Jekyll & Hyde the Musical at the Star Royale Theatre
I've been meaning to start a series like this for awhile where I share my thoughts on local theatrical productions! I've been a part of community theatre since 2017 and love being in the cast, crew, and audience alike. Getting to know these amazingly talented actors and watch them perform their hearts out is truly a pleasure and I wanted to start documenting that as much as possible.
Since I'm just doing this for fun, I'll only be using character names instead of actor names just in case they would prefer not to have their names out there. I'm also not the best writer haha - I'm not really looking to make these "thoughtful thought pieces". I think these are just going to be a little ramble of excitement for local theatre and the things I liked in shows. 🖤
First show I'm going to highlight is Jekyll & Hyde from the Star Royale Theatre in Pompton Lakes, NJ!
I'm a bit of a theatre noob (...extremely in fact) so there are so many shows, actors, and songs that I just don't know that fellow thespians know inside and out. As a result, I have never seen nor heard of Jekyll & Hyde and I was super excited to enter the audience without any information. This show was creepy, heartfelt, suspenseful, and funny. I really enjoyed it!
-spoilers ahead-
The symbolism in Dr. Jekyll's "double character" was done so well! In the very first scene he stood behind two frame-looking set pieces that showed "2 sides of him". The light design for every time Mr. Hyde came out was so on point and it really added to that creepy vibe that let the audience know what was coming. I found myself feeling unsettled every time the light changed (in a good way) and was fascinated with the "inner demon" concept.
The songs were beautiful and the singing was hauntingly beautiful and operatic and I feel like I could listen to Lucy & Emma sing duets all day. My favorite character was definitely John Utterson. He just wanted to have Jekyll's back but couldn't allow him to hurt others any longer. I really felt the respect he had for his dear friend. "His Work and Nothing More" had to be my favorite song. And everyone's accents were SO GOOD!
Jekyll dueting with himself in "The Confrontation" could not have been easy and going from one character type to another in a split second while maintaining his projecting was very cool to watch. The lighting hitting him in the "half red / half white" was dope af.
I'm feeling inspired to read "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" which is the book that the musical was adapted from. We are in the spoopy season so why not continue the spoops? 🎃
I'll be seeing more shows coming up and I'm excited to share more!












