The Mystery of Edwin Drood (musical)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Original Broadway poster
Music	Rupert Holmes
Lyrics	Rupert Holmes
Book	Rupert Holmes
Basis	Charles Dickens' novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Productions	1985 Broadway 1987 West End 1988 US Tour 2007 West End revival 2012 West End revival 2012 Broadway revival
Awards	Tony Award for Best Musical Tony Award for Best Book Tony Award for Best Score

The Mystery of Edwin Drood (or Drood) is a musical based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It is written by Rupert Holmes, and was the first Broadway musical with multiple endings (determined by audience vote). Holmes received Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score. The musical won five Tony Awards out of eleven nominations, including Best Musical and Best Leading Actor.

The musical debuted as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival in August 1985, and, following revision, transferred to Broadway, where it ran until May 1987. Two national tours and a production in London's West End followed. The Roundabout Theatre Company revived the musical as The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 2012.

The musical Drood is derived from two major inspirations: Charles Dickens' final (and unfinished) novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and the British pantomime and music hall traditions that reached the height of their popularity in the years following Dickens' death.

Dickens' Mystery began publication in 1870. The book, which had been written and published in episodic installments (as had most of Dickens' other novels) was left unfinished upon Dickens' sudden death from a stroke that year. The lack of resolution to the mystery (and the absence of notes that would indicate Dickens' intentions) have made The Mystery of Edwin Drood a literary curiosity. Almost immediately after the publication of Dickens' last episode, various authors and playwrights (including Dickens' own son) attempted to resolve the story with their own endings: by the time of the Drood musical's production, there had been several "collaborations" between the late Dickens and other novelists, numerous theatrical extrapolations of the material, and three film adaptations of the story.