American Psycho: The Musical That Got Chopped Too Soon

foreign sex and greed these three words sum up American Psycho Brett Easton Ellis's disturbing novel about Patrick Bateman a New York Yuppie Who moonlights as a serial killer from feeding people urinal cakes dipped in chocolate to killing puppies in the Hamptons the grotesque actions depicted in the novel cost a national uproar upon its release and it's still one of the most banned books of all time likewise the film version starring Christian Bale nearly received an NC-17 rating due to how violent it was keeping all of this in mind the announcement that they were planning to turn American Psycho into a musical left more than a couple eyebrows raised this is a story about taking risks about wanting to stand out while simultaneously wanting to fit in but above all else it's a hunt to understand how this musical flop unknowingly helped change Broadway forever this is the story of American Psycho the musical whenever I wake up I stand in front of my mirror for precisely 20 seconds questioning how I became the ravishing man staring back at me and then I remember scentbird scentbird sends me new fragrances each month including Dylan Blue porum by Versace Leon by Perfume day Marley ohm and tenso by Vince Camuto and Eros also by Versace and yes I said all those names correctly a special thanks to scentbird for sponsoring this video and helping me find colognes I'd kill for make sure to click the link and use my code wait wings for 55 off your first month Ascent Bird that's only about eight dollars for your first month I also have exciting news scentbird is now available in Canada with Brett Easton Ellis slammed down the remainder of his cocktail the Citrus Tang lingering as he looked around at the pack of producers and managers sitting across from him everyone looks too young he thought the 2008 Los Angeles sun and bamboo umbrellas drew a stark contrast to the gray skies and trash-covered streets he'd grown accustomed to in 1980s New York considering he became a best-selling author by the age of 21. meals at upscale restaurants like this one weren't anything new the cocaine and Klonopin now replaced with gin and lemon water today's discussion involved Ellis's novel American Psycho though physically present Alice was somewhere else mentally but then one of The Producers said something that snapped Ellis out of his Haze they wanted to turn the novel into a musical foreign psycho starts in New York 1987. initially a straightforward story about Patrick Bateman a guy leaving the Investment Company he worked for the narrative took a dark turn early in the research phase stand what happened in the life of Wall Street Banker Alice shadowed a couple of guys who actually worked in the financial district at one of the last dinners with the group a team meal quickly devolved into a Cutthroat competition of one upsmanship whose watch was nicer who had the better haircut who scored reservations to the more exclusive restaurants as the meal with the Wall Street Elites neared its end Alice realized that even though he accompanied these guys to a never-ending stream of clubs restaurants and lounges he still didn't know what any of them actually did in their offices for work that's when he realized something if Patrick Bateman actually existed he would totally be a serial killer overnight the relatively calm and grounded story took a dark and surreal turn instead of mergers and Acquisitions Bateman became more interested in murders and executions he morphed into a deadly unreliable narrator intended to leave audiences questioning if his grotesque killing sprees were real or just the Twisted fantasies of a Madman craving attention in between expensive dinners and cocaine Benders Brett Easton Ellis spent the next three years using American Psycho as a way to escape his own reality while critiquing the privileged world he came from due to the backlash before the book's release the publisher Simon and Schuster dropped the title three months before its release and Ellis himself received so many death threats that his new publisher vintage made him agreed that his parents couldn't sue if he wound up getting murdered upon the book's release in 1991 the critics mutilated American Psycho and the book failed to secure a single positive reaction from any of the major news outlets [Music] nine years after the book's release film director Mary Herron brought American Psycho to the screen and presented a serial killer driven not by Mania but rather by the standard drivers for male aggression vanity greed and ego Seventeen years after the book flopped and eight years after the movie underperformed the idea of Patrick Bateman singing and dancing in a musical was when Brett Easton Ellis couldn't wrap his head around and surveying The Producers surrounding him Alice knew they were taking a major risk but for Ellis personally the risks were practically non-existent even if the musical didn't sell a single ticket he'd still walk away with the money from optioning the rights and so he decided to let them roll the dice [Music] at 42 000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean the final words of American Psycho hit Duncan Sheik differently than they had back in 1991. the composer was on his way to the Tokyo premiere