by Chris Peterson
There are certain musicals that live quietly in the corners of your theatre-loving heart. They are not always in the current conversation. They do not get revived every ten years with a starry cast and a glossy marketing campaign. But they stay with you. And every so often, you catch yourself thinking, why aren’t we talking about this one more?
For me, The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of those shows.
I fell in love with it the way many of us fell in love with musicals in the late ’90s. Through a cast album played endlessly. Through that sweeping, romantic score that unapologetically believes in big feelings and bigger melodies. Through a leading man who gets to be both dashing and ridiculous, tender and heroic, often all within the same song. It is a musical that understands the joy of theatricality and leans into it with a grin.
Frank Wildhorn gets talked about a lot in extremes, but The Scarlet Pimpernel remains, to me, his most balanced and fully realized score. This is Wildhorn at his most romantic, his most playful, and his most emotionally grounded.
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