Patrons of Frank Wildhorn’s Jekyll and Hyde get a little extra bang for their buck beginning Dec. 19. That’s when television cameras and sound gear begins to arrive at the Plymouth Theatre in preparation of a Dec. 23 taping of the show by the Broadway Television Network (BTN).

BTN president Bruce Brandwen tells Playbill On-Line that while he “doesn’t know if BTN will be filming every single performance,” the network will have cameras, sound gear and generators and control trucks on hand at the Plymouth “starting with the Dec. 19 load in.”

Brandwen said there will be “several trucks” on the south side of W. 45 St. as well as on the north side of W. 44 St., effectively bracing the theatre.

BTN taped Smokey Joe’s Cafe and Putting It Together but this is the first taping of a book musical, Brandwen said.

Brandwen also joked, saying that BTN generators will provide independent power for the network, “which saves the Shuberts from paying for all that electricity.” BTN will approach Jekyll and Hyde a “little differently” from Smokey Joe’s Cafe and Putting It Together. “If you think about the way people come off stage, they do that differently in Jekyll and Hyde from the way they would in Smokey Joe’s Cafe. What’s OK in a revue is not necessarily something you want to do for a book musical. In the book musical, you don’t want to interrupt the dramatic circumstance. So we may not be doing the exact same things that we did earlier in terms of shooting from the wings or shooting downstage. We’ll do it so that we don’t interrupt the dramatic flow of the piece.”

Jekyll and Hyde will be recorded in 5.1 Surround Sound, using 48 tracks.

—By Murdoch McBride