brothel who said, welcome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, so she was leaving the show and they were now having auditions in New York to replace her. I was still this way. They're having auditions and I'm going, and then I'm getting calls from these fabulous character women, you know, going back, Hey, you know, my show just closed. You know, what, what do you think I have to do? I've got an audition for this. What do you think? I, I always said, you should probably do this or that, or this is what they're going to look for. You know, the costume is this.

And all of a sudden I got a call to go in to meet with the director again. And I, and then I was like, what's happening. And then one of the gals said, I think they may be going in house. Well, I thought they were going to give it to the understudy. Jason Hallen took me out till dinner and said, this is kind of what's at play. I want you to be okay. We're going to take away the Emma character from you, but we're going to take away your swing. You can hang your swing set up and now you can just be, they would like to offer you lady Beckinsfield and Guinevere, which is a principal role older. You know, I aged through this thing. So now I was, I got, I got the principal contract and I moved out of that, uh, completely moved out of my audition.

And I, and what a, what a beautiful way, you know, in the same show, in the same show. And so then they give you a birthday cake where they're like, you've officially, you've officially become this contract is what I thought. Better than a birthday cake. I fit the costumes and I knew the track, you know, but you know, so it was, it was, uh, yeah. So that was, that's my story. I mean, I wore all the costumes and, uh, and it's not like, I wish I had an easy story, but I don't.

[16:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I want to, because we haven't talked about Frank Wildhorn on the podcast yet. So I do want to talk a little bit about him. And you mentioned that, you know, he went to, uh, to one of the colleges. I think it's, I think it was USC. Now that I'm looking at it, you're right. Yeah. Um, but he was born in Harlem. So he was born in New York boy, then moved to Florida at age 14. One of those kids who just learned how to play the piano by himself and really loved composing music. He goes to Southern California, obviously meets up with a lot of people that are going to be coming up in the Jekyll and Hyde story, but he also just starts writing pop music, right. And becomes incredibly prolific at it. And this is what I, one of the biggest lessons for me, not only about your story, Becky, but about Jekyll and Hyde in general is that like the, the seedlings of this show begin kind of in the early eighties, depending on who you're talking to.

And then it doesn't reach Broadway until 1997. So like the amount of time that goes by of this thing, just gestating, um, is really inspiring in many ways. And every time you hear Frank Wildhorn talk about it, I never hear like impatience or entitlement in the way that he's like, Oh, it took us so long to get there. Every time I've heard him talk about it, it's like, it's the gift that kept on giving. He always says that to me, you know? Yeah. Always. Yeah. And, and the gift just ended up on Broadway eventually, you know, like it's, it's really beautiful and once again, inspiring. When they started at USC, there's a guy, he also has a, some kind of a podcast, Steve Kooten. And he was one of the original collaborators.

And he's still listed. Like when you, when you look at the show, when you look at the script, he is still listed as a co-lyricist and a co-conceiver, I think. So they had worked together. And I've met him several times. He came to the opening, you know?

[19:01] Rebecca Spencer: Oh, wow. So like, yeah. So he's, yeah, everyone, everyone speaks to each other, you know, it's just that creative dilemma, you know, but, um, but Frank is, Frank writes, I, you know, he'll probably hate me saying this, but I don't care. Um, because I love Frank and he knows I do. I think Frank writes some of the most gorgeous ballads ever. He's just a beautiful tunesmith, you know, on top of, and that's not degrading at all. Cause I, who doesn't like a melody, you know, but he, or a modulation. For that matter. But it's just, he writes such beautiful, beautiful ballads and melodies. And I know that he, you know, when he, where Do Broken Hearts Go, that was his Whitney Houston, one of his Whitney Houston hits. That was the big, big one. Yeah.

[19:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The big one. But it was just like, um, he really is, he writes beautifully. He's all over the world now doing all kinds of stuff, you know, and he's very active. He's over in Japan and, and, uh, I think he was in Korea too at some point, but he's very, very prolific still. And, uh, but he's just doing it overseas. Yeah.

[19:54] Rebecca Spencer: Well, when you, when you say that he's such a beautiful tunesmith, I completely agree. I think that composers would love to have one song as beautiful as someone like you, you know, but then you think of how many other songs are not only in this show, but then also in Scarlett Pimpernell. And, and then later in his career, he's still cranking out, um, uh, what's the one from Bonnie and Clyde that I love so much? Uh, Dying. Dying ain't so bad.

[20:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So bad. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. A stunning song. He's just, he, he can really crank them out in a way that. And his Civil War. His Civil War.

[20:34] Rebecca Spencer: There are so many beautiful songs of Civil War. Yeah. The Honor of Your Name.

[20:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Yeah. A perfect song in my opinion.

[20:41] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah. And we have a fun thing. So when we were doing Jekyll and Hyde on Broadway, he had the Scarlett Pimpernell playing and he had Civil War playing at the same time. So one matinee day we got the memo that we were all going to walk over to the theater where they were doing Civil War, the Scarlett Pimpernell cast, the Jekyll and Hyde cast, and the Civil War cast. And we were all on stage together and we have a photo. We got a photo. And Linda Etter came in. Linda was, had left the show by that point, but she came in. So it was like Frank and Linda in the middle. And it was like Jekyll and Hyde, Civil War, Scarlett Pimpernell, and the principals were up, uh, up in front. But I have that picture and he, he gave it to everybody and he signed it and I have, I have it hanging in my office. Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. How cool is that?

[21:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Well, he, he is so incredibly prolific. And so in the early eighties, he's cranking out all of these pop songs, working in the recording industry. Meanwhile, you know, working on this musical, the main lyricist and librettist responsibilities get shifted from Steve Kooten to Leslie Brickus, who, for those, I don't know if we've talked about Leslie Brickus. There's so many people that... No, and we just lost him. I'm so sad. Yeah, he just, he passed. A brilliant guy. Listeners, you need to reach out because shocking nobody has requested us to cover Stop the World I Want to Get Off First.

[22:02] Rebecca Spencer: Oh, I know. Or Roar the Grease, Paint, Smell the Crowd. He, he's a British composer, lyricist who worked with Anthony Newley on these two big hit shows from the sixties. But he was also, I mean, even if you don't know those shows, you know, Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, and he did The Candyman and Pure Imagination. Another perfect song.

