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In Mel Brooks’s basic 1967 satire The Producers – later tailored right into a wildly profitable Broadway present itself – the scheming Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom plot to get wealthy fast by overselling shares of their subsequent musical after which purposefully staging a flop. They intentionally hunt down what Bialystock calls: “a catastrophe, a disaster, an outrage! A guaranteed-to-close-in-one-night magnificence!”
In actuality, after all, inadvertently staging a flop on Broadway is an efficient strategy to lose some huge cash quick. Elton John discovered that out the exhausting means this week, when his televangelist musical Tammy Faye introduced its closure simply 5 days after opening. In accordance with stories, the present is about to lose the whole thing of the $25m it value to stage it. That’s nonetheless not sufficient to make it the most important flop in New York theatre historical past. Listed here are a number of the greatest disasters, catastrophes and outrages ever to hit Broadway:
By way of Galactica (1972)
By way of Galactica advised the futuristic story of a bunch of social outcasts residing on an asteroid in outer area within the yr 2972. The plot was so completely incomprehensible that on the final second, producers determined to insert a plot synopsis into the Playbill applications, however even then audiences remained baffled by what was unfolding on stage. It closed after 15 previews and 7 performances, within the course of turning into one of many first Broadway musicals to lose greater than $1m.
Tammy Faye (2024)
The story of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker was dropped at Broadway by an all-star staff, with music by Elton John, lyrics by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters and a e book by Expensive England playwright James Graham. That wasn’t sufficient to ship it to salvation, and the musical is about to shut on December 8 after simply 24 previews and 29 common performances. The New York Put up known as it “a catastrophe of biblical proportions.”
Lestat (2006)
Tammy Faye wasn’t Elton John’s first bitter style of Broadway failure. Again in 2006, he and his longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin labored collectively on a musical impressed by Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles. It fared solely barely higher than Tammy Faye, opening on March 25, 2006 and shutting on Could 28, 2006 after 33 previews and 39 performances. Washington Put up critic Peter Marks opined that “Lestat’s contribution to artwork and equality is demonstrating {that a} homosexual vampire with a two-octave vary could be simply as uninteresting as a straight one.”
Drat! The Cat! (1965)
This musical a couple of Gilded Age catgirl who turns into a jewel thief earlier than stealing the guts of the police officer attempting to arrest her lasted simply eight days on Broadway. Ira Levin, who wrote the e book and lyrics, had initially meant to name the present Cat and Mouse till the Nobel Prize-winning writer Günter Grass revealed a e book of the identical identify. Levin felt the brand new title didn’t assist the present’s probabilities. “I didn’t prefer it then, I don’t prefer it now,” he wrote in 2005. “A number of critics didn’t prefer it both. (Extra recommendation for younger playwrights: By no means use two exclamation factors in a title. One, you will get away with; two, no.)”
Rocky the Musical (2014)
In case you’ve ever watched Sylvester Stallone slugging it out within the ring and thought: ‘I simply want he’d get away into music,’ then this was the present for you. After initially debuting to constructive evaluations in Hamburg, Rocky the Musical transferred to Broadway in 2014. No expense was spared because the manufacturing ran up $20m in prices, together with $4.3m for the frilly stage set alone (a full-size boxing ring slid out over the stalls, requiring these within the entrance rows to maneuver round to bleachers on the again for the final 20 minutes). The staging received a Tony award, and main man Andy Karl was nominated for Greatest Actor, however ultimately, sluggish gross sales delivered a knockout blow to Rocky after simply 28 previews and 188 performances.
Kelly (1965)
Kelly was a musical with an uncommon inspiration: the story of Steve Brodie, who in 1886 claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived. In case you suppose that’s an unlikely plot for a Broadway musical, audiences agreed. The present closed instantly after its opening evening and misplaced $650,000 – a document loss for the mid-Nineteen Sixties. Business insiders advised The New York Instances that they “couldn’t recall some other Broadway musical representing such a comparable expenditure that turned a casualty so rapidly.”
