Some scenes will even have the performers in the audience areas “playing” with the guests during the performance. The show also includes an emcee (Brian Lyons-Burke) who introduces scenes, and even directly interacts with the audience. Or perhaps some mysterious newly arrived twins up to no good? But by whom? Might the killer be a romantic rival? Or the purveyor of wickedness. The plot of the musical is this: in the small town of Chesterham, England, the young and charming Edwin Drood (Amanda Mason) has been mysteriously murdered. “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” is a British Music Hall-type show-within-a-show centered on a Victorian era theater company full of eccentric people. What is fun, indicated Wallen, is that after the audience votes on the “real” identities of the characters, “the performers are then tasked with completing the remainder of the musical using the solution provided by the audience.” There are fifty or so possible endings – each of which the cast, crew and band must be ready to implement. “As the musical is based on an unfinished novel by Charles Dickens, Holmes decided to acknowledge this by asking the audience to help solve the crime,” noted Wallen. Rupert Holmes who wrote the Tony Award-winning musical “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” includes the audience’s voice as part of the plot. “Edwin Drood” provides audiences the opportunity “to not just sit and take in the production, but to make a difference in the final outcomes of each performance.” That is why we selected ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ for our next production,” said Joseph Wallen, Artistic Director, Workhouse Arts Center. So, dear audience, welcome to our rehearsal room and the madness, ridiculousness, silliness and happiness of making theatre.“We wanted to provide Northern Virginia audiences with a unique evening of musical storytelling. And that is the feeling I want to share with audiences, the happiness we felt while putting it all together and the excitement of doing it again after so long. Every time I stepped into that room, libretto in my hand and fire in my belly, I was reminded of the great joy of building a show with a great bunch of people. The Drood rehearsal room had to be one of the happiest places on earth-I’ve never laughed so much in my life. Drood is my love letter to all the people who pour their hearts into the theatre that they create-from the big production companies to the little indie collectives to the local community groups (especially the community groups!). On the surface, Drood is just that, but underneath the jokes, the gags, the campiness, this is simply a show about theatremakers making theatre. The Mystery of Edwin Drood may be just what we all need right now-silly, unadulterated fun. The world has changed and I did lose Whistle, but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. Still, it’s difficult to be sure about anything, post-COVID, post-Sondheim. Now we’re back in the theatre and back doing what we love. For two long years, countless theatres around the globe were dark and our industry waited patiently in the wings. Two years on and everything is different and nothing is certain-Sondheim said it best, we have “so little to be sure of, if there’s anything at all.” How hard those words hit now. Back then these ideas felt painfully pertinent. Way back in 2020 we were two weeks out from our first performance of Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ absurdist musical about a corrupt government lying to its people and the idealists who are courageous enough to sing out the truth. Welcome to what should have been Anyone Can Whistle. Zachary Aleksander (Jasper), Ren McMeikenk (Drood / Datchery), Phoebe Clark (Rosa), Kimmie Jonceski (Helena), Denzel Bruhn (Neville), Simon Ward (Crisparkle), Tisha Kelemen (Puffer), Jordon Mahar (Sapsea), Madeleine Wighton (Bazzard), Addy Robertson (Durdles), Brodie Masini (Boy), Victoria Luxton (Ensemble), Sophie Perkins (Ensemble), Lucy Ross (Ensemble) Who is the murderer, though? Well, that is up for you to decide! With book, music and lyrics by Rupert Holmes, the musical follows a cast of shady characters, all with a motive of killing Edwin Drood. Based on the unfinished novel by Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a choose-your-own-adventure musical that tosses the crucial question - whodunit? - into the lap of the audience. Now it's your turn to answer one of literature's most baffling mysteries. A question that has stumped audiences for years.
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