The Broadway Show that Closed in 3 DAYS: The History of Carrie the Musical

this is the one about telekinesis which comes from the ancient greek word for turkey i'm kidding but not much where carrie is a catastrophe this musical makes an aggressive hopsy-topsy first impression but it wears thin it's repetitious it's the stuff of a horror movie presented as if it were the stuff of grand drama or grand drama you could take the money and throw it two hours of there's no reason to do the show the creators did succeed in one way kerry is horrible who at least the weather is nice maybe we'll have a thing well let's hope we have nice weather tomorrow in 2008 director stafford arima sat in a new york diner silently looking into his coffee cup the only sounds were the rustling of silverware and the bustling traffic coming from the street outside seeking to embark on his next project he had been posed an interesting question by the man sitting directly across from him why carey why now it had been over 30 years since the original doomed musical had seen the light of day though it had started with the best intentions of wanting to be a faithful adaptation of stephen king's book and brian de palma's film it would eventually become the victim of astonishing production misfires behind the scenes conflict and enormous controversy that would lead it to be named the flop to end all flops but how did this happen carrie wasn't the first show to fail on broadway and it certainly wouldn't be the last so the question is what series of events led to the creation of a show that to this day continues to capture the morbid fascination of theater lovers basically out of all the flops in the history of the great white way why carey why now [Music] [Music] tim burton sam raimi roald dahl all masters of the macabre [Music] burton focused on the emotional content of terror sam raimi focused on the horrors of grotesque gore and roald dahl focused on the scary truths of reality but there's only one true king stephen king was able to focus on all three of these facets while also using compelling characters as a way of analyzing the human condition this psychological approach to telling his stories through dynamic three-dimensional characters led to a plethora of thrilling novels that redefined horror and suspense by 1988 he had already cemented his legacy as a prolific author penning over 22 stories chronicling everything from an alien impersonating john wayne gacy to a suddenly relatable tale of a writer being driven to insanity after being stuck in isolation with his family what sets king apart from the rest of the horror crowd is how he paints a picture of what lies beneath in the underbelly of the contemporary world unlike a cosmic larger-than-life hp lovecraft monster like cthulhu a reserved cold and calculated stephen king monster like annie wilks and misery is scarier because it's someone a person could pass on the street authors like lovecraft created monsters of fantasy king creates monsters of reality each new release would send readers into a frenzy as they rushed to get their hands on the latest stephen king book with each of his novels ranking on the new york times best sellers list practically any movie adaptations from his books became box office gold most of the time anyway but the story of one of the most revered and influential writers of all time started here in a double-wide trailer in maine sitting in his wife tabby's typewriter king was overcome with a frustrated stupor he was three pages into his new story and already he could tell that it wasn't going to work with a child and an expecting wife his goal of writing 2 000 words a day was becoming harder to achieve his family had always been in dire financial straits with tabby having to work second shift into dunkin donuts and steven having to work two jobs as an english teacher and at a laundromat just to make ends meet after graduating college in the late 1960s and before being hired by hampton academy king supplemented his early income by writing short stories for various men's magazines while also working as a janitor at a local high school one day when scrubbing stains off the walls of the girl's showers he noticed a small but striking difference from the ones in the boys locker room they came equipped with u-rings and pink plastic curtains this memory came flooding back to him at the laundromat in 1973 and he started visualizing the opening of a new story he recalled two girls he had gone to grade school with the thing that both of these girls had in common were that they were bullied extensively for standing out combining these girls with an article he had read regarding cases of telekinesis and adolescent girls following their first period king began writing a scene set in a similar high school locker room featuring a young girl named carrie only this time the privacy and security of the pink plastic curtains would be absent amplifying the terror and confusion when she realizes she has been struck with the curse looking at the pages he had written king realized two problems with the draft one he felt it was going to be too long to submit to any of the men's magazines and two he thought it was horrible king pulled the pages out of the typewriter crumpled them up and walked away the next day his wife pulled out the discarded pages and started reading them herself throwing the pages in front of steven she told him that she wanted to read the rest of it but king was dismissive he didn't want to waste a month writing a book that he had no idea how to market and with the way things were at home they needed all the money they could get from the freelance submissions she told him to keep writing king finished the book in roughly two weeks after which he sent out the meager 199-page manuscript for cary with the lowest of expectations while teaching one of his classes king got an alert over the telecom that there was an urgent call from his wife for tabby to reach out to him in the middle of the day could only mean one of two things either his kid had broken a bone or they had sold the book he rushed to the office to find that an editor for double day publishing had sent him a telegram saying congratulations carrie officially a double day book advance 2 500 the future lies ahead king couldn't believe it he optimistically figured that the book would eventually be sold for paperback distribution at around sixty thousand dollars but it would come to find that it had actually sold for four hundred thousand dollars six months before carrie was published a young man named lawrence d cohen returned from lunch to see a coverless 200 page manuscript sitting on his desk he was working as a reader for a new york film producer and all he was told about it was that it was a new piece by a high school english teacher from maine being one of the first people to read the story it only took cohen five pages to realize the talent that stephen king possessed he was blown away at how he seamlessly made it feel like he was living the