[22:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, that's beautiful. That's a beautiful song.

[22:26] Rebecca Spencer: If one only writes pure imagination in their life, I would consider that life a success. But he did so much more.

[22:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And Leslie Brickus was a gentleman of all gentlemen to be exposed to him. And we were at the Alley Theater. He was there for all the entire rehearsal period and into The Final Curtain. He and his wife Evie, I mean, they're splendid and they are royalty. So he comes in with Frank Wildhorn. They're working on this content. And Frank Wildhorn, probably from being in the recording industry, looks at Andrew Lloyd Webber and sees how he got his musicals made, which was through these concept albums, right? That's how Jesus Christ Superstar got traction, Joseph, all of those things. And Frank realizes, oh, this hasn't been done in America, which, bad on us. I don't know why on earth it took us all the way to the eighties to be like, huh, this actually kind of worked for someone.

Maybe I should give it a try. So Frank Wildhorn has all this great catalog of songs from Jekyll and Hyde. He goes to every recording company that he knows and has worked with through his career thus far, and every single one of them turns him down. They say, not interested. And so maybe that's why we hadn't done it in America at this point. He goes to London, to the London division of BMG, I believe, or RCA. I'm not totally sure on that one. But he gives them the recording, which includes Linda Edder, who he had come in contact with after seeing her win Star Search. The late eighties were very big for these two people, because in the same year, I think, that Whitney Houston recorded Where Do Lonely Hearts Go, that Frank Wildhorn had written, Linda Edder wins Star Search, which was like the American Idol of the time.

Maybe even bigger than American Idol. She set a record for consecutive wins. Nobody could defeat her. So she had won Star Search. He was the next big thing. She does the demo for this recording, and that's what he shares with the people in London. They say, okay, we're going to do this recording. We have just signed Colm Wilkinson, because he's been the next best thing to slice bread, because Les Mis just came out. So he can do Dr. Jekyll, and whoever this girl is on the CD, we want to sign her, too. So from that demo, they also signed Linda Edder. And then that is this concept recording that you mentioned. And if I look like I'm in a little bit of a daze, Becky, it's because for the past three days, I have listened to every single cast recording of Jekyll and Hyde.

That's amazing. Chronologically, yeah, beginning with this concept album. And I would say, looking back on it, this cast recording sounds like what my parents would play on the radio on a Saturday morning, when everyone's washing the car and watering the plants. FM 100 is what we call it.

[25:39] Rebecca Spencer: In the full gothic realm of things. Now, after that concept recording is your production, right?

[25:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think it was. We didn't do a recording for 1990, so it would be the Broadway, yep, the 1997.

[25:51] Rebecca Spencer: Okay. So, you guys do your production. It's a huge smash. Did they talk about taking it to Broadway at that point? Did you hear about anything?

[26:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: In 1990, there was a lot of talk.

[26:06] Rebecca Spencer: In 1990? There were a lot of producers floating around. I mean, it was a lot, and fantastic, but yeah, there was a lot. There were movie directors that were interested, and there's still talk of it being a movie, a movie musical, but I don't know where that is right now, but you know.

[26:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. I ask because it was a precarious time on Broadway in the early 90s, so I think it was difficult to get producers to lay down the cash to make a full Broadway transfer of a brand new musical that wasn't a revival or a review of pre-existing songs. So, it's no surprise to me that for whatever reason those plans fall through. From what I understand, they lose the rights to Jekyll and Hyde at the same time. At some point, they get the rights back. That's when this new national tour goes out with Anthony Warlow, and Carolee Carmelo, and Linda Eder.

[27:03] Rebecca Spencer: That's a recording.

[27:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That didn't tour. That never toured.

[27:06] Rebecca Spencer: No, but there was a recording of those guys. So, then they recorded that before then a new production went out, which was yet another studio recording, another Andrew Lloyd Webber in to get the momentum building. Can we just pause because now we're going to this next recording. Anthony Warlow is, I think, my favorite Australian exporter of all time.

[27:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, they loved his voice.

[27:34] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's absolutely incredible to listen to him on that recording. A very young Carolee Carmelo. Very fun to listen to her as well. And Linda Eder, who throughout the different recordings just gets better and better.

[27:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know. Yeah. It's insane. It's a great throat. I got to say, with the BFA, if you will, of what musical theater has become and the amazing training that all of us kids have and now are even more so receiving, I'm so grateful to have experienced people in the theater, like in Linda Eder, whose voices are singular, who sound like no one else. She really is one of maybe the most special voices we have had in our modern musical theater.

[28:18] Rebecca Spencer: I think so too. I think so too. And it helps that the composer was married to her for a while, but it's still Linda's voice.

[28:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's Linda's voice. And it's unmistakably a gift. What I was hoping in the theater world, because her voice is so rich and it was like a belt mix, if you want to get into technical stuff, it was a belt mix, it was a pop, but it wasn't like belter or soprano mix or skinny, a skinny sound. But I feel like there's too many people that sound the same now. I don't, and I think if someone comes in and auditions for something and they just have a little bit of something extra, that they'll train them to sort of go in that other direction. And I just wish that there would be more people that would allow for these different talents to take over the part. And if there's just a little bit of a different sound, because we all know, like Jekyll, there are so many different keys for that. There's several different keys. They didn't all just step in and sing the same key. Frank made sure that, and Jason Howland made sure, that they, you know, just ever so.

[29:36] Rebecca Spencer: Jason Howland, by the way, who went on to compose Little Women and Paradise Square, right? And now Great Gatsby. I just, I love Jason. He was a youngster, you know, in there conducting then, but what a nice guy. So they made sure that everybody got the key, because it's such a taxing role, right?

[29:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And talk about, you know, confrontation, you know, they were trying to find theater driven sound that would work for Broadway, but they wanted to bring the pop sound in and honor that. So there was a lot of, and the thing that saved it, I think, was not only the music is so beautiful, but the lyrics did drive it, you know, and that gave you, from Leslie Bricusse, that gave you the A-OK, that the book and the lyrics had, you know, had forward motion, you know? There was talk at some point that some of the songs stopped the action. I never agreed with that, but, you know, the critics had their own way.

