Jekyll and Hyde – Join The Mayhem at The Hayes!

Jekyll and Hyde – Join The Mayhem at The Hayes!
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Jekyll and Hyde, The Musical is playing at The Hayes in August and after talking to two of the stars of the show, Brady Peeti playing Lucy Harris and Madeline Jones playing John Utterson – the first time that role has ever been played by a woman – you soon realise this production is a little bit different to others playing around the world.

The gender switch of the John role is not the only groundbreaking aspect of this particular casting of Jekyll and Hyde, traditionally a very hetero normative narrative – not only are the three leads played by members of the LGBTQI+ community, the director, Hayden Tee is also a gay fella, so the rainbow flag is well and truly flying in this production!

Brady Peeti is a trans woman living the dream and talked enthusiastically about how she’s tackling this role, saying “I think, and this is not just for me but for other people when they hear me singing these songs, doing this dialogue and we all then together see it through a different lens and I can only go by what I bring through my own experiences being a trans woman and I never want to deflect from that because that’s the fibre of my being!”

”So I can only do what’s true to the text but supported with this big voluptuous, brown wāhine Māori woman.”

And does she feel accepted by the industry as a trans woman going into auditions and mixing her own flavour in for the roles she’s going for?

“Absolutely, there are so many people before me that would have loved to express freely and be themselves, it’s easy for me to walk into the room now and really convey what I really feel and what I really know. I’m just lucky to have been born into an era that allows me to do that.”

Jones talks about the excitement of bringing this version to reality with a tight deadline, “It’s honestly been a fast and furious process to rehearse a show like this in three weeks, it’s a pretty huge feat that we’re all trying to achieve but we have been really encouraged to just be bold and be brave and that’s what everyone’s doing and I think it’s not like any of the other productions that have happened before!”

Jekyll and Hyde at The Hayes, 29 July to 27 August.

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