stories alongside the characters much like tabby cohen could sense the potential that this was going to be a hit and he tried to rally everyone in the office to consider making it into a film not a single soul would touch it after two years cohen would find himself in a meeting with another producer after moving to los angeles he was hesitant about getting another job that was similar to the one he'd had in new york and was prepared to turn down the offer walking away from the table the producer called out to him larry i forgot there's one other piece that i've optioned which you probably haven't heard of it's this little book called carrie he turned around and took the job by the 1970s the landscape of film was undergoing a huge transformation the era of the studio star system was drawing to a close and the era of the independent filmmaker began to rise the civil rights movement vietnam war and the economic crisis resulted in the trend of adventure films and movie musicals being replaced by films that went against the traditional norm becoming grittier edgier and more personal the genre that saw the most notable rise during this time was that of the horror movie nationwide religious affiliation was starting to decrease and the horror films of this time would reflect the anxiety that came from the loss of religion and the conflict it caused between teenagers and their parents the dissension between the family unit and christianity was on full display in films like the omen the exorcist and especially kerry the relationship between daughter and mega religious mother who viewed womanhood as a sin was front and center this terror and confusion over her developing body was only amplified by taking place in perhaps the most terrifying setting that a teenager could imagine high school cohen and director brian de palma sought to explore this conflict by diving into the corruption that hid beneath a seemingly innocent picture of teenage life a big way this was conveyed was through the pacing and framing a normal shower scene that would descend into violent bullying a proposal to prom that would jump to killing pigs a fairy tale moment come true that would turn into an embarrassing nightmare everything had a setup and a payoff the film also taps into a teenager's desire for control over their lives their classmates and their surroundings it just so happens that kerry has access to this control in the form of telekinesis by setting the action for the film in a realistic setting of a high school it served as a striking juxtaposition for her supernatural powers the powers become a metaphor for her emotions in the way she has difficulty controlling them only for them to eventually get the better of her as she basically becomes an unhinged matilda the doll and king characters both use telekinesis as a way to change their environments but matilda is able to harness the power to get justice while kerry harnesses them to get revenge the film would be released on november 3rd 1976 and would become a critical and commercial phenomenon bringing in 33.8 million dollars on a budget of only 1.8 million the film was generally well received for the way it was able to authentically reflect the teenage experience a message that another pop culture phenomenon would echo four years later with a film that sought to showcase the stories of various students during their arduous journey through the high school of performing arts a movie called fame while carrie revolutionized the horror movie genre fame revolutionized the teen musical genre and by some stroke of fate the two films would come closer together when larry cohen met fame composer michael gore the two clicked artistically and even though they made their names through film they both had a deep love and appreciation for the theater world by 1981 fame had been released to critical acclaim and having survived the tumultuous production process gore was able to once again set his sights on trying to find a property that both he and cohen could adapt into a stage musical the pair had been searching for a suitable subject for over five years but kept coming up dry a month or two before the 1981 academy awards that would see michael gore walking away with an oscar for best original song and best original score the pair would attend a new production of alban berg's opera lulu at the met in new york city the opera follows a mysterious young femme fatale named lulu and chronicles her downward descent from being a high-class mistress to basically being a human version of grizzabella from cats only to be murdered by jack the ripper the music was disorienting and sporadic [Music] gore and cohen walked out of the theater dissecting the opera musically and dramatically as the pair walked up columbus avenue gore let out a statement that would come to change their lives forever he looked at cohen and said if albon berg were alive today he would be riding carrie as an opera sitting in cafe luxembourg after five years of fruitless searching larry cohen and michael gore were finally engaged in a flood of creativity the idea of turning carrie into a dramatic piece of musical theater seemed to be the perfect choice the characters were all fleshed out and dynamic and it offered a profound high drama conflict between mother and daughter the source material lent itself to a score that could find a balance between haunting opera while also injecting a pop opera feel when dealing with the high schoolers a perfect fit considering that fame had come to dominate the airwaves they knew it was great now they just needed to convince everyone else a short while after they had decided to pursue the carry project larry cohen made a phone call to run the idea past stephen king who was living in maine cohen waited while listening to a silence that lasted so long he thought king had hung up finally king took a breath and responded well i guess if they can do a musical about a dictator in argentina or a murderous barber on fleet street kerry as a musical makes enormous sense go ahead meanwhile on the other coast and right on the heels of fame numerous movie studios began pitching different films to lyricist dean pitchford the ideas were all pretty generic pitchford didn't like them because they were all predictable places to find music but one saturday morning he read an edition of the los angeles times about a small town in oklahoma that had just thrown its first prom after lifting an 88-year ban on public dancing now that was a place that no one expected to find music pitchford was at work on this new project one day when he was stopped by a phone call on the other end were michael gore and larry cohen much in the same way they had with king they ran the proposal by pitchford and said they wanted him to come on board as lyricist pitchford was no stranger to broadway and he knew that if he was going to commit to the project he needed to be sure he would be able to survive financially still pitchford had faith that carrie could work and got excited at the prospect