Pipe Dream (1955)
By 1955, musical-writing staff Rodgers and Hammerstein might have been forgiven for considering themselves untouchable. Within the earlier dozen years they’d created a string of indelible classics, together with Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific and The King and I, but even that unimaginable observe document couldn’t maintain them immune from their very personal Broadway flop. Pipe Dream, primarily based on John Steinbeck’s novel Candy Thursday, became a monetary catastrophe. Regardless of document advance ticket gross sales forward of its opening in November 1955, poor evaluations and word-of-mouth damned the present and it was closed by June 1956.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (2005)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, primarily based on Roald Dahl’s movie adaptation of James Bond writer Ian Fleming’s beloved youngsters’s e book, made positive it acquired one factor proper: the automobile on the middle of the story really flew. Loads of theatrical magic was employed to make sure Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soared over the primary few rows of the viewers, however sadly the remainder of the present was much less spectacular. The New York Instances famous that the songs sounded “not not like what you may hear in sing-along hour in a pre-Ok class.” It closed after 34 previews and 285 common performances, and producer Nicholas Paleologos famous with some understatement that “a considerable portion of the $15m (preliminary funding) is not going to be recouped on Broadway.”
Convey Again Birdie (1981)
The 1960 musical Bye Bye Birdie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, and a e book by Michael Stewart, was a runaway success, successful Tony Awards and spawning successful film model. When the unique artistic staff reunited in 1981 for a sequel, Convey Again Birdie, they should have smelt simple cash. As a substitute, they produced a flop that closed after simply 31 previews and 4 performances. In his e book Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops, theater historian Ken Mandelbaum wrote that the present “could rank because the worst Broadway musical ever to be created by top-level professionals.”
Moose Murders (1983)
This “thriller farce” by playwright Arthur Bicknell has the excellence of getting run for only one single efficiency (after an unfortunate 13 previews) on the evening of February 22, 1983. It has since change into a touchstone for infamous Broadway flops, with New Yorker artwork critic Brendan Gill writing that the play “would insult the intelligence of an viewers consisting completely of amoebas.” The New York Instances critic Frank Wealthy known as it “the worst play I’ve ever seen on a Broadway stage”, whereas The New York Put up‘s Clive Barnes mentioned it was “so indescribably unhealthy that I don’t intend to waste anybody’s time by describing it.”
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1966)
This adaptation of Truman Capote’s novel arrived on Broadway simply 5 years after the much-loved Audrey Hepburn movie model and left even sooner. The present didn’t even ever formally open: it lasted simply 4 previews earlier than closing. Producer David Merrick took the monetary loss and even went as far as to put an notorious advert in The New York Instances to announce that he had charitably determined to close down the manufacturing “moderately than topic the drama critics and the general public to an excruciatingly boring night.”
Carrie (1988)
A decade after Brian De Palma’s chilling movie adaptation of Stephen King’s horror basic, bringing Carrie (plus buckets of blood) to Broadway should have appeared like a simple win. As a substitute, it became the unsuitable type of horror present. It value $8m, an enormous sum within the late Eighties, and ran for simply 16 previews and 5 common performances earlier than closing. The New York Instances sneered: “Because the movie director Brian DePalma demonstrated in his display adaptation, Carrie could make for scary, humorous and horny pulp leisure – offered the thrills, wit and post-pubescent sensuality are as sharp as that knife. The musical Carrie fails in all these areas.”
Spider-Man: Flip Off The Darkish (2011)
Throw collectively a well-liked, New York-based superhero franchise, Tony Award-winning The Lion King director Julie Taymor and music by U2’s Bono and The Edge and what might probably go unsuitable? Properly, a lot. Spider-Man: Flip Off The Darkish endured a famously tortured journey to the stage, which included a number of injured solid members and one near-fatality when a stuntman fell 30 ft and broke a number of ribs. Then there was the spiraling value, which ended up at an eye-watering $75m, greater than some other Broadway present in historical past. That was all earlier than a evaluate was even revealed, at which level The Impartial reported that critics gave the impression to be affected by arachnophobia. Fixed overhauls noticed a document 182 preview performances earlier than it even formally opened. In some way the present did find yourself working for 3 years however by no means got here near incomes again its astronomical prices.