of his hit musical Spring Awakening and decided to pass the time rereading the novel not long before an email from Sheik's agent asked if he'd be interested in adapting American Psycho into a musical and you know I was like oh that sounds terrible I had read the book in college there was a lot a lot of things in American sector that were really disturbing to me I mean even beyond the overtly disturbing scenes I think at that time I was so sort of enmeshed in my own sort of capitalist dreams like you know you kind of couldn't see the forest for the trees you know 20 years later Sheik held the book in a different light the commentary on surface level materialism and the critique of late stage capitalism served as a relevant allegory for America but the question still persisted on how to make American Psycho work for the stage plays a prominent role in the novel the explicit display is a brutality often interrupted by rambling essays on popular 80s musicians producers intended for the show to be a jukebox musical featuring songs by artists mentioned in the book but Chic didn't want the show to just be a cheap reproduction of 80s hits the composer reflected on his New York weekends during college and the type of music he heard in every Club each one vibrated with the synth pop sounds of bands like New Order Erasure and Tears for Fears I thought well this would be really interesting to kind of use electronic dance music you know house music as the sort of aesthetic sound picture for how the songs might you know appear on stage once those two ideas sort of gelled together it was like yeah let's let's try and do this after Sheikh signed on as the composer producers sent him scriptwriter Roberto Aguirre sakasa's resume aguir sakasa's chilling adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray in which he placed the Victorian era serial killer in 1988 London inadvertently made him the perfect choice to write American Psycho so how does one bring a monster to life on stage it's a daunting assignment but not an impossible one they need to be scary yet Charming vile yet Justified Cold Yet vulnerable Brett Easton Ellis's novel functions in a two-dimensional surface level world each character is a soulless robot raped in Paul Stewart and Coco Chanel theatrical depth Aguirre sakasa positioned The Narrative as a story of unrequited love between Patrick Bateman and his secretary Gene a minor character in the novel Jean is the only one to get Patrick to display some form of humanity Aguirre sakasa beefed up her presence in the musical and used a gene to create a twisted Beauty and the Beast story within no time aguiri sakasa sent a fleshed out copy of the First Act to Duncan chic stood out from other Broadway composers and the way that he didn't like musicals his approach to writing musical theater scores was to write songs that didn't sound out of place on an MP3 Shuffle this fled into American Psycho inspired by the sounds of synths and drum machines of the 80s Chic set out to write musical theaters first entirely electronic score that's not to say it completely strayed away from tradition however from Cole Porter to Jonathan Larson a staple of Broadway musicals is the list song which is a song in which people just list things off as New York Times critic Roger rosenblatt put in his scathing review of the novel American Psycho has the most comprehensive lists of baffling luxury items to be found outside airplane gift catalogs Sheik busted out his collection of 1980s synthesizers to write you are what you wear a song dedicated to rhyming food with clothing items for three whole minutes it took a little less than a year for Chic and Aguirre sakasa to deliver in act 1 first draft an impressive feat considering the two lived nearly 3 000 miles apart but that distance looked like nothing once they found their director the only thing more remarkable than Rupert Gould's directorial work is his hair his luscious Mane accurately paints him as a creative swashbuckler fueled by creative risk taking that doesn't always pay off Gould's nightmarish Masterpiece of Macbeth received rave reviews and six Tony nominations in 2008. but his 2010 play Enron a show about the wall street collapse of the Texas Energy company via lightsaber dances and literal Velociraptors flopped hard even though he'd never directed a musical before American Psycho captured Gould's interest the darker Tendencies of the characters and the challenge of presenting disturbing material in a way that didn't turn off commercial interest excited him ghoul joined the project right as Roberto Aguirre cicasso started writing Act 2. otherwise known as the time when the writer's life became complicated in 2011 two words dominated the headlines Spider-Man Spider-Man the script for the cursed 65 million dollar musical Spider-Man turn off the dark needed saving and aguirus acasa's mix of theatrical and comic book writing experience made him the perfect man for the job another word that dominated the headlines in 2011 Glee Glee at the same time negotiations for the Spider-Man rewrite took place Aguirre sakasa got pulled into a secret meeting with television producer Ryan Murphy and one week later he joined the writing staff on the third season of Glee the sudden onslaught of major projects made it much more