[30:29] Rebecca Spencer: No, I didn't, you know, I didn't mind stopping and like getting to know this person, you know, because everything brushes by. I'm just, I'm a little bit more, I like to dig, you know, even as an actor, you know, so, so I'm going to be attracted to stuff like that. There are so many, like I said, after listening to the score so many times, there are some really rich, beautiful lyrics in here. And then there are some lyrics where I, I'm reminded that my first introduction to some of these songs was through beauty pageants.

[31:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah, okay.

[31:01] Rebecca Spencer: And ice skating, you know, people are ice skating.

[31:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And ice skating.

[31:04] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah, yeah, I mean.

[31:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely.

[31:06] Rebecca Spencer: There it is.

[31:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. They're very heartfelt, but very generic.

[31:12] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah.

[31:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Maybe that's, maybe that's a horrible word, but they're, they're meant to be able to be put into any situation and it will make sense, right?

[31:21] Rebecca Spencer: And what I also, yeah.

[31:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: As opposed to living in this one moment, one time Jekyll and Hyde.

[31:25] Rebecca Spencer: And where Frank reflected well for the theater and also when he talked about, you know, the way Cole Porter used to do it, the concept albums, everything. But he was talking about the songs. Stylistically, he's written some of the most beautiful introductions to some of these songs.

[31:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The whole, someone like you has a beautiful introduction until you get into someone like you, you know.

[31:46] Rebecca Spencer: That's true.

[31:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's the most beautiful.

[31:48] Rebecca Spencer: I peer through windows, watch life go by. There was a song, no one tells me who I, look at me and tell me who I am, why I am.

[31:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That song used to come before Bring on the Men.

[32:00] Rebecca Spencer: And, but now, but they cut Bring on the Men for Broadway.

[32:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I think it went back out on tour.

[32:06] Rebecca Spencer: It was on the tour.

[32:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was in 1990.

[32:08] Rebecca Spencer: But then.

[32:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, everyone revolted.

[32:10] Rebecca Spencer: Tell me, look who I am.

[32:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I know, really, I know, it's crazy. Those particular intros, Lost in the Darkness is a beautiful intro, you know, or a scene, you know.

[32:20] Rebecca Spencer: So it was like, it was a song, but it served as a recitative, really, you know.

[32:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There is a connection to older pop music in that way, like that old Jerome Kern, Cole Porter sort of way.

[32:31] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah.

[32:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Like the verse before Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

[32:34] Rebecca Spencer: Yes.

[32:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Or Someone to Watch Over Me.

[32:37] Rebecca Spencer: Absolutely.

[32:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I love that. If I can, you know, you can't do it for auditions, you know.

[32:42] Rebecca Spencer: But if I'm doing an evening, you know, I'm going to do the whole song.

[32:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The full song.

[32:47] Rebecca Spencer: Even if I juxtapose it, you know, just to make my own interpretation. But some of his introductions in this, in Jekyll and Hyde to the song proper, amazing, you know.

[32:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's a really great point.

[32:59] Rebecca Spencer: So, long story short, a new national tour goes out of Jekyll and Hyde in the 90s that precedes its Broadway debut.

[33:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[33:11] Rebecca Spencer: And when it arrives on Broadway, just like at the Houston, immediately, crazy fans.

[33:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Jeckies.

[33:18] Rebecca Spencer: Called the Jeckies, yeah. Just die hard, love Jekyll and Hyde fans. And honestly, Frank Wildhorn fans are kind of the best people to watch a show with.

[33:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I've said on the podcast before, I happened to have tickets to the closing night of Civil War.

[33:35] Rebecca Spencer: Oh, wow.

[33:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And all of the Wildhorn fans were there. And it was one of the most electric nights of theater. I don't even know if the show was that good, to be honest, because the electricity was so incredible in the audience.

[33:49] Rebecca Spencer: You couldn't help but be swept up into it.

[33:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was absolutely fantastic. But along with the fandom comes the Broadway haters.

[34:00] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah.

[34:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And this is where he has something else in common with Andrew Lloyd Webber, is that critics love to hate Frank Wildhorn.

[34:08] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah.

[34:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What do you think that's all about?

[34:12] Rebecca Spencer: I don't.

[34:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's a hard one for me to answer.

[34:17] Rebecca Spencer: I think that at the time Frank came in to Broadway to do Jekyll and Hyde, he had not done a Broadway show yet.

[34:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: For sure.

[34:25] Rebecca Spencer: It was resonating from the Alley Theater production, of course, and the tours. But I think Frank had his own way of wanting to produce something, the way he takes charge of an album, the way he takes charge of the creative process in creating his own piece.

[34:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I don't think there were any restraints put on him in the creative process at all.

[34:44] Rebecca Spencer: But I don't know how that gelled with the theater guard, the theater guild.

[34:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The status quo.

[34:57] Rebecca Spencer: The status quo. That's all hypotheticals. But I can only think that he was a new kid on the block, so to speak. But he wasn't new at what he did.

[35:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But he was new for a Broadway show.

[35:07] Rebecca Spencer: And I don't know what the protocols were in saying, oh, thank you for letting me in. I don't know what that all was.

[35:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And Frank has a really very healthy ego.

[35:18] Rebecca Spencer: And he should. That's the only way we survive. And then I don't know why there would be such a jealousy for a hit show, because it would be work for everybody.

[35:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You would think, right?

[35:29] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah. I did earlier this year an episode on Be More Chill.

[35:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And Joe Iconis was talking about something similar.

[35:39] Rebecca Spencer: The more regular people loved his show, the more the theater guard hated his shows.

[35:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[35:48] Rebecca Spencer: If that makes sense. It was very interesting during that time. There were other shows. I can't remember exactly all the other shows that were running at the time.

[35:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But I remember there were people, even our colleagues, were making fun of us because our book wasn't that good.

[36:03] Rebecca Spencer: Or they thought the story was whatever.

[36:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And all of a sudden, one by one, those other shows were closing.

[36:10] Rebecca Spencer: Our show lasted three years.

[36:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But they were closing before us. They opened after us and they closed before us.

[36:16] Rebecca Spencer: And then they were getting like, is there any openings in your show?

[36:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, interesting.