the two laid out for him so much so that he hopped on the next plane to new york to get to work on the show the three had never attempted to write a piece of theater before and they were realizing that the theatrical format was going to be difficult the process of trying to write music that fit libretto was like trying to learn how to catch bullets between their teeth the trio would spend a lot of time working over the phone sending sections of the script scores and revisions over facts by 1984 the three had put together a show that was largely book driven with roughly 30 percent of the production being dedicated to spoken dialogue with scenes set in the high school and the white house no not that one in regard to the music gore created an eclectic score that ranged from striking power ballads to the high-intensity mtv influence pop opera that was becoming more prominent on broadway as the mega musical formula began to take hold having finished act 1 the team decided that while they could theorize about the show as much as they wanted they weren't going to know if what they had would work or not without putting it on its feet in august they were ready to finally take the show out of their apartment and bring it to a playing space they were able to work out an arrangement with a chorus line director michael bennett to put on an intimate reading of the production at 890 broadway with michael gore playing piano larry cohen reading the stage directions and dean pitchford directing the initial cast for the reading was impressive with annie golden playing carrie maureen mcgovern as carrie's crazy mother margaret liz calloway as the head bully chris and fame's own laura dean as sue after the week of seeing the actors on their feet interacting with each other and singing the songs the three proudly stood together realizing that what they had just seen was exactly what they had envisioned in their minds this would be the first and the last time they would ever experience this feeling even though industry professionals had been invited to the unofficial workshop the team never planned on using it as a way of pitching the show still that didn't stop nearly every producer and theater owner in new york from wanting to get in at the ground floor they were all drawn to the way the show was rooted in reality while also featuring a promising set design the showing was extremely minimal but the idea of a white house equipped with a sewing machine religious objects and a radio playing eerie gospel music got a lot of the producers excited the team eventually decided to team up with american film and theater producer fred zallo he would be sharing the producing credit with two young broadway producers who were thrilled at the idea of making broadway's first proper horror musical their names were barry and fran weissler the producers would put up five million dollars with the goal of opening the show on broadway two years later in 1986. thanks to the help of their super talent agent sam cohn a series of interviews with heavyweight directors began at the headquarters of international creative management in new york the first to walk through the door was mike nichols an esteemed film and broadway director whose work included barefoot in the park the odd couple and the graduate they welcomed him into the room discussed their vision played a few of the songs live and then played the hour-long recording from the unofficial workshop nichols paused at the end of it all and said boys you've done great work it's going to be a great hit i'm not going to do it after how well things have been going the response caught them off guard nichols continued i saw the movie i didn't want her to go to prom then i'm hearing it now and i still don't want her to go to the prom the next person to enter the room was broadway heavyweight bob fosse with shows like chicago how to succeed in business and the pajama game fosse's razzle dazzle style of intense dance was playing a big hand in the modernization and evolution of broadway after listening to the tape he told sam comb that he liked it but that he thought it needed to be darker fossey and the team also conflicted in their perceptions of the show while the trio saw carrie as a production driven by song and dialogue fosse saw it as a show driven by dance ultimately it wasn't going to be the right fit the parade would continue with nearly every a-list director that sam cohn represented coming in listening to the album then either turning the offer down or being rejected by the trio the hunt seemed to be never ending reaching the end of their rope cone approached michael and larry with one final prospect a client that he had represented was coming to new york for a double build production of cyreno de bergerac and much do about nothing produced by the royal shakespeare company the production was part of the history cycle that was being curated and directed by terry hans the new co-artistic director alongside trevor nunn when sam cohn brought this name up the two responded with a resounding no though hanson proved to be beyond capable when dealing with well-established classical pieces he was still largely untrained in the world of musical theater he had attempted it once before with rsc's production of poppy in 1982 the two had walked out at intermission still sam cohn was persistent asking that the two just do him a favor and at least meet him hesitantly they agreed later in cohen's apartment terry hands started smoking his second pack of cigarettes after reaching the end of the tape he sat in silence that seemed to last in eternity the silence was broken when he said i had no idea what to expect when i was told about this and i've been offered a dozen shows since i've been in town and this is the one i'm interested in after the success of rsc's original book musical les hands found himself trapped in trevor nun's shadow in carrie he not only saw a success for the rsc but also a way for him to potentially have a smash hit of his own for the next hour hans painted a picture of how he would tackle the material and how even though it seemed contemporary it still had its roots in classical theater his mastery of language seduced and captivated the creators somehow in the span of two hours hands had completely changed their minds and he would be brought on board to be the director the team got to work reshaping the material focusing on the text and trying to more closely depict the classical simplicity of the story the weisslers were incredibly enthusiastic about the show and started discussing it at length with terry hans at a cocktail party in new york fran weisler proceeded to gush over the potential that the show had especially with the high school element which is ripe for dramatic interpretation she told hans when you think of this show and all of the kids the high school and everything that goes with it think greece they were thinking of dressing the kids in athletic wear that was becoming more popular in america in the 1980s hands was