difficult for Aguirre sakasa to work on American Psycho a burden that inevitably got handed off to Duncan Sheik in order to keep the process moving Act 2 saw the playwright and composer essentially switch positions with Sheik writing the songs first and Aguirre sakasa writing the scenes around them with Gould in London and a Gary sakasa in Los Angeles Sheik trapped himself in his house in Upstate New York to work on act two alone and I remember feeling like quite isolated up there trying to write these songs a little bit out of whole cloth without a lot of the context to work with beyond the book itself and this outline the music in the second act became much darker each song grew more Grim as chic's seclusion from the world mixed with the detached hopelessness of Patrick Bateman there's a lot of dark stuff well obviously there's a lot of dark stuff throughout the show but in particular the second act so maybe that was as it was meant to be a gaggle of producers actors and writers gathered to finally Workshop a full version of American Psycho the musical in September 2011. after a few conversations with director Rupert Gould an up-and-coming actor named Benjamin Walker prepared to read for Patrick Bateman no stranger to blood Walker spent the previous three years as the title character in bloody bloody Andrew Jackson in emo Rock Musical that received fantastic reviews but failed to bring in people with the means to buy higher priced tickets and closed after just two months still Walker felt optimistic that things would be different with American Psycho the optimism extended to the creative team and the other members of the workshop which included Duncan Sheik's sister Casey Chic and Spider-Man turn off the Dark Star Reeve Carney Benjamin Walker's energy blew the creative team away so much so that they spent the next two years crafting the musical with Walker envisioned as Patrick Bateman something that eventually came back to bite them everyone involved with American Psycho knew a potential Broadway run depended on getting theater owners to see it out of town but which city could they send Patrick Bateman to First Boston Washington DC London they'd send the bastard to England 30 minutes outside the hustle and bustle of London's West End sits the Almeida theater built as a Victorian era lecture hall the 325 seat venue now exists for one reason to take risks in January of 2013 producers David Johnson and Jesse singer of Act 4 entertainment announced they would team up with Rupert Gould's headlong theater company and the Almeida to bring American Psycho to the stage before the end of the year that's when they ran into a whale of a problem their dream Patrick Bateman Benjamin Walker couldn't do it earlier that same month he'd been offered a role in the upcoming movie in the heart of the sea Rupert Gould started his hunt for a new Patrick Bateman he needed to find someone who could pull off being both charming and terrifying an actor who could bring to life a man detached from reality an alien after three years of traveling through time and space as the titular Time Lord and Doctor Who actor Matt Smith decided it was time to hop out of the little blue box and delve into his next adventure on October 5th 2013 Matt Smith filmed his final episode of Doctor Who on October 7th 2013 he started rehearsals for American Psycho the first seven weeks left self-conscious Smith racked with anxiety this was his first musical and he was completely out of his element off the back of a 150 000 Kickstarter organized by producer Jesse singer American Psycho rehearsals in London spanned seven weeks instead of the traditional five for Matt Smith those seven weeks were hell every day was filled with singing lessons from Duncan Chic and dance lessons from choreographer Lynn page as Smith went through intense training to capture the ripped physique of Patrick Bateman Scenic designer s Devlin began constructing the world he actually inhabited one of the things that makes Patrick Bateman terrifying is his apartment the sterile surroundings serve as a jarring backdrop for his heinous acts Devlin brought the same off-putting aesthetic into the play with her set design placing the show in a white box that also included two turntables one on the left and one on the right and this was meant to mimic the winding spools of a cassette tape in a Sony Walkman meanwhile the baron backdrop served as a canvas for mesmerizing video projections by Finn Ross and ominous lighting by John Clark once Duncan Sheik's pulsing electronic score came into The Fray the musical became a cannibalistic Carnival the show slithered towards opening night in London no one on the team knew what to expect when tickets went on sale the musical came from a polarizing Source material featured a script written by a Glee writer in all electronic score and Doctor Who wielding an ax in his underwear luckily much like an Off-Broadway house in America the patrons for the Almeida skewed younger and enthusiastically embraced riskier material American Psycho sold out its entire five-week run faster than a morning Russia Bloomingdale's Brett East and Ellis received an invite to attend opening night in London the musical always felt distant to the author so distant in fact that he periodically forgot it was even happening