Palm Beach Arts Paper Staff
What happened to Edwin Drood? Has he disappeared? Been murdered by his uncle? Traipsed off to Egypt to pursue his studies? Or even gone incognito?
Such is the plot of the Sol Children Theatre production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a play written by Rupert Holmes based on Charles Dickens’s last, unfinished novel.
The answer will be up to the audience to decide. If he was murdered, which of the 16 other castmates are the likely suspects?
Encouraging audience participation in the outcome is one of the show’s most talked-about, fun aspects of the production, says Sol Theatre founder and artistic director Rosalie Grant.
“‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ is a wonderful story, a play-within-a-play,” says Grant, who will direct the musical along with Gisbert Heuer.
“It’s a murder mystery with mistaken identities, with beautiful, haunting melodramatic music,” says Grant. “It’s difficult to stage, a huge commitment and undertaking, but so much fun for the audience.”
Dickens died suddenly of a stroke in 1870 before he conceived the ending of his novel, which allows community theaters across the country to stage Holmes’s play with various endings that the audience chooses.
The play debuted on Broadway in 1986 and won five Tony awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score.
The production, presented by Sol Children Theatre of Boca Raton and running from June 12-28, tells the story of John Jasper, a Jekyll-and-Hyde choirmaster who is madly in love with his music student, Miss Rosa Bud.
However, Miss Bud is otherwise engaged to Jasper’s nephew, the young Edwin Drood. Miss Bud also has caught the eye of Neville Landless, Drood’s rival. When Drood suddenly and mysteriously disappears one stormy Christmas Eve, suspicions point in every direction as the investigation begins.
Holmes penned possible storylines for each possible outcome.
“I love Charles Dickens and the Victorian-era genre and know audiences will love it as well,” says Grant, who directed her first play at the age of 18. “It meets all the criteria of a good musical — compelling characters and a delicious plot.”
Grant founded the Sol Children Theatre, now going into its 14th season as a non-profit, to produce plays geared to families and children and provide children with a professional theater experience.
She also founded Evening Star Productions, a non-Equity professional theater company, now in its second season, to offer a theatrical experience to young performers interested in pursuing a career in the theater.
Actors play multiple roles, contingent upon the decided-upon ending.
Drood cast members include Fort Lauderdale actor Murphy Hayes in the lead as Mr. William Cartwright and the Chairman; Alyssa Buelow as Throttle, Stage Manager and Barkeep; James Skiba as John Jasper; Yasmin Adli as Drood; Erin Cunningham as Rosa Bud; and Alexa Baray and Steven Michael Kennedy as Helena and Neville Landless.
Other cast members include Elvin Negron, Robyn Eli Brenner, Ember Everett, Christopher Lam and Boca Raton actor Kyle Laing as Bazzard.
Laing, now 18 and a musical theater major at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, began his acting career as an Oompa Loompa in the at Sol Theatre’s production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when he was 8 years old.
Excited to be back as an adult, Laing remembers his children’s theater experience fondly.
“It was a warm and loving environment,” says Laing. “I always felt welcome, embraced and loved.”
“I’m so grateful to Rosalie and it’s a joy to work with her now as an adult,” says Laing, who admires two-time Tony Award winning Broadway actor Norbert Leo Butz and hopes in the future to perform, choreograph or teach musical theater.
Hayes, 48, a graphic designer from Oakland Park, plays William Cartwright, the lead role. He played in Sol Theatre’s production of The Addams Family in May and studies under Jane Kelly at the Actor’s Workshop of South Florida in Deerfield Beach.
A musical theater buff, Hayes’ dream roles include one day playing Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and being the voice of the plant in Little Shop of Horrors.
Although there are no immediate plans to stage Little Shop of Horrors, Evening Star opens next season (Oct. 8-25), with 35mm: A Musical Exhibition followed by David Mamet’s Oleanna (Jan. 14–31, 2016) and will close the season with Murdered to Death, a British comedy (Apr. 14–May 1, 2016).
Sol Children will open with Once Upon a Mattress (Dec. 4–20) followed by Around the World in 80 Days (June 17–July 3, 2016) and close with William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aug. 6- 21, 2016).
The Mystery of Edwin Drood runs from June 12-28 at Sol Theatre, 333 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton. Tickets are $15; $10 for children (not recommended for kids younger than 11). Call 447-8829 or visit www.eveningstarproductions.org or www.solchildren.org.