Скачать или смотреть Svengali's Soliloquy/I Shall Not Succomb (Chuck Wagner) | Svengali Demo Frank Wildhorn

Svengali is a 1991 musical written by Frank Wildhorn (music & lyrics)(best known for Jekyll & Hyde and Bonnie & Clyde), Gregory Boyd (book & lyrics, director), and John Bettis (lyrics) based on the 1894 gothic sensation novel Trilby by George du Maurier. It premiered on April 2nd, 1991 and ran through May at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas, just under a year after Jekyll & Hyde premiered at the same theater.

In fact, it acted as a reunion of sorts for much of the cast and crew of Jekyll & Hyde. Boyd (the artistic director of the Alley Theatre), had previously directed Jekyll & Hyde. Leads of the show were Chuck Wagner as Svengali (lead characters in Jekyll & Hyde), regular Wildhorn muse (and later ex/wife) Linda Eder as Trilby (Lucy Harris in J&H), Dave Clemmons as Billie (Bishop of Basingstoke in J&H, also played Hyde in Confrontation and understudied for the title roles), and Philip Hoffman as Gecko (John Utterson in J&H). Further overlap included supporting actors Jeffrey Bean, Marty Simpson, and Tug Wilson, costume designer V. Jane Suttell, sound designer Karl Richardson, music organizer of many titles Jeremy Roberts, and stage management team M. Pat Hodge and Djuana M. Strauch.

Svengali later played a second tryout production at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida in October 1991 until November 2nd. This production featured largely the same cast and crew as the premiere, bar Jason Workman replacing Dave Clemmons. Both productions were successful, and shortly before the Sarasota production closed it was announced theater producer Sandy Jacobs had greenlit a Broadway production to open in Fall 1993, however this never came to pass. In fact, these would be the only two productions of Svengali.

These demos feature Wagner, Eder, and Clemmons, however the circumstances of their production are mysterious. The source I got them from claim they're from 1992, so perhaps they were made in advance of the unproduced Broadway production. But Wildhorn said multiple times in the late 90s that he wanted to produce Svengali as a recording, so perhaps it was demoed then and never officially released. He also planned on incorporating Svengali into his ill-fated theatre franchise The Romantics, but this never came to pass. Enjoy!