responding with the same raw attitude that filled the pages of his books Ellis told producer singer if you brought me out for the London Premiere to walk the red carpet and talk to press and I didn't like the show I was going to be honest and they decided not to take the risk or the expense American Psycho the musical officially opened at the Almeida theater on December 12 2012. the London stage morphed into a New York City Club interrupted by Patrick Bateman emerging from a stand-up tanning bed no big opening number just a nearly naked man detailing his morning routine the next two hours played out as a pompous pageant of egos with many of the scenes directly mirroring the novel and the movie dance battles over business cards cocaine-charged ballads and bathroom stalls New Wave killing sprees with shotguns and chainsaws Phil Collins original songs represented a large amount of the musical score with a few cover songs from popular 80s artists sprinkled throughout whereas the original songs received elaborate electronic backing tracks nearly all of the covers were presented as acapella numbers all except for one of the most iconic moments from the movie is Patrick Bateman's jealously fueled murder of fellow stockbroker Paul Owen a vicious Grizzly ax attack made even more unsettling by the Huey Lewis and the News song Hip To Be Square playing underneath thought about turning the moment into a musical number but ultimately nixed the idea the actual song was just too fun not to use for the most part the London production received praise from critics but the same question kept popping up in each review where's the blood figuring out how far to push the limits constantly plagued to the creative team of American Psycho on one hand they wanted to stay true to the source material on the other The Source material featured extremely racist sexist and homophobic speech a five-year-old child murdered in a zoo and a rat eating a woman alive out of concern that using fake blood in their serial killer show could be a turn off for the crowd the team made the London show entirely bloodless opting instead to use abstract streaks of red lighting much to the dismay of critics and audience members alike still no one could deny that American Psycho the musical exceeded expectations and soon talks began about taking the show back over to the states holding on to their Broadway aspirations the team recognized that the London production didn't have strong enough reviews to secure a theater on the great white way just yet but what about Off-Broadway they'd get a cheaper venue an extended period of time to rework the material for a US audience and it could generate a following from the younger crowds before jumping over to Broadway to producer David Johnson the plans seemed perfect and in July 2014 news outlets announced American psycho's U.S debut at Second Stage Theater in New York Matt Smith decided not to carry on with the role following London leaving Gould in the Lurch yet again much of the director's relief the original choice for Patrick Bateman Benjamin Walker came back into the picture and as luck would have it his schedule was open for the foreseeable future Gould laughed at the chance and offered Walker the role during contract negotiations a series of secret phone calls and meetings started between David Johnson and The Broadway producing team Jerry Frankel and Jeffrey Richards the duo behind the Broadway transfer of bloody bloody Andrew Jackson and Duncan Sheik's Spring Awakening wanted to cash in on bringing American Psycho to Broadway and Second Stage Theater was in their way maneuvering under the theater's radar Frankel and Richards tempted Johnson to just use the Off-Broadway funds to take the show directly to Broadway for the 2015 to 2016 season as the non-profit Second Stage Theater started hyping up the U.S premiere of American Psycho for their season David Johnson revoked the rights from them without warning jumping straight to Broadway was a super risky proposition especially considering the competition of the season lin-manuel Miranda's new musical Hamilton premiered at the Richard Rogers theater in August 2015 and completely flipped the theater World on its head American Psycho wasn't just going up against another Musical it was going up against a cultural phenomenon the windowless walls and Industrial Vibe of the Duke contrasted the Magnificent New York city views of the new 42 Studios directly above American Psycho needed a makeover and for the next five weeks this was their Laboratory we kind of went to a black hole every day to create um which was really cool it created this environment where we could do weird stuff just to make a mess of things and kind of see where you are at the end of the day you know for New York the team wanted the show to feel like a true horror experience and in order to achieve that they needed more blood a lot more during the first week of Broadway rehearsals a few of the cast members huddled together in hazmat suits as they got sprayed with various mixtures of fake blood in the original novel the first 100 Pages or so are relatively calm as the book progresses Bateman becomes more unhinged the final 100 pages are a horrifying Bloodbath the musical mimic to this the first major instance of blood didn't show