One of the come-ons for the Hartford Stage production of Elizabeth Egloff’s “Ether Dome” was that the play’s real-life inspiration, pioneering anesthesiologist Horace Wells, also, according to some scholars, inspired Robert Louis Stevenson classic horror tale “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.” So the new tour of the musical “Jekyll & Hyde” comes to Connecticut at an opportune time. The show, with music by Frank Wildhorn (“The Scarlet Pimpernel”) and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse (“Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”) dates back to the 1990s, when it was workshopped at several regional theaters and in a national tour that came to New Haven’s Shubert Theater. The song “This Is The Moment” also got some traction as the soundtrack to Olympic ice-skating routines. “Jekyll & Hyde”‘s lengthy (if unprofitable) Broadway run starred, among others, David Hasselhoff and Sebastian Bach as the titular dual-personality. In recent years, there’s been another pre-Broadway tour and brief Broadway revival of “Jekyll & Hyde,” starring Constantine Maroulis. Now here’s the latest non-Equity post-Broadway tour, which stops for a single performance 8 p.m. Oct. 11 at the Garde Arts Center (325 State St., New London; 860-444-7373, gardearts.org). It stars a young actor named Aleks Knezevich. One of the unique qualities Knezevich brings to this tale of a physician who is destroyed by his own experimental potions is a real-life biochemistry degree and several years of medical school training. Tickets are $50 & $60.
JEKYLL & HYDE will be performed Oct. 11 at 8 p.m., at Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London; 860-444-7373, gardearts.org.
