Carrie Sept 20th? — Page 4

Again, Monkey. I understand that. But we are talking about a major revival. Unless Gore and Pitchford signed an initial contract granting them rights to King's novel 'in perpetuity" - the terms for any type of Broadway revival would have to be renegotiated with King- particularly as I doubt ancilary rights to CARRIE THE MUSICAL were ever drawn up as the show closed quickly and there wouldn't have been any reason for the terms of the contract to be renewed.

Its not enough for just the composing team to want a revival -- for example: The reason we have never had a revival of PIPE DREAM (not even at Encores) is because the estate of John Steinbeck (the author of the original novel on which its based) refuses to grant permission - no matter how much Rodgers and Hammerstein may have wanted to see it brought back.

And you are simply wrong about the show being a "financial hit" -- it had a very low advance and was an $8 million dollar musical. You may say that the show was selling well in previews (probably due to the word of mouth among flop musical conoisseurs in NYC) but again its absurd to think the show would have overcome the horrendous reviews it received to be a hit.

There is no musical in the history of Broadway that has done that. The reviews for WICKED and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST were no where near those that greeted CARRIE. And contrary to what you are saying - CARRIE had no financial reserve to run on. Zero. None. That is why Kurz closed the show.

The most fascinating thing about this thread is the devout following for a musical from people who were barely alive when the show opened but who have completely romanticized its history and its merits! Thats Broadway folklore for you!

Updated On: 9/10/08 at 11:09 PM

Oh dear...once again, the rights to the songs STILL belong to their original owners. Stphenen King does own character rights, so if there were a revival he would obvioulsy have to give his permission once again, but his "rights" to Carrie are actually very slim and he had about zero say when it came to the musical.

Carrie was selling out on a nightly basis. Some people hated it, others loved it, some had mixed reviews. Professional reviewers hated it. Everyone was divided, but most believed it's main problems were the costumes, lack of set, and the entire choreography/dance numbers/teen songs package. It didn't close because it was a "horrible" show. It closed because the bankers didn't want to pay for it anymore because they got scared at the reviews.

They knew the show needed a little work. But they failed to fix the problems that were identified when it had it's run overseas. I still believe if it were relaunched it would work. The majority of the songs are very good, in my opinion, and the story is still very relevant.

Updated On: 9/10/08 at 11:47 PM

I have to agree with the nay-sayers. Much as I am fascinated by the show, a full-scale revival would only last a little bit longer than the original run. There really are far too many problems for there to be an easy fix and the reputation will indeed scare away investors.

And you can NOT count on a cult following to keep a show open and running. If cult audiences could do that, then the revival of Follies would have lasted more than a few months, and Rocky Horror would have also lasted longer.

In terms of the future life of the show, a workshop to fix some of the problems, a staged concert, and then release it to colleges and summer stock/regional companies. That is probably the best that fans of Carrie could hope for. I highly doubt it will ever be seen in a full-scale, open ended run on Broadway again.

Buckley didn't really spike sales, and even with the advance (which was pretty decent), it was all gone before opening night. There was no money, and after the reviews no reason to expect money was coming in.

This would NEVER happen today, a show closing after only 5 official American performances.

Did you forget about Glory Days?

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A "big" show would never close after only 5 performances. And to be honest, their best ticket sales for CARRIE were AFTER reviews came out. And Buckley did spike pre-sales a bit.

Not really. Just bad banking on Broadway.

I remember Ken Mandelbaum telling me a few years ago that Gore was so embittered about the experience that he tied up the rights to Carrie so that it would never be produced again.

Sad thing is, the worst things about Carrie were not in the book or the score. Had it been recostumed, restaged, and rechoreographed, it might have stood a better chance on surviving.

It remains a show that has about 4 great songs in it and a alot of unspeakably horrible material surrounding it.

I disagree. I think it has several good numbers including:

In
Carrie
Open Your Heart
And Even Was Weak
Evening Prayers
Unsuspecting Hearts
I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance
When There's No One
Heaven

Don't Waste the Moon, Do Me a Favor and I'm Not Alone are decent melodies that could use some new lyrics. Dream On, Out For Blood, It Hurts to Be Strong and Wotta Night are the songs that should be completely replaced.

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Carrie is kinda the flip side of FOLLIES. People wish they were there and talk about what could be done to make it a success the next time around. It's a show that those that love think can be fixed and those that hate think is un-fixable. Me I'm in the fixable camp so hey what do I know.

"The most fascinating thing about this thread is the devout following for a musical from people who were barely alive when the show opened but who have completely romanticized its history and its merits!"

LOL! So true, MB! How exactly does one know whether the show was making money or not? Are you Terry Hands' son?


"I dunno Matt, those lyrics to "In" are pretty horrendous!"

Today's audiences don't really seem to care about lyrics anyway.

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When I mentioned Follies it was not meant to compare the quality of the shows, just to emphasize the point that a cult audience can't keep a revival running.

The problems with the original Follies that kept it from running longer were pretty much purely the operating costs. There is no question whatsoever as to the quality of the production.

I need to listen to the workshop and demos again as I don't remember much about the unused material. But I do enjoy the mixed use of song stylings for the characters in the show. Personally, I felt giving the more classic material to Carrie and Mrs. White while having the rest of the outside world sing pop was a logical artistic choice, especially if you were setting the action in the current day as they did. I would be very interested in seeing the show revert back to the original period of the 70s and reorchestrating the score.

As for a completely new interpretation written by a new team, I'd be interested. Not as an opera, though (isn't there a Misery opera out there?). I'd love to hear what LaChiusa could do with the story.

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Well... the 20th came and went with nothing... sadness.

looks like the site is up now...

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