KRCB-FM: Second Row Center

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was originally scheduled as the closing production of the Spreckels Theatre Company’s 2017-2018 season. The musical, whose development by Walt Disney’s theatrical arm started in Germany and ended in New Jersey (having never made it to Broadway), is an atypical Disney production. More Les Miserables than The Little Mermaid, it’s an interesting amalgam of Victor Hugo’s original gothic novel with music and elements from Disney’s 1996 animated adaptation. Far darker than one would expect from a production with the Disney named semi-attached, Spreckels’ decision to replace it in their season with a more ‘family-friendly’ production of the classic Peter Pan is understandable. It’s also regrettable, because as the production running now in San Francisco produced by Bay Area Musicals reveals, it’s a very good show. Hugo’s 15th century-set tale of Quasimodo (Alex Rodriguez), the bell ringer at Paris’s Cathedral of Notre Dame, his guardian (and uncle) Archdeacon Frollo (Clay David), and a