[36:22] Rebecca Spencer: And I'm going, you can't ask me or somebody, is there any openings in the show? Just five months later, earlier, you were saying, your show is a piece of crap. It's not going to work.

[36:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So that's silly, right?

[36:39] Rebecca Spencer: But it happened. We were in this show that every show, there's not a single, well, there are some perfect shows. Our show might not have been perfect. But in terms of the way, whatever you want to go at it, the book, the lyric, the music, whatever.

[36:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But it was completely, 180%, we were there every night.

[37:01] Rebecca Spencer: And the audience was there every night and nobody phoned it in.

[37:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But yeah, so that whole thing about the climate of Broadway back then, I don't know.

[37:12] Rebecca Spencer: Honestly, I found a quote that I wanted to play for everybody of Frank Wildhorn talking about the importance of Jekyll and Hyde.

[37:21] Rebecca Spencer: And I believe Jekyll and Hyde will be looked at very differently as the years go on. Because in some ways, it really was the first show, you know, to take a pop musical vocabulary and theater and combine them.

[37:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Listening to that quote, I'm almost shocked at first, being like, Frank, that is a big claim. I don't know how I feel about that.

[37:42] Rebecca Spencer: But then when I sit down and think about it, I'm like, yeah. A lot of the Jukebox musicals that came after Jekyll and Hyde, certainly we had had Smokey Joe's Cafe and those types of reviews.

[37:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But the Jersey Boys, the All Shook Ups, you know, the Mamma Mia's, those were all coming after. And I'm not saying it's because of Jekyll and Hyde, but Jekyll and Hyde really did pave the way to train a musical theater ear to accept pop music in a Broadway theater.

[38:10] Rebecca Spencer: Well, look at Aida. I mean, you know, Elton John's.

[38:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Aida, hello, exactly. That's a great point. That is a great point.

[38:15] Rebecca Spencer: There is no way Aida would have happened without Jekyll and Hyde.

[38:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's the first one that comes to mind. That's Elton John.

[38:19] Rebecca Spencer: And it's lush and it tells a story, but it is definitely Elton John.

[38:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You know, I mean, his style is there.

[38:28] Rebecca Spencer: Two years after Jekyll and Hyde. That's a great point. Yeah, that's what I would say. But exactly what you just quoted with Frank, he has said that when we were just backstage. He said that in our table read. And maybe that quote alienated, you know, the Broadway guard thinking that he was putting down the old guard, but I think he just heard it differently. And he needed to learn how to be more theatrical versus, you know, just doing pop tunes inside of a show. I tend to think that his shows have gotten better. Like I love Bonnie and Clyde. I think it's a beautifully written show. Yeah, I just was on Facebook. There was somebody there who said, what are the most underrated shows? I just happened to scroll through.

I was like, they said Bonnie and Clyde. It's so interesting, you know? Yeah, it's a great show. But that quote is, I can tell you that it's authentic to Frank. I've heard him say it. Even have a cup of coffee. You know, absolutely. That's what he believed. Now, I haven't told you this, but I cut to 1997. Jekyll and Hyde's on Broadway, opens on Broadway. I got to see it. It was my first trip to New York. I was there with my grandparents. We had tickets to Jekyll and Hyde. How old was I? I was 16 years old. I told people, because I was a very dramatic child, I told people that I left an imprint on my seat. Very conservative kid. I didn't watch a rated R movie until my late 20s. I hadn't seen a lot of thriller type things.

Definitely not on stage. I ate it up. I ate every single crumb. I thought it was so entertaining. The voices coming at you just were so overwhelming. I immediately got my cast album. It was a CD that I then burned onto a cassette tape, because I only had a cassette tape in my car, so then I could listen to it like that. I considered myself a fan of Jekyll and Hyde. But then, of course, then you come across the true fans of Jekyll and Hyde, and they're like, but they cut bitch, bitch, bitch, and bring on the men. I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know this. It's evolution. It has continued to evolve, exactly. Some of those evolutions happened almost immediately when the national tour went out.

They put back, bringing on the men, and also, I need to know. That's a good piece. Yeah, because that wasn't a great piece. I guess fast-forwarding even more, there have been several recordings since then. There was a Resurrection, I guess, recording with Rob Evan, and Presidente Kate Shindle. That was all about adding more of a rock and roll orchestration. There's a lot of electric guitars. Then there's yet another recording of it, starring Debra Cox and Konstantin Maroulis. That was the revival. Which I saw and didn't care for, unfortunately, but still amazing voices. Oh, I know. I was laughing. I wasn't laughing. I was going, well, I guess I did well for myself with the whole Jekyll and Hyde experience, because I followed that through, as opposed to turning down some shows that were immediate.

You had to make a choice, and I made the choice. I said, well, when it gets revived, it must have been a good show. When something gets revived, I need reviving, because that means I'm old. My Broadway debut has been revived. That must mean I need the paddles. I need Broadway again. I don't know what's going to happen. But I do. It's funny. Ragtime did the same thing, but so many others.

[42:54] Jeff Parsons: Oh, sure.

[42:54] Rebecca Spencer: But there is something. I don't know if you've heard it on any of those albums, because I haven't listened to all of them, but there was a wonderful moment. They tried it out in 1990, when Chuck was doing the show. Leslie Berkus got the idea, or Greg Boyd got the idea, to ask Frank to put to music something that Robert Louis Stevenson, actually an excerpt from the book.

[43:21] Jeff Parsons: I'm so glad you brought that up, because we haven't even touched on Robert Louis Stevenson, who was the original writer of this novella that you just mentioned. It is called The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson. He, a really interesting guy, Scottish, was born in a very conservative family, very religious family, and soon found himself becoming a little bit disinterested with that upbringing. He became much more of a bohemian, grew his hair long, and I think probably visited a couple brothels, and begins writing. He writes Treasure Island, one of his most famous, and then, of course, this novella that became Jekyll and Hyde. Interesting enough, from what I gather, the two women aren't a part of that story.

[44:15] Rebecca Spencer: I love that people reinterpreted stuff. I mean, it's just a very, very short book, so it has given people a lot of license to take it where they want.

[44:27] Jeff Parsons: Well, Leslie Bricus gave every one of us, for opening night, that book, and they signed it. It was a very personal note, so I still have that.