struck with inspiration he walked away from the conversation with his mind going a hundred miles a minute think greece a few months would pass and the weissers would fly out to london for a presentation of the set and costume design options that hans had come up with alongside ralph koltai and alexander reed when he laid out all the different mockups the weissler's enthusiasm vanished the sets were bleak and the teenagers looked like they were in togas what is this they asked well you said think greece the wisers exclaimed the show not the country the relationship between the producers and the creative team crumbled resulting in zalo and the weisslers withdrawing their investments and leaving the show carrie looked like it was dead especially since a majority of the broadway producers they were approaching were unsure of the commercial appeal of a horror musical but the creator's luck would change on march 15 1987 when they attended the premiere of andrew lloyd webber's newest mega musical spectacle starlight express it was here that they met german producer friedrich kurtz his most notable work at this time was producing cats in hamburg in 1986 and he was currently negotiating to bring starlight to bocam in germany this meant that he had a lot of money cohen and gore started talking to him about carrie and their plans on bringing it to broadway by 1988 this sparked kurtz's interest he had never done a broadway show so it seemed like a great opportunity for him with the funding secured they next needed to think about the timeline for production as if by fate a slot opened up in the rsc's winter season that was celebrating american works like the great white hope and the wizard of oz seeing carrie as a fitting conclusion to that season terry hans offered up the spot for the show to have a four week run before transferring directly to broadway this wouldn't only give them the space and resources to work on the show out of the public new york city eye but it would also mean that the rsc could attach their name to the production and participate in the profits the direction that the show was taking was beginning to lean even more into the mega musical mtv style of production this meant that they would need a hip talented and relentless choreographer tapping back to their fame roots gore and pitchford had been sending demos of the songs to one of the best choreographers they knew debbie allen when it was confirmed they would be going to upon avon they decided to extend the offer for her to become the full-time choreographer she couldn't accept fast enough the producers and creative team were set to embark on their first ever venture into the world of the broadway musical now they just needed their actors part of what makes stephen king's novel and brian de palma's film is the character of margaret white the abusive rabid and unsettling mother who believes that cary's existence is a mistake to bring this foreboding menacing character to the stage the team always had actress betty buckley in mind she was fresh off her run in the mystery of edwin drude and was no stranger to broadway having won a 1983 tony award as grizabella in cats earlier in her career she starred in the 1973 production of pippin alongside dean pitchford the two formed a long lasting friendship with betty even accompanying dean to the 1981 academy awards pitchford made the call and told her that they were turning carrie into a musical buckley was confused and her first response was why she had been involved in the original 1976 film playing the sympathetic gym teacher miss desjardin so the property seemed like a weird one to adapt into a musical still being good friends with pitchford and larry cohen she decided to at least listen to the music when she got to the end of the tape she was blown away by the overall passion that the score possessed after auditioning she met with director terry hans it was evident upon their first meeting that something was off when he started asking a lot of questions that made her feel uncomfortable questioning the type of person she was having worked with trevor nunn on cats buckley told hans that he could go talk to none if he had any questions about who she was as a person the entire conversation put her on guard while also making her doubt if she wanted to be involved in the production as a result negotiations came to a standstill hands changed direction and started pursuing actress barbara cook who had been a major star during the golden age of broadway in the 1950s and 60s as the landscape of the great white way had changed cook was finding it harder and harder to find work when hans approached her in 1987 the last musical she had been in was the grass harp 17 years prior when hans offered her the role of margaret cook's first reaction was are you kidding me cook was used to playing the younger ingenue type characters that were sweet wholesome and loved by the audience margaret was anything but but after listening to the score hands sweet talking ways that had convinced cohen and gore were enough to seduce cook into accepting the part the way cook saw it it would finally be a new start during all of this the hunt for the show's carry was well underway nearly 600 applicants auditioned for the role but none of them had what the trio was looking for then a 16 year old lindsay hatley entered the audition she had flunked out of theater school but was still able to do some work for the rsc not knowing what role she was going in for she kicked on layers of makeup to make herself look older than she was diving into the song on my own from les miz gore pitchford and cohen all perked up their ears pitchford stood up took hatley to the side and told her to take all of her makeup off so they could see her actual age after a couple rounds of callbacks the decision was clear and hatley was offered the role of carrie on her 17th birthday the casting for carrie was revolutionary and the way that it was the first time a cast was split directly down the middle fifty percent british and fifty percent american the cast would include sally ann triplett as good-hearted sue paul geigel as her boyfriend tommy charlotte d'ambois as the bully chris darlene love as the renamed gym teacher ms gardner and fame alumnus jean anthony ray would embark on his first theatrical venture as the pig murderer billy carey was scheduled for a three-week engagement at the royal shakespeare theater in stratford-upon-avon in february of 1988. the way that michael gore saw it if they started in england then it would essentially be the same thing as going to boston for an out-of-town tryout this thought wasn't exclusively his as a majority of stratford residents viewed cary as the rsc's way of using government subsidized funds to more or less mount a broadway tryout using his shakespearean rhetoric hans was able to maneuver around this by telling reporters he viewed stratford as their main engagement and that they would be going on tour and the first stop happened to be broadway the move was an