up until the murder of fellow Wall Street Yuppie Paul Owen at the end of Act One the reserve's artistic approach in London morphed into an all-out massacre in New York so there were three blood cannons either side of the chair and then one in the center of the chair like facing the audience basically he Whitney pressed a button brought the screen down which is like which is so in the vein of Patrick Bateman like protect the walls protect the floor right this pristine world and it's like press a button alert a machine machine engages then shoots the cannon so they go button boom you know so the Cannon as soon as it hits me the cannon goes off and shoots the back of the head out oh my God that reminds me I think one of them shot early I think people got sprayed one night because I think one of them went off early one of the cats we learned pretty quick that you had to keep it separate if it was of value and it could die you kind of kept away from the blood the bloody second act culminated in a crimson Carnage as Bateman Unleashed his Newfound wrath on the nameless drones leaving them in a bloody pile in rehearsals choreographer Lynn Page called This Moment the Rat King if a colony of rats gets stuck in a tiny space for a long period of time their tails become intertwined into a giant knot unable to separate their tails the rats roll around in one nightmarish Heap after his murder spree in the song I am back Bateman delivered a chilling monologue behind him the dead Ensemble members rolled together as one giant blood-covered rat king in addition to the increased crenapple juice on stage the score received an overhaul too he always felt that the first 15 minutes of the musical really suffered without a big opening number to kick things off off the back of Sheik's 2015 album Ledger domain Rupert Gould noticed that the lead track selling out held a lot of the same values and sounds as American Psycho as the show rolled into New York Sheik refined the song to feel rough enough cool enough and sexy enough to become the musical's new opening number after this final Victory things went South fast American psycho's unique electronic sound came from all the pre-recorded tracks that played over the theater speakers coming from a single laptop the software allowed Sheikh to distort and transform the Sounds in a way that he couldn't do with real instruments this worked fine in London but in New York the unions held much stricter guidelines and required American Psycho to have at least four live musicians for the show suddenly Sheikh needed to figure out how to incorporate real instruments into his all electronic score then there was the problem of the show's length clocking in at nearly three hours the musical version of American Psycho nearly doubled the length of the film part of the reason stemmed from the inclusion of book scenes not included in the movie like a trip to the Hamptons and an entire song for Patrick Bateman's mom they desperately needed to make cuts to the script and playwright Roberto Aguirre sakasa could only attend rehearsals via Skype as he got ready to film The Pilot for a new show called Riverdale they could mix the Hampton scene but then the big I am back murder scene wouldn't make any sense likewise they could cut Patrick's Mother's Song but that also meant cutting Tony winner Alice Ripley's only number the songs and scenes for Act 2 were more intertwined than a colony of rats in a London sewer and with a scriptwriter stuck in Vancouver a composer frantically trying to adapt an all-electronic score and very little time to make any changes few major cuts ever materialized adding to the frenzy by the time preview started the increased blood flow became a bloody mess the ruby red corn syrup periodically wound up on the clothes and purses of audience members in the front row Evil Dead the musical encountered a similar problem in 2007 and created something called the splatter Zone charging premium prices for a section of seats specifically designed to leave audiences drenched in blood for a brief moment American Psycho the musical considered taking the same approach but instead of embracing the mess producers went to the Other Extreme eliminating roughly 90 percent of the blood in the show by the end of previews the move confused a majority of the cast and creative team spending five weeks in exhilarating horror musical more in tune with Brett Easton Alice's novel producers were now telling them to tone down the Fright in hopes of making American Psycho more family friendly The Killing Spree began on April 21st 2016. bruised but less bloody the cast of American Psycho took to the stage for opening night at the schoenfeld theater the red carpet resembled a fashion show more than a Broadway musical Bobby Flay did an interview with Broadway style guide and Brett East and Ellis tried taking photos on an iPhone 6. the invitation the other watched the show in previews to the surprise of many he thoroughly enjoyed it and spent the entire opening week promoting the show Spirits were high and the reception from the crowd continued that trend meanwhile a printing plant across the East River rapidly spat out thousands of copies for Friday's issue of the New York Times the review mercilessly pounded the show into the asphalt the words terminally