[44:35] Rebecca Spencer: That's so sweet. But that novella, it's an interesting thing on how we interpret books at all, you know what I mean? For the film, or for Broadway, or plays. I loved that it really, because it was in the Victorian era, too, when he was writing, the fact that there was this question about lobotomies, or the mind, or how do we deal with duality, and the complexity of mankind, and do we do it with drugs, or do we not do it with drugs? And then, the musical then condensed all of that and went, good and evil, which might have been a little sparse, and oh, and here's a little bit of drug action for altercation, but I'm really quite amazed in the Victorian era, because you have the whole Jack the Ripper thing, you have all this other stuff going on, about what good and evil meant, but they were very interested in science, because we didn't have the information that we have now, but the whole thing with the mind, I think it's still, we can have all kinds of machines hooked up to our mind, but we still don't know how the brain works.

[45:41] Jeff Parsons: I'm glad you bring that up, because when I was thinking about this episode, and thinking about who I was at 16 when I saw the show, and who I am now, I don't know, maybe at 16, I was a little bit more okay with just accepting this message of within us exists a good half and a bad half, and then we need to keep the bad half down, and only feed the good half, and probably to a closeted young boy, that makes a lot of sense, right, to keep certain parts of myself down, and now that I see who I've become, and also what I've experienced in life, even here on Maui recently, I do believe that everyone is good, and that it's when fear gets in the way, and ego gets in the way, that then we start making wrong decisions, and so I wonder if maybe Jekyll and Hyde just doesn't speak to me, because it so simplistically divides us into good and evil, but then when I get into the show, and really listen to what Jekyll is trying to do, right, right at the beginning of the musical, and we'll talk through a little bit of the show, right at the top, they make it very clear that he is not playing God, in fact, he is talking to God, and saying, help me figure this out, I need to know, and for a very personal reason, Leslie Berkus included this idea that his father is in a mental institution, right, that were incredibly barbaric during that time, and so he is actively looking for a cure, thinking that this madness that his father is experiencing could somehow be extracted, that maybe the cause of it is the same thing that makes us make bad decisions, right?

[47:40] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah, it sent us into a question, you know, so it's a theatrical convention of why does someone act the way they do, there has to be some pivotal moment that makes them choose, you know, in one direction, so that beginning on the gurneys of the, you know, on the red, on that red box, you know, the Broadway show, and, you know, it's just, I said, as long as I'm not going to be naked body on there, I'm fine, because I was a swing, that's right, they were nudie patooties, you're so right, Becky, I totally forgot, I think this may have been like my first naked body that I ever saw.

[48:18] Jeff Parsons: Well, it's so weird, because it was a joke, running joke with my agents, because I said, they said, well, there's a nudity clause you have to sign, I said, nudity clause, and I didn't even think about, you know, bodies on gurneys, you know, we hadn't gotten the script, and it wasn't, we didn't talk about, it didn't start that way in, well, no, actually it did, it did, but it was not as upfront, you know, it actually started the same exact way, because it was Leslie Berk's book too, but I was going, nudity clause, you know, is a swing now, and I said, well, as long as there's chiffon, I'm good to go, because chiffon can repel the light, and I thought, they're never going to put me naked on a gurney, so I was, and they didn't, so thank God, I never had to say no, but really, there's a nudity, you had to sign a nudity clause with the actor's equity, you know, that's respectfully so, you know, but yeah.

[49:11] Jeff Parsons: Oh, for sure, for sure, so we learned very quickly that this experimentation isn't boding well with the people who hold all of the cards as to who gets the funding to look into their sciences, the board of governors is this group of very powerful people, all of whom seem to be leading dual lives, and this forementioned facade song that the people, the kind of the regular people of England sing to the audience is describing that, right, they are pretending to be a pillar of society, but that is not who they are on the inside, the insides don't match the outsides, and that is proven at this meeting where Dr. Jekyll says, hey, this is what I want to do, and it isn't like everybody raises a concern and is like, oh, I'm not totally sure about this, I don't know if this is what we should be doing, people are angry and almost violent in the way that they refuse him, calling him a heretic and are offended, you know, in their great principle by what he is trying to do, and he says in that confrontation, I know you're not going to do anything for these people in the mental institution, so let me, you know, did you love being a little bit evil when you were playing?

[50:35] Rebecca Spencer: Of course I did, my little sarcastic upper crust, I was like, this must be my ancestry coming through me, I had a fabulous, fabulous dress, and you know, Lady Beckinsfield, she says, Dr. Jekyll, enough of your ranting, sir, this is a hospital here to save lives, and so the fear, there's such a fear, you know, and we're still talking Victorian era, you know, you can't rewrite history on how people thought, you know, back then, but the fear and hypocrisy, and she obviously had deep pockets, you know.

[51:09] Jeff Parsons: Well, and I would like to say that it only happened in Victorian times, but I listened to some of the confrontations and arguments.

[51:18] Rebecca Spencer: Local schools and school districts all over this country about book banning and a lot of it is very similar. It comes from this fear and it's also angry and it presents itself in that same anger that we get in that scene with the Board of Governors.

[51:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it's it is fear. It is about fear and duality and a hypocrisy, you know. And I think that Jekyll and Hyde in that era, it really modeled itself all around Jekyll's plight, you know what I mean? So and then you saw the bishop, you know hiring a hooker later on in the scene and then he gets murdered because Hyde now takes over the alter ego of Jekyll to go after and kill all the people that said no to him, you know.

[52:03] Rebecca Spencer: It's like, yeah, I mean when you think about that sequence, this couple of the sequences they did during Murder, Murder, it was that big ensemble number. It was passage of time, basically. The song isn't that great, you know, but you know, it kind of was like a Greek chorus, you know.

[52:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There's nothing funnier to me than watching a choreographer trying to stage Murder, Murder, Murder, you know what I mean?

[52:33] Rebecca Spencer: Well, I'll tell you a little inside of that. I'll tell you so as the swing on behind the table and we knew we show up at the Radio City Music Hall in one of their big halls rehearsing and we're gonna do we know that that's the day we're gonna stage Murder, Murder and Joey Peezy was the Broadway. I think it's Joey Peezy. Yeah, and I loved him, you know. And he had a whole, you know idea and we had umbrellas and you know, 'cause it rains in London everything.