extremely risky one for the rsc while many outside the country viewed it as a revered theater company the reality is in 1987 they had lost two million dollars though les miz had proven to be a commercial juggernaut the rsc would only take around 18 million dollars off of a gross of nearly 2 billion since it had chosen to partner with cameron mackintosh and other investors who walked away with a far larger cut as hans took control of the rsc he decided that the company needed to be set on a course of self-help which meant they needed to start gambling on the stock market of entertainment broadway financially the risk wasn't too high with the rsc only having a 10 percent interest in carry with nothing to lose monetarily artistically however the reputation of the company was at stake especially considering this would be the first original book musical to follow up the company's biggest hit les miz on top of all of that from a content point of view kerry wasn't exactly what people would have expected to come out of the literary stronghold that was the rsc the people had a legitimate concern that it was stooping low to ease its debts by becoming too commercial the company would even go on record admitting as much saying that carrie was its aim at cashing in on the mega musical craze that was only being amplified by shows like phantom of the opera taking cues from these type of shows hans started trying to figure out how he could give carrie that same type of quality the original trio intended for the show to be a naturalistic broadway musical they would tap into the human elements of an outsider conflicting with her mother her classmates and herself a cinderella with a vengeance but terry hans had other plans he was still set on the idea of kerry being represented as a greek tragedy much in the same vein as the myth of oedipus he simultaneously viewed carrie as the first serious musical drama since west side story while also being a tragedy in 12 tableaus one of the main characteristics of the 1980s mega musical was that it would typically be sung through with little to no spoken dialogue staying true to this belief hans took cohen's libretto and started cutting virtually everything in it in wanting to shorten the distance between the musical numbers he started getting rid of the in-between dialogue meaning that the numbers started tumbling on top of each other with little motivation or context hands also had the problem of never attending an american high school meaning he had little knowledge as to what life for the american teenager actually looked like since he lacked knowledge in this area he delegated the high school scenes to debbie allen her work on the television show fame gave him confidence in this decision which freed him up to focus nearly all of his energy on the scenes between carrie and margaret when gore cohen and pitchford arrived in stratford the new direction left them speechless and not in a good way instead of creating the realistic environments that had been intended to help carrie's supernatural elements stand out they were now staring at a white sanitized box with plastic shiny surfaces that would fold back and over on themselves like a garage door this would help with the creation of different settings instead of the sewing machine religious objects and radio there was just a wall a chair and a trap door the set was incredibly minimalistic which made the final set piece even more jarring trying even harder to make carry seem like a mega musical hand started thinking about how they all had one identifiable set piece for cats it was the tire for starlight express it was the bridge for phantom it was the chandelier for carrie it would be the staircase but not just any staircase a huge white staircase that would metaphorically lead carrie and margaret to heaven just when they thought it couldn't get any worse the small town schoolgirls took the stage and instead of looking like something from saks fifth avenue they instead looked like something directly out of ben hur it was a weird hodgepodge of headbands tights and togas the dread began to set in for the writing team but they still tried to remain optimistic as they geared up to get to work on the show but as they started showing up to rehearsals hans told them that they weren't allowed to sit in the auditorium the plan he had was to meet in the lobby each night and trade notes this meeting became less of one with hands and more of one with hans's assistant the conflict between the creatives began to grow and the fact that the crew had never mounted a broadway show was proving to be more and more problematic [Music] the pacing was off the design made little sense and the tone was proving to be inconsistent when jumping between high school and home there was also the problem that the show still didn't have a workable second act this mixed with the rigid rsc scheduling for their seven weeks of rehearsals meant that soon the main priority of the writing team was to meet deadlines as opposed to telling a proper story the stress only continued to elevate the closer opening night came specifically between terry hands and margaret herself barbara cook the two would engage in heated battles over creative differences with cook seriously considering leaving the production only to stop herself by saying it would be incredibly unprofessional to do so when opening night in stratford arrived the show was far from ready and cohen gore and pitchford knew this the design still made no sense to them carrie's telekinetic powers were practically nowhere to be seen and their solution to the blood drop still left a lot to be desired one of the most iconic scenes in the 1976 film is carrie standing atop the stage after winning the title of prom queen only to have her fairy tale moment ended by a bucket of pig blood dropping on her what makes the film version so effective is how they build up the moment using an effective amount of tension and foreshadowing the audiences and on what is inevitably going to happen the question is when the film had the benefit of being able to use multiple shots to get a point of view from a variety of different characters and was able to tell a series of miniature stories in that short time frame on stage it becomes a lot harder to communicate this the original plan was to douse carry much in the same vein as the movie but the crew was finding that the corn syrup mixture was extremely slippery for the actors they tried different combinations but nothing seemed to work there was also the problem that a few moments after the drop and before kerry would dive into the destruction her microphone would cut out so they came up with a compromise instead of doing an elaborate dowsing the new moment would find chris and billy run onto the stage and pour a small cup of blood on her head despite singing a song earlier about killing a ton of pigs to get enough blood [Music] the turmoil and conflict continued right up to 15 minutes before opening night in february of 1988. thanks to the