Director: Producing 'Jekyll and Hyde' at Croswell Opera House a rewarding experience

ADRIAN — T. Eric Hart, director of the Croswell Opera House’s upcoming production of the musical “Jekyll and Hyde,” sat in the back of the theater late one recent afternoon watching as cast members filtered out onto the stage for some pre-rehearsal run-throughs.

“This honestly has been one of the most rewarding non-acting experiences I’ve ever had,” he said.

The show opens at 7:30 p.m. today. Additional performances are at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15; 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19; 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22.

Tickets are $44/$33/$22 for adults and $25/$20/$15 for students, and can be ordered online at croswell.org or by calling 517-264-7469.

The Croswell bills the production as suitable for adults and teens, with some violence, suggestive content and adult situations.

Hart has a long history with “Jekyll and Hyde,” dating back to 2001 when he was cast in an award-winning (including for him) production done by the Fullerton Civic Light Opera in California. Since then, he has directed the show and/or performed the lead role multiple times in theaters across the country.

That includes at the Croswell itself in 2003, when he both directed the show and played the lead. Before that, his Croswell experience included the title character in “The Scarlet Pimpernel” in 2002 and, later that season, in “Scrooge” — the show where he met his future wife, Amy Lynn. The pair recently celebrated their 20th anniversary.

Over the years since that 2003 “Jekyll and Hyde,” Hart made a career onstage, on TV, and in films, moved with his wife to a farm in Virginia, and discovered he has both a passion and a knack for teaching budding performers.

He still feels a real connection to the dual roles of the tortured Dr. Jekyll and Jekyll’s alter ego Mr. Hyde, and admits that “it’s really weird not to be in this (production). I’ve always been blanketed by this show, and now I’ve handed it off. And it’s bittersweet.”

Jarrod Alexander of Toledo plays the title character, with Melissa Toth of Perrysburg, Ohio, as the prostitute Lucy and Ally Szymanski of Adrian as his fiancee, Emma Carew. Brian George of Canton plays Jekyll's best friend, Gabriel John Utterson, and Phil Skeldon of Sylvania, Ohio, plays Emma's father, Sir Danvers Carew.

Playing the Board of Governors at St. Jude's Hospital are Alex Britton of Adrian as the Bishop of Basingstoke, Mikey Del Vecchio of Toledo as Sir Archibald Proops, Domonique Glover (also the production’s choreographer) of Toledo as Lord Theodore Savage, Betsy Lackey of Adrian as Lady Elizabeth Beaconsfield, Bob Eccles of Carleton as General Lord Glossop, and Michael Cicirelli of Jackson as Simon Stride.

The role of Nellie, an attendant at the pub where Jekyll meets Lucy, is played by Kayla Younkin of Ypsilanti.  The "girls of the night" are Kylie Bushman and Molly Humphries of Adrian, Caroline Coy of Ann Arbor, Olivia Bacarella of Monroe, Hillary Gibson of Perrysburg and Megan Schlachter-Walter of Sylvania. Frank Przepiora of Toledo is Jekyll's butler, Poole, and Michael Milton of Adrian is Jekyll's father. In the ensemble are Christopher Harlan and Lisa Schrock-Ohlinger of Adrian, Steven Owsley of Jackson and Lou Ann Flick of Temperance.

Todd Schreiber is the music director.

Hart said he’s extremely pleased with the production’s cast.

“This show is very difficult,” he said. “By the second week (of rehearsals) we were solid. And then I realized I have the best cast I’ve ever had for this show. In all these years.

“I’ve done it with professional casts and none of them has ever taken to it like this (cast). … Jared and Melissa and Allie are leading this show to wonderful places.”

His approach to directing the production was not to tell the actors what to do, but rather to give them ideas from which to choose and let them run with those ideas. “And they’ve all done wonderfully,” he said.

“It’s so rewarding to see how they’ve grown from Day One.”

The story of “Jekyll and Hyde” captures the idea that everyone has both good and evil inside them, and sometimes that evil is triggered by the best intentions: Jekyll wants to save his father’s life, “so there’s a great goodness there,” Hart said. “He’s trying to make things better, and it all comes crashing down.”

And watching Alexander learn to inhabit the very complex character Hart himself has played so often has been very satisfying. “It’s really been a blessing for me to guide a performer into one of the most difficult male roles in the country,” he said.

What makes it so difficult? It’s precisely because the actor playing Jekyll/Hyde has to portray two such very different sides of the same person, Hart said. It’s a different dynamic than when actors play two (or more) completely separate characters in a show.

Sometimes a theater doing this show will double-cast the role so that one actor plays Jekyll and another actor plays Hyde. But to him, that defeats the whole idea of the character’s duality.

“This is one person as two people, each of whom is aware of the other inside of him,” he said.

Hart said he’s very happy to be a part of giving the Croswell’s cast the opportunity to experience “Jekyll and Hyde,” calling the musical “a dream come true” for a performer. “This is a show that you can’t do just anywhere,” he said.

And he’s eagerly anticipating Friday’s opening-night performance, for one reason especially. “I’m looking forward to my cast experiencing that well-deserved applause,” he said. “Because they’ve earned it.”

If you go

WHAT: “Jekyll and Hyde”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. today; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15; 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19; 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22

WHERE: Croswell Opera House, 129 E. Maumee St., Adrian

TICKETS: $44/$33/$22 for adults, $25/$20/$15 for students

HOW TO ORDER: Online at croswell.org or by calling 517-264-7469

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Preview: "Jekyll and Hyde' at Croswell Opera House Oct. 13-22