[52:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, he gets up to choreograph the number and the director says sit down. I'll just do this.

[53:05] Rebecca Spencer: So Robin Phillips, he had to Joey had to go in, you know with all his reserve he had to go and fix things. But it ended up being the director took it upon himself to really sort of stage it and and kind of stage it as a scene. Yeah, and it was a really tense moment because you know.

[53:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I bet it was tense, but I honestly think it might be the right.

[53:30] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah, I mean, I just remember the angst 'cause I was sitting behind the table going, oh my god I have to learn all these tracks, you know. I just I was looking at that, you know, but in the meantime you picked up in the room that there was a lot of, you know, frustration because you know, Joey was hired to choreograph and this gonna be on him, you know, so.

[53:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But ultimately, you know when I put on my director hat, what am I learning from this? It was definitely a convention for passage of time and an opportunity to see a lot of cool deaths and look I'm gonna I'm gonna say it right here. I love me a bloody production of Jekyll and Hyde. I want to see some gruesome awful deaths going down.

[54:10] Rebecca Spencer: Now let's talk a little briefly a little bit about Emma slash Lisa and and okay, another hot take that's not that hot. I love Emma. I think she's the most interesting character in the whole show and when I see it as a full-grown adult, she is my favorite part of the show. I think she's a strong woman in a time period where that wasn't really supposed to be a thing. She has decided that she loves Jekyll and supports him in his passions, but also says I have my own passions and my own dreams.

[54:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What are your thoughts on her because well she that's how I feel crust and when I was cast in 1990 and Christiane had had the similar backbone but I always felt that she it was you had to really honor the upper crust her high education and she didn't want to get married and she was following that protocol of that society of that time.

[55:12] Rebecca Spencer: But I do think that she might have been a little bit more advanced than the other women of the day. I always felt that she loved her father. She loved family. She loved education. She obviously showed up at all of the all the upper crust things you're supposed to do but I don't I never thought that she was broken, you know, even when she started to sense there is something gravely wrong here.

[55:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I love what you said though. She's not broken. She's not in her in this relationship because she's broken and and she's also someone who's lived in society and has managed to escape the hypocrisy that she's surrounded by right?

[55:53] Rebecca Spencer: She she's at these parties with all of the people but at the same time she has kept herself free of the of that disease.

[56:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah and stays, you know strong with what she felt was right for her life, you know.

[56:07] Rebecca Spencer: It's a and then on the other hand, you know you we were dealing with the the shot, you know when at the wedding you're at the wedding, right? And at the very end at the wedding the drug takes effect and when we were doing the reading the table read for Broadway. I'm I hadn't I I guess I had seen I don't know if I think we might have got the scripts that day and so I I was sitting there listening and I'm going I wonder if that same line is gonna be the last line.

[56:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Go to sleep my tormented love.

[56:39] Rebecca Spencer: They put that in at the very end at the wedding scene when he gets killed because he becomes Hyde and that struggle happens and then all of a sudden as the bride you're over time you just go to sleep my tormented love and I remember being given that line back in 1990 and I was like, okay and so I just did it, you know in in the moment, but it was and everyone and then we have this mock backstage everyone from that cast did their own version go to sleep my tormented love that we have this mock video that's like sort of a private video.

[57:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I think Linda was actually a videotape in this part I went go to sleep by what's the line.

[57:23] Rebecca Spencer: It's so beautifully, you know that that line is beautiful really, you know, it was but yeah, so I've just oh, I'm sorry. I have all these flashbacks happening at the same.

[57:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No. No this you know, this is this is all gonna be so great.

[57:38] Rebecca Spencer: So a couple more things Emma and Jekyll are engaged. They're a part of their engagement party doesn't really go well because of everything that's been going down at the hospital. He and his wife Emma are getting engaged. Everything that's been going down at the hospital. He and his friend decide to go to a brothel for the bachelor party and there he meets Lucy who is it? The Red Rat? Is that what it's called?

[58:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, who's the main performer and prostitute at the Red Rats now, here's where I need a little bit of help from you because I'm not I don't think I know her as well as I know Emma.

[58:17] Rebecca Spencer: She's a little bit of everything she's owning her sexuality but she also doesn't feel like anybody knows who she really is and then she meets Henry Jekyll and he like treats her as something other than an object and that kind of unlocks an even softer side of her.

[58:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Does that is this sounding right?

[58:43] Rebecca Spencer: I think that I don't know what her backstory is, you know Lucy's backstory, but but how it ended up being directed was, you know, there's a woman she was put in there for under circumstance whether she was born in a different station in life in that society and or she was orphaned, you know.

[58:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There's all kinds of backstories that would lead her into the brothel of that period versus what happens today but maybe similar, you know, and so but for some reason she has more of a not a curiosity a yearning for something better because she's meeting these upper-crust gentlemen that are coming to that they all came there.

[59:27] Rebecca Spencer: She's not just she's not just a good point in bed with it with you know, the.

[59:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I mean she's been hired by Jekyll wasn't the only upper crust, you know, well hi person to visit the red.

[59:39] Rebecca Spencer: But she sees Jekyll and he's not interested in her and he see she sees this, you know and that he's a doctor and she gives him a card, you know and she and so I think that the Utterson brought him there to sort of loosen up and get a drink and you know, and then maybe loosen up more but he decided not sex was not what he was looking for, you know and but he did go there to study personalities to.

[60:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Jekyll, okay. Did he really they I don't think it was just one of those, you know, it wasn't written about or it wasn't talked about but he they frequented, you know these places might maybe not just for sex but for observation on what is good and evil.

[60:24] Rebecca Spencer: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I get that especially since some of the upper crust are immediate are who are kind of blanketing anyone who works here as evil.

[60:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, so then there's a curiosity as a scientist to be like, well, are they?

[60:40] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah, you know, I like that.

[60:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You know, but you know when you get when you're in a brothel you get exposed to all walks of life so then when Jekyll realizes that the only way to further his science is to test the medicine on himself.

[61:01] Rebecca Spencer: Yes. This is when the Hyde emerges.

