Why did SUNSET BOULEVARD fail?
I appeared in a non-Equity production on Long Island. The audiences who came gave us standing ovations, but we had much smaller audiences than for other shows. Even my own friends who usually see all my shows turned this one down--"oh, it's too depressing." I think the score is ALW's best after Evita, and the book follows the film faithfully, perhaps too much so. I think the other posters are correct; the expense of the massive set doomed it. (Needless to say, our production did not levitate ...