general curiosity and controversy among the public the show sold out long before its opening setting a box office record which also helped the rsc recover financially their investment the feud between hans and cook was at an all-time high and legend has it that on opening night she left him a note with an axe that said you deserve this after how badly you've butchered the show the night was a disaster instead of evoking screams the audience bust out and laughter at the ridiculousness of the show the mix of togas and strawberry jam that was on display left larry cohen sitting in disbelief feeling that he was watching a show that was somewhere between mars and las vegas following the song don't waste the moon barbara cook got ready for her performance of the song evening prayers her timing was slightly off when she got in place on a platform that was moving down stage one of the units of the mechanism was supposed to come up and fold down to form a wall behind her but the wall almost came down directly on her head barbara cook was inches away from being decapitated the reviews of the night were mostly negative when asked why the show wasn't going to the west end first terry hans simply responded it's an american musical but the reality was that carrie would become one of the first shows to break from tradition simply due to a lack of money and time the production trio would sit and watch the show seeing changes that they couldn't wrap their heads around but the biggest roadblock putting the show at jeopardy wasn't the music the reviews or the togas it was the fact that they were about to lose their star [Music] the desire to quit had been building in barbara cook though she'd initially been won over by hans's proposal she was now realizing that his talent was working on shows written by dead authors not american musicals she would find herself watching incredulously as the creative team ran around frantically they had never worked on a show from scratch so how were they expected to fix it following the near decapitation on opening night cook decided that enough was enough and she stormed up to hands to tell him that after the stratford run was over she would be leaving the show as the cast took their final bows cook got ready to leave the theater her departing thought was there isn't a chance in hell they'll be able to pull this off the jeopardizing development left head producer friedrich kurtz furious for the main reason that the only way he had learned about it was by reading it in the british press when he confronted hands over it terry responded i didn't want to add more pressure on your end than there already was rumors began circulating that the show wasn't going to make it to new york once again all seemed lost for carrie but there was one shimmering light at the top of the superfluous staircase the tape of the stratford production continued to run on the television set directly in front of betty buckley following cook's departure pitchford had reached out to sam cohn to see if she would take over the show while she watched the tape she dealt with an inner battle on one end she felt that she could bring in athleticism and vocal strength to margaret that cook had been lacking but on the other end she'd been hearing about the show and acknowledged that it was on shaky grounds cone shot buckley straight betty if you don't do this they're not going to do the show and everyone is going to be out of work holding that immense responsibility over her head she decided to join the show and so the production would pack up and head to its new location at the virginia theater in new york city where it would effectively set the tone for the 1988-89 broadway season during nightly rehearsals michael gore larry cohen and dean pitchford all sat in opposite sides of the theater watching a vision that had gotten away from them over the course of the show the three would find themselves spending more time in the lobby because they were unable to stomach what they were watching cohen's version of cary was a horror classic gore was a two-time oscar-winning composer and pitchford's film about the little town in oklahoma had come to fruition in the film footloose which went on to become a cultural critical and box office smash they all had achieved great acclaim and were proud of what they had created but now they had this their attendance and rehearsals began to dissipate as the disappointment and embarrassment eventually became too much pitchford effectively locked himself in his apartment and would have takeout delivered to him out of the fear of running into friends who would ask how the show was going they didn't have control over their show and they didn't want anyone to see what had become of their carry and so they became recluses a big component of what made mega musicals like phantom les miz or even starlight commercial hits on broadway was the fact that they were first huge hits in the west end they were then able to transfer that buzz over to broadway for an impressive advanced ticket sale carrie was at a distinct disadvantage because it transferred from the otherwise removed stratford-upon-avon this meant no real buzz besides maybe a few bad reviews from across the way and the occasional musical ads which hyped up that there'd never been a musical liker the total cost of carry would come out to an exorbitant 8 million dollars the same budget as the phantom of the opera previews would begin on april 28 1988 and it was apparent right from the get-go that kerry was going to be polarizing in the final scene after the lights went down and both lindsay and betty were covered in blood they sat in silence waiting for the audience's reaction maybe the crowd had loved it maybe they had fixed the show maybe they had a fluke in stratford the entire theater was silent then that silence was broken by a chorus of boos lindsay looked at buckley in distress and said what do we do buckley took a second looked at lindsay and said well we've got to get up the two slowly stood to their feet and made their way to the front of the stage the lights came up and almost instantly the booze became mixed with cheers half of the audience loved it and the other half hated it soon something interesting happened the buzz began to spread around the city and kerry slowly became a theatrical event that many of the people involved had never experienced people were showing up multiple times dressed in costumes addressing actors by their name when they came on stage and erupting in cheers when certain moments took place in the show carrie was becoming the charismatic force of its own cult-like following the previews would continue to play to passionate theater lovers and split houses until their opening night on may 12 1988. this was the moment that the team had been dreading the reputation of cohen gore pitchford hans and the entire royal shakespeare company were on the line the bipolar rollercoaster ride that was carry took audiences from the highest of highs with rousing operatic duets between