The Mystery of Edwin Drood

I've just spent the last three months of my life rehearsing and performing a great little (big) show called The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

It won the Tony Award for Best Musical (the benchmark for achievement in musical theatre) in 1986, an award which in the next two years was awarded to Les Misérables, and Phantom of the Opera, although it has pretty much slipped from the canon of musical theatre repetoire since then.

This is, I believe, largely owing to how difficult it is to stage. The thing about Drood is that it has a different ending every night - there are over 600 endings!

The musical is based on the novel Charles Dickens never finished. When he died in 1870, he was twenty chapters in to a serialised murder mystery, leaving 20 chapters and the resolution of the mystery unwritten and, well, ... a mystery.

Many academics and writers have attempted to "solve" The Mystery of Edwin Drood, including a psychic who apparently just asked Dickens' ghost what happened, but I think Rupert Holmes was the cleverest about it.

Holmes' musical adaptation of Drood is a camp nod to amateur theatre and the vaudeville tradition of the late nineteenth century, a play-within-a-play in which every actor is playing an actor playing one of Dickens' characters. Half way through Act II, the Dickens plotline falls apart and the audience is called upon to vote for an ending.

Four "ballots" are held over the next half hour or so: Who is the Disguised Detective, Dick Datchery? (don't you love the aliteration?) Who Murdered Edwin Drood? and then, at the conclusion of the first two revelations, Which Two Characters Will Fall in Love?

There are five possible Datcherys, eight possible Murderers, and eleven possible lovers (three female, eight male) which add up to over six hundred combinations of endings. A pretty epic task for a young amateur cast.

I played Miss Janet Conover, an experienced Actress, who plays Helena Landless, a Ceylonese noblewoman who accompanies her twin brother Neville to England in order to escape a shady past.

During the run, I was Dick Datchery twice, and a lover once. In fact, the night I was a lover, my male lover was Alex, who played Neville. Mmm, incest. It was hilarious and disturbing.

Anyway, I just had the greatest experience doing Drood, and I wanted to share some of the AMAZING show shots taken by the very talented Victoria Nelson. Stalk her on Facebook, tell her she should start a blog/website to showcase the photography she and her twin sister, Felicity (also very talented) do.

Mr. Harry Milas (the magician of my previous post) as the Chairman. He was a legend.

Me, with Alex (Neville) and Lizzie (Edwin), explaining the death of Dickens to the audience.
The Voting for the female Lover. Naomi (Rosa Bud), Marina (Princess Puffer) and myself, with Andy as Mr. James Throttle, the mentally handicapped Stage Manager.
My very talented twin - twin in the show, soul twin in real life, Alex.
Alex, confessing that it was HE who murdered young Edwin Drood.
The climactic scene just before Drood vanishes in Act I - with the incredible song "No Good Can Come From Bad" aka the crunchy crunchy close harmony death song. Heh.
Me having a little angst in "No Good Can Come From Bad". Alex on the left, Naomi on the right.
Roman (with RIDICULOUS hair), playing the Reverend Crisparkle, blesses the meal in "No Good Can Come From Bad".
I yell at Harry for a while, then he calls me a bitch and I glare for a bit.
The gorgeous female "Moonfall" quartet. Felicity, Naomi, myself and Minna.
And here's Roman as the murderer. He was truly truly scary.
What musical is complete without an epic kick-line?
... or side-stepping, top-hat miming?
Harry and Roman have a moment.

I am so proud of everyone in the cast, and so happy that I got to perform again... it might be the last time I get to for a very long time.