Frank Wildhorn

Frank Wildhorn is a pop songwriter turned theatre composer, best known for Jekyll & Hyde and its power ballad This Is the Moment. His sweeping, pop-flavored scores have had a mixed history on Broadway but a large and loyal following in Europe and Asia.

Who Frank Wildhorn is

Frank Wildhorn was born in New York City in 1958, grew up in Queens and in Florida, and studied at the University of Southern California. Before his stage career took off, he wrote pop songs, including Where Do Broken Hearts Go, which became a number one hit for Whitney Houston in 1988.

He has worked with a range of lyricists and book writers: Leslie Bricusse on Jekyll & Hyde, Nan Knighton on The Scarlet Pimpernel, Jack Murphy on The Civil War and Wonderland, Don Black and Christopher Hampton on Dracula, and Don Black on Bonnie & Clyde. His style comes straight from pop and rock: big power ballads, soaring anthems, and songs built to stand alone on the radio or in concert. He often released his songs on concept albums before a show reached Broadway, building an audience in advance.

Frank Wildhorn's Broadway shows

Jekyll & Hyde premiered at Houston's Alley Theatre in 1990 and toured before opening on Broadway in April 1997, where it ran nearly four years. The Scarlet Pimpernel followed in November 1997 and was rewritten twice during a run that lasted until 2000. In 1999 The Civil War opened while both earlier shows were still playing, giving Wildhorn three musicals on Broadway at once, but it had a short run.

His later Broadway musicals struggled to find audiences: Dracula (2004), Wonderland (2011), and Bonnie & Clyde (2011), which starred Jeremy Jordan and Laura Osnes and closed after a short run. Abroad, Wildhorn has found more success, with original musicals such as Rudolf (Budapest, 2006), The Count of Monte Cristo (Switzerland, 2009), Death Note (Japan, 2015), and The Man Who Laughs (South Korea, 2018).

Awards, legacy, and where to start

Wildhorn has not won a Tony Award. His Broadway score nominations came for The Civil War, which was also nominated for Best Musical in 1999, and for Bonnie & Clyde in 2012. Jekyll & Hyde remains his most popular work, with long life in international productions and a filmed version of the Broadway staging starring David Hasselhoff, and This Is the Moment has been widely recorded and performed outside the show.

Newcomers should start with Jekyll & Hyde, through the original Broadway cast album, for the full sweep of his style. The Scarlet Pimpernel shows his lighter, swashbuckling side, and the Bonnie & Clyde cast album is the best sample of his later writing.

Frank Wildhorn: frequently asked questions

All Broadway composers