[61:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, and he feels alive with Satan himself by my side.

[61:18] Rebecca Spencer: I just love people singing it full. Yeah blast. It's just so exciting.

[61:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah me too. So but when Hyde emerges as this evil half of himself he immediately turns back to Lucy to the to the prostitute, right?

[61:26] Rebecca Spencer: Because he wants to do everything that Jekyll had decided was not appropriate for him to do.

[61:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They kind of play with each other Hyde and Jekyll playing with each other.

[61:41] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah now does Lucy recognize him as Dr. Jekyll like do you think on some level she thinks he is coming back as himself but just like doing this role play thing or do you think that she thinks Hyde is someone completely a different at the onset?

[61:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm not quite sure but during dangerous games and they meet in the night, you know, and it's high that comes.

[62:02] Rebecca Spencer: But I think she wrecked I think like when she's in the bed at the very end for a new life before she sings that big be a power ballad of just her last, you know, please life, you know make something better for me and and then she hears, you know, they do this.

[62:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We chill.

[62:25] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah, I love that was like Cuccio it was like shh and I think she recognizes Dr. Jekyll's voice, but she turns and she sees Hyde sees the tide.

[62:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I think I think that's like because because she has her back and he comes behind her and she's like it's I think that that's why a new life is even worse when she gets killed because she trusts him, you know and it's just oh, I mean that's a whole nother that's a whole nother Lucy story, I mean I watch to get directed we weren't in the room a lot of times when they were directing because they were trying to find the beats and stuff and then they would bring the cast back in but the cool thing is as we're getting towards the end of the show in 1990 I thought this was the coolest thing.

[63:08] Rebecca Spencer: They had a mylar mirror. That was part of the lab near one of Jekyll's chairs Dr. Jekyll's lab and when he really takes this drug again it's right before the wedding too. He has this confrontation. It's called the confrontation.

[63:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you really think that I would ever let you go?

[63:34] Rebecca Spencer: When I said they were playing but they had at that point they had another actor Dave Clements played sort of the growly voice for Hyde behind the mirror dressed like Hyde and there's Jekyll having this confrontation. So the confrontation happened between Jekyll and Hyde but Dave Clements played and they played with the sound and everything and they had this duet kind of this really really dramatical struggling duet and at the end of that you don't know who wins and then comes the wedding and then you know that Hyde come surfaces, but when we fast-forward.

[1:04:08] Rebecca Spencer: We're going to do the mirror. We're going to make the same actor, Bob Cuccioli, sing both parts. So he would have to shift his voice. And the sound engineering and mixing would help a little bit. But how we first started that, he said, I want to see your struggle, your physicality. This is a Jekyll physicality. This is a Hyde physicality. And how we did this, he had a rope tied to Bob's arms on two sides, as if we're doing plain tug-of-war. One half of the cast went to one side. One cast went to the other side. And he sang the song. And he would say, pull to the right. And then Bob's body would go that way. And then pull to the left. He wouldn't resist it as much as we were actually taking the direction from the directors to which, when he wanted to see the change happen.

And that's how Bob created that without the rope on him, the confrontation of the physicality. And then he felt it became part of his body. So then it was lighting, sound elements for the Hyde character to shift from the sound mixing for the Jekyll. But his physicality, all the Jekylls on Broadway that played it in our company on Broadway for that run, I don't know how it was done later in the revival. But that's how it came to be. And it was a very exciting. We did theater games. It was like we did this major theater game. But it completely, all the responsibility was on Bob. And God bless him. He did it. And he made that work every night. And he's such a great grace about his body, too, in the way he did that.

Bob Cuccioli, I love James Norton. And I'm so happy he won a Tony Award for Chicago that season. But Bob Cuccioli in that confrontation is one of the coolest things. I didn't know it was possible for a person to do that. Bob should have won the Tony that year. He should have won.

[1:06:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you for saying it.

[1:06:17] Rebecca Spencer: It was a new role. It was a brand new role. I can't imagine anybody working harder or more exact than he did in that role. And granted, I was 16 when I saw it. So what did I know? To watch Bob, no. He should have won the Tony that year. That's all. And I don't know what politics were going on. Norton, he's a seated professional and I'm a fan. But he was doing a show that had been done, even though he was good in that part. I think Bob got robbed that year.

[1:06:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I agree. It's such a special performance that he created there. I also remember during that Tony Awards them talking about they were using the newest lighting technology so that they could turn on and off a light immediately. Because sometimes you turn off a light and the light bulb is dying down. And they needed something so exact that he could stand up and be a completely different character facing the other way. And I thought it worked beautifully. And the mirror was cool because Dave Clemons had such a great voice. He did a couple of things. I'm sure. But that confrontation, you kind of go, is it going to hold? And the lighting was precise, as you said. It helped. But the grace of how Bob, that was a workout right there. It was a dance.

[1:07:40] Rebecca Spencer: But it was a dance of good and evil.

[1:07:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: For real. That was pretty spectacular to get to watch that. What a beautiful piece of history to be a part of.

[1:07:54] Rebecca Spencer: And a big one. The show ran, I think you said three years, but it says here it ran for four years.

[1:07:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It might have run for four years. It might have. It also says that somehow after four years it still didn't make back its initial investment. I think there was just so many people that had a piece of that pie. I have no idea what that.

[1:08:13] Rebecca Spencer: I'll tell you one funny thing. You talk about spooky in the theater, right, since we're doing a Halloween thing. When Linda had her, she announced she was going to leave. She was actually pregnant, too. And now her son Jake, he's a musician. He's fantastic. But he's grown up. But anyway, she was pregnant. She had to get on with her recording career, too, at that point. But it was the 2,000th performance, I think. And I may be mixing this up. But she was supposed to leave on that particular performance. And some of the Jackies even gave us 2,000 hats. But we didn't get to perform that show that day. We had to cancel the show. Because for whatever reason, there was something that happened with the ceiling of the Plymouth.

