Frank Wildhorn

Hollywood Boulevard is home to both the Pantages Theatre and Madame Tussauds, and there were times during the new production of "Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical" that I wondered if the two institutions had arranged a secret merger. This pre-Broadway touring production, which opened Tuesday at the Pantages, combines power singing and theatrical waxworks to retell the Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a doctor with a damnable dark side. The experience of the show, never a critic's darling, can only be compared to watching "American Idol" from inside an amusement park gallery showcasing the fiendish modus operandi of infamous murderers.

Hollywood Boulevard is home to both the Pantages Theatre and Madame Tussauds, and there were times during the new production of "Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical" that I wondered if the two institutions had arranged a secret merger. This pre-Broadway touring production, which opened Tuesday at the Pantages, combines power singing and theatrical waxworks to retell the Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a doctor with a damnable dark side. The experience of the show, never a critic's darling, can only be compared to watching "American Idol" from inside an amusement park gallery showcasing the fiendish modus operandi of infamous murderers.

Like the divided hero of his first musical, "Jekyll & Hyde," composer Frank Wildhorn appears to have two professional faces. He is an old-fashioned romantic, hellbent on restoring Broadway to its former place in the mainstream of pop music--emulating the likes of such songwriters as Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, who dominated both the Great White Way and the nation's radio waves. His credentials?

"American Idol" alumnus Constantine Maroulis has revealed via Twitter that the new revival of the musical "Jekyll and Hyde," in which he will star alongside Deborah Cox, is to open on Broadway in April. The actor tweeted this week that the production will open in April at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York. The musical is to embark on a North American tour before arriving on Broadway. Southern California audiences are to get a chance to see the new production first when it opens next month at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.

American-made musical theater, especially the rare contemporary kind that dares to entertain like "The Scarlet Pimpernel," has never been a "guilty pleasure" for me ("This Time, He's Dressed to Kill," April 30). Jan Breslauer's cheerfully spun report on a tuner kept alive by audience affection and, evidently, constructive rewrites may only err in leaving the impression--"boffo box office"--that it is finally turning a profit. Despite non-fatal second-act overwriting, I found the "4.0" version (the only one I've seen)

"American Idol" alumnus Constantine Maroulis has revealed via Twitter that the new revival of the musical "Jekyll and Hyde," in which he will star alongside Deborah Cox, is to open on Broadway in April. The actor tweeted this week that the production will open in April at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York. The musical is to embark on a North American tour before arriving on Broadway. Southern California audiences are to get a chance to see the new production first when it opens next month at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.

'Jekyll & Hyde," an ambitious new musical opening its national tour at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, is helping to bring back an old Tin Pan Alley tradition: putting pop in the theater. The show's producers are betting millions on doing what "The Who's Tommy" did for rock opera and "Smokey Joe's Cafe" did for Lieber and Stoller's golden oldies: capitalize on the appeal of popular composers.

"A big, chunky, Costco-size show." That's how producer James Blackman introduced "Jekyll & Hyde" to his audience on opening night at Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. He didn't explain what he meant. But his reference to a popular store where people buy cheap products in large quantities is an apt analogy to this musical and especially its score, by Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse. Like the store, the score certainly doesn't shrink from the idea of quantity.

Before dying at age 25 in a hail of lawmen's bullets, Clyde Barrow had achieved the fame he sought -- and he had killed 14 men, directly or indirectly. His loyal moll, Bonnie Parker, may never have shot anyone. But as one of their cohorts in the Barrow gang said, "She was one hell of a loader." The notorious 1930s bank robbers were transformed into mythical outlaw lovers by director Arthur Penn, actor-producer Warren Beatty and screenwriters David Newman and Robert Benton in the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde."

The creative pairing of Christopher Hampton with Frank Wildhorn on "Dracula, The Musical" brings shudders of bone-chilling horror to my virgin soul ("Old Tale, New Blood," by Jan Breslauer, Oct. 21). What's next--Pia Zadora and Placido Domingo in "Frankenstein: That Seventies Rock Opera"? And who are we as a people when our so-called "cultural creatives" seem to do little else but repackage our overworked classics like so much old wine in plastic bottles? MICHAEL CHASE WALKER Los Angeles

"A big, chunky, Costco-size show." That's how producer James Blackman introduced "Jekyll & Hyde" to his audience on opening night at Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. He didn't explain what he meant. But his reference to a popular store where people buy cheap products in large quantities is an apt analogy to this musical and especially its score, by Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse. Like the store, the score certainly doesn't shrink from the idea of quantity.

American-made musical theater, especially the rare contemporary kind that dares to entertain like "The Scarlet Pimpernel," has never been a "guilty pleasure" for me ("This Time, He's Dressed to Kill," April 30). Jan Breslauer's cheerfully spun report on a tuner kept alive by audience affection and, evidently, constructive rewrites may only err in leaving the impression--"boffo box office"--that it is finally turning a profit. Despite non-fatal second-act overwriting, I found the "4.0" version (the only one I've seen)

Like the divided hero of his first musical, "Jekyll & Hyde," composer Frank Wildhorn appears to have two professional faces. He is an old-fashioned romantic, hellbent on restoring Broadway to its former place in the mainstream of pop music--emulating the likes of such songwriters as Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, who dominated both the Great White Way and the nation's radio waves. His credentials?

'Jekyll & Hyde," an ambitious new musical opening its national tour at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, is helping to bring back an old Tin Pan Alley tradition: putting pop in the theater. The show's producers are betting millions on doing what "The Who's Tommy" did for rock opera and "Smokey Joe's Cafe" did for Lieber and Stoller's golden oldies: capitalize on the appeal of popular composers.

I am the original co-author of the musical "Jekyll & Hyde" (composer Frank Wildhorn and I co-wrote both book and lyrics) and was both pleased by Jan Herman's article ("Break a Leg, Mr. Hyde," Aug. 20) and perplexed by certain information in it. Since my contribution to the work is still quite evident in the show, I wish to correct the record. Leslie Bricusse, the show's current lyricist, says of the original version (co-written by Frank and me), "Lyrically, it was nothing at all." If this is true, why does a substantial amount of the original work remain in the recently released complete double CD?

I'm going to ask David Lewis (Letters, "Plumping for 'Pimpernel,' " May 7) with all due respect to refrain from mentioning Frank Wildhorn in the same breath with George Gershwin and Jule Styne. Many of us read the Calendar section over breakfast, and would appreciate a fighting chance to keep our eggs down. BERTON AVERRE Pacific Palisades In response to the article "One Possible Avenue of Expression" (by Suzanne Muchnic, April 30): I must be missing the point. A veterans memorial at Santa Monica Boulevard and Holloway Drive in West Hollywood?