a conflicted mother and daughter to mtv style pop numbers with teenagers making out in drive-ins while singing all we ever do is park and then for hours you grope me in the dark they'd then be transported back to another 11 o'clock number by carrie only to moments later watch the guy from fame kill pigs while singing big big blood blood pig big blood blood by intermission the auditorium was rife with chatter some loved it some hated it most of them didn't even know what was going on the feeling was only amplified when those who had never read the book or watched the movie were suddenly met with fire crashing set pieces and blaring laser light shows only to moments later find a giant white staircase descending from the heavens for the two characters to suddenly kill each other on the audience sat in silence with dropped jaws and confusion and then everyone started booing but in the same way as the previews the reaction became split when the lights came up producer friedrich kurtz had gone into opening night with no real strategy on how to keep the show alive if there was a really bad review he had no reserves and no backup plan that night at the after party the new york times was distributed with the review written by the infamously powerful frank rich it was damning with the opening line stating those who have the time and money to waste on only one anglo-american musical wreck on broadway this year might well choose carrie the main critique was that the show neglected everything that made the movie scary funny and sexy pulp entertainment the scenes that had been drastically cut down by hands made the dialogue plot along to the next song and most importantly rich felt that it failed to deliver its cinderella story and the encompassing hot house high school atmosphere but on the other end of the spectrum clive barnes with the new york post gave the show a glowing review saying that he found it to be strong effective and remarkably coherent for the most part the reviews again were mainly negative and kurtz now found himself in a conflicting situation following the opening pitchford flew back to los angeles on that friday to get ready for the official cast recording the next week before the saturday matinee kurtz called the entire company together and told them in a rousing speech we're going to run the show critics be damned he told the crew that he had more money coming in from an outside source and began enthusiastically game planning the marketing of how to change the public's perception he sent larry cohen home to work on a new radio ad they would start playing where lindsay would say some people hate me some people love me you'll have to come down to the theater and see for yourself the cast and crew all rejoiced kurtz began waving like a superstar as he walked out of the theater while everyone hugged kissed and celebrated once he was out of the theater kurtz got into his car headed to the airport and left new york never to be heard from again the cast returned after their dinner break to find a closing notice posted on the door on monday kurtz's producing partners found that he had screwed them all when the only money left in the accounts were bonds for the actors he had called his business manager and had him close all of his accounts the remaining producers tried to find some money to try to keep the show running but by tuesday it was apparent that nothing was going to happen the team was in shock gore and cohen felt betrayed lindsay couldn't believe that anyone could have done anything that heartless but they had no choice the show had to close after the final performance betty took lindsay out on the stage and told her this isn't our fault you're going to have a great career don't think this is your fault in los angeles dean was getting ready to fly back to new york when he was hit with calls from michael larry and terry pitchford was in shock the show that he and his friends had worked seven long years on was just gone and none of them really got to say goodbye as a result of the early closure columbia records backed out of the deal on a cast album and it was never recorded come that tuesday all the british actors were left to their own devices and trying to figure out how to get home when all was said and done kerry closed on may 15 1988 after 16 previews and only five performances it would lose all eight million dollars making it the most expensive flop in broadway history at the time stirring his new cup of coffee stafford arima continued to think about that question why carrie why now he looked at the man across from him and told him about a story that he had read while sitting in a doctor's office the story was about a 14 year old boy who asked another boy on the basketball court if he would be his valentine only for that boy to come back later in the day and shoot him in the head the story rocked arima in his day people would be made fun of teased or taunted but murder was never a reality for him it was then that he started thinking about the others the people who went against the norm who didn't fit in and strangely enough his mind went towards a production he had seen when he was a teenager it was a saturday matinee and he was especially excited because it had betty buckley and one of the guys from fame it was carrie arima assured the man sitting across from him that this was a piece with an important social message that was more relevant now than ever the man sitting across from him took a second dean pitchford was still on the fence about whether or not it was time to bring carrie back there were always offers coming in for a revival of the show but the three were always hesitant to talk about it let alone bring it back out to the masses that had so violently attacked it in 1991 a book by ken mandelbaum called not since cary chronicled over 40 years of flops and essentially said that none of them were as bad as their show the book came as a shock since none of them had even been contacted to tell their side of the story resulting in a one-sided slandering that made them distance themselves from the material even further having worked on the show over seven years it had become their child and constantly having people call their child the ugliest baby in the world took a toll on them still in 2008 director stafford arima emailed an outline to the three members suggesting re-telling the story through a contemporary lens it just so happens that around the same time the original three had been batting around whether or not it was time to revisit carrie seeing the proposal they were intrigued but still very guarded it was only after multiple meetings and unearthing the bigger picture that they decided to proceed the show was updated certain elements were cleaned up and above all else the team decided to embrace a stripped-back more intimate presentation than the original production while it would have been easy to play up the camp of carrie by doubling down on the blood and spraying it into the audience a la evil dead arima made the