Chicago Tribune
- Highly Recommended
"...Great roars of appreciation accompanied the downtown re-opening of Kokandy Productions' new Chicago production of the Frank Wildhorn, Steve Cuden and Leslie Bricusse musical "Jekyll & Hyde" at the Broadway Playhouse, replete with its full orchestra, power ballads and a happily campy sensibility that proves an entertaining and ebullient match for the fan-favorite material itself."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...Sotirios Livaditis's semicircular set, which looks like a Victorian operating theater in hell, translates well to the Broadway Playhouse stage and provides a cunning and flexible way for the characters to move between the worlds of Henry Jekyll, determined to understand the madness that claimed his own father's mind (and thwarted in his official experiments by those who control the purse strings at his hospital), and the dark demimonde explored by Edward Hyde."
Stage and Cinema
- Highly Recommended
"...Kokandy Productions' remount of Leslie Bricusse and Frank Wildhorn's Jekyll & Hyde with Broadway In Chicago has no problem filling the Broadway Playhouse stage with raucous, dangerous fun."
Around The Town Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Chicago is a very special city. Our theater community is probably as close to "family" as one might find, and it is because of that, and the high-quality productions of our smaller, independent companies, that we can have Broadway in Chicago work with these companies to bring their stellar work to their Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. One of these companies is Kokandy Productions, which over the years has done amazing work, utilizing non-stage areas better than any audience might have thought could be done."
Chicago Theatre Review
- Highly Recommended
"...From its early beginnings in Texas, Jekyll & Hyde struggled to find acceptance. After a U.S. tour in 1995, the musical finally made it to Broadway, where it received four Tony Award nominations. Since then, the show has been performed around the world. With more than 30 hard-hitting and powerful songs, including "This Is the Moment," "Someone Like You," "A New Life" and "In His Eyes," its music has been giving audiences chills for decades."
Buzz Center Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...While Jekyll's experiments drive the plot, the production grounds his unraveling in two sharply drawn relationships: his earnest, hopeful romance with Emma and his complicated, magnetic connection with Lucy. Emma represents the future he's desperate to protect, while Lucy embodies the vulnerability and desire he can't fully control. Together, they give the story its emotional spine, showing how Jekyll's transformation fractures not just his identity, but the lives of the women who care for him."
The Fourth Walsh
- Highly Recommended
"...Henry Jekyll is curious about the psyche. He wants to determine the line between morality and derangement. When the Board of Governors shut down his request for research subjects, Jekyll decides to experiment on himself. When he ingests chemicals, he unleashes his inner Edward Hyde. While Dr. Jekyll is torn between his respectable fiancee and his friendship with a prostitute, Mr. Hyde knows exactly what he wants... revenge, blood and domination."
Chicagoland Musical Theatre
- Recommended
"...Frank Wildhorn's score remains a fine assembly of steel-trap popera tunes, one turned-up-to-eleven banger after the other. Alas, it's welded to Leslie Bricusse's text, which remains by turns effortful and inane, a Cliffs Notes-worthy summary of Robert Louis Stevenson's immortal shocker."
Third Coast Review
- Highly Recommended
"...The definitive metaphor for the duality of mankind, the torrid tale of Jekyll and Hyde has been familiar to lovers of literature for nearly 140 years. Adapted for the stage in 1990 by Frank Wildhorn, Leslie Bricusse, and Steve Cuden, Kokandy Productions brings the story to life once again in an absolutely stunning production-the first Chicago staging in over 15 years."
Chicago On Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...Attend the tale of Edward Hyde. And, of course, his tragic creator, Dr. Henry Jekyll. The late Victorian-era vernacular makes reading Robert Louis Stevenson's groundbreaking 1886 novel "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" a bit of a slog. Kokandy Production's ghoulish, gorgeous, riotous, operatic, over-the-top, burlesque-tastic Grand Guignol musical version is anything but."
PicksInSix
- Highly Recommended
"...It's an impressive, heartfelt downtown transfer of the Kokandy Productions show from last fall of "Jekyll & Hyde," the Frank Wildhorn/Leslie Bricusse telling of the legendary Robert Louis Stevenson novel that examines the dichotomy between good and evil. It is a magnificent production in professional demeanor, in quality talent both onstage and off, and, despite the original concept's best efforts to derail itself, in musical storytelling from this ascending organization."
Curtain Call Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Kokandy Productions' Jekyll & Hyde at the Broadway Playhouse is a thrilling, full-bodied musical experience-dark, romantic, vocally explosive, and powered by a full musical sound that makes Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse's melodramatic score feel new and delightfully dangerous. This production understands the show's greatest strength: its music. With conductor Nick Sula leading that magnificent full sound, Kokandy gives the score the exciting grandeur it demands. This production originally presented at the Chopin Theatre has transferred perfection to this new and intimate feeling Broadway in Chicago venue and it could not be any better!"
Chicago Culture Authority
- Highly Recommended
"...Bursting forth from the Chopin Theatre to stake its bloody claim to Broadway in Chicago's Broadway Playhouse stage, Jekyll & Hyde delivers an incredibly well-sung, high-octane show that suggests scrappy stalwart Kokandy Productions is ready for the big time under the direction of Derek Van Barham."
Splash Magazine
- Highly Recommended
"...With Halloween approaching, this timely presentation explores the dark side of human nature. Founded in 2010, the Kokandy Production of Jekyll & Hyde is a brilliantly executed musical. It accomplishes its mission of telling "complex and challenging stories". The struggle between good and evil, and the duality of human beings, is evident in the show. Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a gothic horror novel, would not seem to be fodder for an on-stage musical."
Allie and the After Party
- Highly Recommended
"...Coming back for a remount with Broadway in Chicago, Kokandy's production of Jekyll and Hyde is still a must-see for those who didn't have a chance to see it before and would still be enjoyed by those who did.The original cast reprises their roles with every ounce of passion as they did in the first go-round with the original theatrical designs as well."
NewCity Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...When I insist that Chicago is the greatest theater city in the world, I’m adding this production of “Jekyll & Hyde” to my list of reasons why."
