A Love Letter to “The Scarlet Pimpernel”
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.
And then there’s Percy Blakeney, one of musical theatre’s great roles that somehow doesn’t get mentioned enough in those dream revival casting conversations. It is a gift of a part.
The show itself feels tailor-made for a Broadway revival right now. We are in a moment where audiences seem hungry for sincerity again. For romance that is not ironic. For spectacle that is rooted in story. The Scarlet Pimpernel offers sweeping adventure, a clear moral center, a great love story, and courage without ever old-fashioned. In fact, its themes of standing up to tyranny, of choosing humanity over fear, feel quietly urgent.
Maybe that’s what I miss about shows like The Scarlet Pimpernel. It’s not trying to keep up with anything. It’s not apologizing for being romantic or big or a little old-fashioned. It just tells the story and lets you feel it. And honestly, I think Broadway could use more of that again. Sometimes you don’t need a show to prove anything. Sometimes you just want to be swept up for a couple of hours and remember why this stuff matters to you.
So yes, this is me officially putting it out into the universe. Dust off the rapiers. Warm up the strings. Find a Percy who can make us laugh and then break our hearts just a little. The Scarlet Pimpernel deserves another moment in the spotlight.