bold choice of instead using projections and red lighting he didn't want it to be literal but instead wanted to create a vision of her inner experiences given the reputation of the show they all knew it was going to be an uphill battle when the show opened on march 1 2012 as a part of the manhattan class company season it was met with more positive reviews than the 1988 production but the most positive reviews came from michael gore larry cohen and dean pitchford after nearly 30 years they had finally been able to create a show that was closer to what they had originally intended they were able to bring back the scenes that hans had cut and effectively connect the music so that the show worked emotionally and dramatically the fairy dust of the 1980s mega musical was still there but the piece was now focused on characters as opposed to trying to be the next les mis later that year pitchford was finally able to get into the recording studio as they made the cast recording for the show that they had always envisioned feeling confident that this was their definitive version of kerry they also made the rights purchasable so that schools community and regional theaters could finally share in the bloody horror if the 1980s proved anything it was that before cats broadway was stuck in a nostalgic and conservative mindset they were stuck trying to recreate the bygone days of fred astaire and gene kelly when thanks to movies like fame and mtv the masses were moving towards the duran durans and whitney houston's of the world the mega musical represented a huge shift in the broadway paradigm a change that happened so rapidly the critics weren't ready to embrace it as starlight express proved this would become one of the mega musical's most defining features typically being despised by those same critics who felt that fancy spectacle would sacrifice intellectual depth and as is the case with most changes in trends this fear came to fruition multiple times as producers tried to capitalize on the mega musical boom more often than not productions placed too much emphasis on blowing audiences away with mind-numbing spectacle that they often forgot to infuse it with story carrie became a victim of this mentality gore pitchford and cohen wanted to tell a twisted coming-of-age story filled with high-intensity conflict whereas terry hands and the rsc wanted their own mega musical hit that could rival les miz and phantom in the larger scheme of things the actual process behind carrie demonstrates how often times a musical can be fantastic in theory but can be flawed in the execution if the entire team isn't fighting for the same thing but thankfully the story of carrie did get that second chance at redemption and no i'm not talking about riverdale the 2012 production wasn't so much a revival as much as it was a revisal arima saw the same story as the original creators it wasn't about taking audiences on a spooktacular special effects extravaganza but rather it was about going back to king's original novel which was about sharing the story of a girl trying to overcome the traumas of high school while also grappling to harness her emotions and powers that she doesn't understand much like evil dead the off-broadway carry never made it to the great white way and it makes one question what would have happened if it had would the intimate off-broadway experience have translated to a larger house would they have found a landlord who'd believed in the show the biggest question however is would it have been able to escape the large overhanging shadow of the original production no one can say for sure but one thing that's for certain is that this is the magic of carrie despite lasting only five days on broadway its lore has been able to continue to capture the imaginations of theater enthusiasts for 30 years unlike legs diamond or starlight which more or less seem to fade into the unknown in broadway history the mystique and fascination surrounding kerry continues to stay relevant to this very day [Music] though the production was ravaged by the critics and was a huge financial flop it's staying power proves that no matter how polarizing a piece of theater might be to fans or critics the true test of if a show will stand the test of time is its ability to spark a conversation a show's worth shouldn't be dependent on a series of articles stating whether it's good or whether it's bad the most important thing is whether or not it's able to leave an impact on you that's the beautiful thing about theater and art in general it's subjective certain things that speak to one person won't speak to another and that's okay for every person that despises starlight express you're bound to find a handful of others that love it for all the people who think that beetlejuice was god's gift to broadway you're sure to find people who think it's an overhyped mess so the truth is there's no clear-cut way of uniformly deciding whether a show is good or not it comes down to personal opinion and it's worth noting that just because shows can be classified commercially as flops it doesn't mean that they're failures if anything flops are a fascinating psychological study of the culmination of countless ideas failing to line up it's because of this that even shows like legs diamond can be appreciated because of the work and beautiful chaos that went into creating them behind the scenes kerry symbolizes more than just a flop it symbolizes the experimental evolution of broadway in the 1980s it symbolizes the double-edged sword of the mega musical of the importance of story over substance but above all else it symbolizes our fascination with the wizards working behind the curtain so when asking if there has ever been a production where the behind the scenes process has had as large an impact as the show itself on both theater lovers and casual fans alike the beginning of the answer is sure to be not since carrie [Music] always [Music] oh special thanks to our amazing center stage patrons defunctland autumn brent black noxie's bat nate gardner ethan julian dean ellie ztm productions tommy kindle abigail brazella john fogg mark s the kid tested mother approved podcast jc chase eugene mccants catherine esperanza brianna michelle meyer shafrilis productions melissa marquette haley longo aiden lamb justin laurie the drawer king sammy karnecki musicals with cheese sebastian kanino and emily charles

Channel: Wait in the Wings

Views: 1,018,693

Keywords: Carrie the Musical, carrie the muscial, carrie the musical riverdale, carrie the musical karaoke, carrie 1976, carrie movie, stephen king, carrie broadway, carrie musical, broadway, theater history, katherine steele carrie, wait in the wings, WitW, what went wrong?, spiderman turn off the dark, broadway video essay, polarizing phenomenon, betty buckley, royal shakespeare company, katherine steele, kat steele, broadway.com., Carrie broadway documentary, broadway history

Id: BTaAzFl_GYk

Length: 66min 28sec (3988 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020