And it had broken through. The sky, whatever, there was a window way at the tippy top, had fallen through. And so it was unsafe. So we couldn't do the show. We canceled the show. And I thought, but that's also, it was also because I said, you know, I'm all psychic type thing. I said, that's because Linda's leaving. There's a passage happening here. I said, Linda, you broke the ceiling. But, you know, it's like this theater didn't want her to go. And so it was really interesting, you know, when the baton gets passed. It had nothing to do with the fact that Luba Mason wasn't beautiful in the role when she came in. But it really was a passage. Because, I mean, Linda, it was written for her. But I remember this. I listened to her sing A New Life three different times on three different albums. You know what I mean? She was there from the beginning.

[1:10:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's really cool.

[1:10:02] Rebecca Spencer: And I tell you, Kim Scharnberg has been a Frank Wildhorn orchestrator and a Linda Edder album orchestrator for years. He's a very good friend of mine. I've stayed friends with him. I love him to pieces. And he helped make that sound for Frank. You know, he fulfilled that.

[1:10:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:10:12] Rebecca Spencer: To this day, I love the original Broadway cast recording of Jekyll and Hyde. I love what he did with Scarlett Pimpernel, which hopefully we'll get to do an episode on that. Another one of those shows that just has a myth of a process that never ended.

[1:10:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I have a fun story about that, too. When I got cast in Jekyll and Hyde, we didn't have cell phones. So I called a pay phone because I had a voice message from my agent. Whatever. And I said, she goes, you just booked Jekyll and Hyde, but you're late for your rehearsal for Scarlett Pimpernel. I was like, what? She goes, they want you to come. I was like, I'm late. And she goes, they're doing a demo of another Frank Wildhorn musical, and they want you to sing on it. And I said, and you're going to get paid. So you've got to go to West Dance Studio. I've heard it was in 72nd Street Studios or something like that. So I booked Jekyll and Hyde, but also they said, but I was late for my rehearsal for Scarlett Pimpernel.

They just said, can she come and sing on the soundtrack? So I did the demo of Scarlett Pimpernel. I didn't do any leads. I did ensemble, some of the character voice on ensemble. But I loved it. And I went to the private pitch for that show when it was a room filled of, I don't know where we were, maybe Radio City. Room filled of all these people, backer, potential backer people. And they played the soundtrack and told the story of Scarlett Pimpernel.

[1:11:40] Rebecca Spencer: So I love that score.

[1:11:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Becky, I have loved talking with you so much, and I have taken too much of your time. I wish that we could have coffee or something together.

[1:11:47] Rebecca Spencer: I feel the same way. I was so honored when you were interested in Jekyll and Hyde, and you kind of knew what my history was with it. And that you thought that I could shed some light, some spooky stories, some fun stories, some jaded stories. No, it's just been so much fun.

[1:12:13] Rebecca Spencer: Did I even talk about the ending? Everyone dies at the end of the show. Jekyll dies. Lucy dies. Emma doesn't die. Emma doesn't die. She goes, go to sleep, my tormented love. And it's bomb, bomb.

[1:12:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh.

[1:12:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: As always, if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on a musical theater podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com. Don't forget to follow us on social media, where you'll see many, many more great stories, because there's no way that all of the amazing stories Becky shared with us today are going to end up in this episode. But we are on X and Instagram and TikTok. Also, check out our TeePublic store, where all of our profits that we receive, we donate to Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS. And finally, don't forget about Patreon! Where for only $1 a month, you receive bonus episodes made exclusively for you. Miss Rebecca Spencer, how do we follow you? And is there anything you want to plug?

[1:13:17] Rebecca Spencer: Well, if you're interested in any of those pictures from documentaries from Jekyll and Hyde, my website is very extensive in terms of the recordings that I've done and a lot of the pictures from all my productions through the years. But I have a great many from the Broadway and from the 1990 Jekyll and Hyde. So my website is RebeccaSpencer.com. And then I love the stage. And one of the things that I learned from Frank Wildhorn was I had a lot of opportunity to do backup, some stuff in the studio, because Linda was always recording. So I took that further, and I have self-produced three recordings with my pianist, Philip Fortenberry. We both live in Las Vegas now. We started in New York. The first one, Wide Awake and Dreaming, it earned a Bistro Award.

The second one was Fair Warning, sort of inspired by the Ladies of the Red Hat Society, but they're kind of theater songs. And the third, and that's with cello. And the third was Still, Still, Still, which is a Christmas album that was dedicated to the stories of Christmas. Some of the hymns, but the songs that share the story of Christmas. It's not preachy, but it will definitely bring you into a landscape, sort of snowy sound of Christmas. And that's with soprano saxophone and cello as well. And then I'm premiering the Bergman Project, based on exploring the lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman from Hollywood's most distinguished composers had sought after them from the 1950s into the 21st century. Glorious music. Incredible.

[1:15:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, glorious music.

[1:15:01] Rebecca Spencer: Yentl. Yes. At the very least.

[1:15:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:15:03] Rebecca Spencer: And we do have a really nice Yentl section in this. But they composed with Marvin Hamlisch, a Broadway composer. And Michel Legrand was a big person, a big collaborator that they worked with. And some of the movies, the songs that they collaborated with, it was basically the way in which they worked. They extended the screenplay, much like we do in theater. Different than just getting a famous song to be just on the soundtrack.

[1:15:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: On the credits or whatever.

[1:15:33] Rebecca Spencer: Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, so please feel free. You can listen to all my stuff, even on my website. You can listen to all those tracks. You don't have to pay for it. But if you want to buy a physical recording, lmlmusic.com and Amazon and anywhere.

[1:15:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's amazing. We will have links to all of that in our show notes.

[1:15:53] Rebecca Spencer: Oh, great. Thank you for being such a light in our spooky episode.

[1:15:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know.

[1:15:57] Rebecca Spencer: I hope I was a little spooky.

[1:15:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, absolutely. We talked blood and gore and naked bodies on journeys.

[1:16:05] Rebecca Spencer: Oh, my God. Your career, Becky. It's over.

[1:16:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And curtain, right?

[1:16:17] Rebecca Spencer: Oh, my gosh. Thank you again. And everyone out there, thank you for listening. And remember, what's the tagline?

[1:16:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What's the tagline?

[1:16:27] Rebecca Spencer: Bring on the men.

[1:16:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, that can't be the tagline.

[1:16:31] Rebecca Spencer: Why not?

[1:16:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Go to sleep, my tormented love.

[1:16:37] Rebecca Spencer: There it is.