undecided tone and condescending Nostalgia wrapped their hands around his throat while the phrase American Psycho is a mess sliced through any mistaken optimism later that day a vulture circled the mangled carcass of a musical picking through the remains critic Jesse Greene called out specific narrative flaws such as Gene Patrick's mother and an overall failure to humanize the characters the Precision of green scalpel-like dissection hurt even more than the broad swing supplied by others especially for Duncan Sheik who read every review the mutilation continued with the box office receipts American psycho's first week only brought in half of the schoenfeld's 1 million dollar ticket capacity the low sales numbers perplexed producers because the show played packed houses that's when they realized who filled the seats American psycho's average ticket price came in lower than other Broadway shows during this time as a way to get younger people into the theater and to rope in people who wanted to see a Broadway show but couldn't afford Hamilton to an extent the musical achieved both the negative reviews didn't deter the younger audiences but the younger audiences knew how to score cheaper discounted tickets Now American Psycho faced a conundrum they couldn't raise prices because they would lose the younger crowds and sell a lot less seats but if they kept prices low they would never bring in enough to be profitable or pay off the massive debt they'd incurred from bringing the show over from Europe Additionally the musical neither appealed to the older generation it made fun of nor the tourists on vacation with their families no matter which way the producers cut it it was a lose lose-lose situation producers continuously told the cast not to worry as rumors of closing swirled backstage with the Tony Awards fast approaching they hoped the few trophies or nominations could help them stay afloat Andrew Reynolds and Nikki M James rattled off the nominees and within seconds the two started to sound like a skipping CD eight minutes later American Psycho received only two nominations in minor categories for Scenic and lighting design on a bright May Day assembled backstage before the cast and crew producers announced that American Psycho would close on June 5th 2016. according to a few actors involved with the production halfway through the meeting a panting and frustrated Duncan Sheik walked in he biked across town to be there allegedly this was the first time he heard that the show was closing and a few others wanted to hold on for just a little bit longer but producers were more concerned with pleasing the investors and the ticket sales didn't look good the next 10 days morphed into a funeral dirge Rupert Gould returned to the Almeida as their new artistic director Roberto Aguirre socasus Riverdale got picked up for a full season Duncan Sheik planned to record a Broadway cast album to preserve the show much like he did with London he and the cast even recorded a few Demos in his apartment to prepare but now knowing that the show wouldn't recoup no one would foot the bill hurt disappointed and ready to move on Duncan Sheik disappeared on June 5th American Psycho the musical slayed its final victim after 27 previews and just 54 performances over 13 million people attended a Broadway show in the 2015 to 2016 season and many actively chose to see something other than American Psycho the entire concept execution and fan base for American Psycho didn't fit within the confines of the commercial Broadway landscape at the time and as such it wasn't sustainable but it achieves something that not a lot of musicals could it finally got younger people interested in musical theater it could be argued that a major shift started in the mid-2010s as a war waged between a desire to make Broadway more accessible to younger audiences while also fighting a financial necessity to cater to the older more affluent crowds part of the reason Hamilton succeeded was because it found the Middle Ground by mixing rap and traditional musical theater structure to appeal to both audiences lin-manuel Miranda was able to do what Duncan Sheik did back in 2006 and made musical theater songs that didn't sound like musical theater songs but to its credit so did American Psycho psycho sought to be the anti-musical hours of synth pop and bloody goodness that Broadway obviously wasn't ready for but honestly doesn't that stay true to the history of American Psycho as a whole a story consistently ahead of its time seeing how the book and the movie transcended from flop to Classic and gathered a Die Hard cult following could it be that the same thing might happen inevitably with the musical here's the good news is that I you know I'm I'm really proud of it you know it feels like the cool kids did get it in the way that they were meant to and I and that you know that gives me a good feeling so if anything American Psycho the musical definitely proved it's hip to be square [Music] yes so smoke and mirrored my name is uh Duncan Sheik my new record clap trap comes out August 26th on anti-fragile records and um go check it out where everything is check out music

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Length: 41min 51sec (2511 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 20 2022