Musicals That Never Made It To Broadway — Page 6

Bringing up Lolita My Love from the depths of the thread.....

I've recently rediscovered the soundboard and despite the stunning score... it makes me think HOW ON EARTH DID THEY THINK THIS WOULD BE WATCHABLE? The subject matter, regardless of the execution, is utterly, utterly unsuitable for musical comedy....

Explaining the songs just shows how off-target Lerner and Barry got it.

Going Going Gone - a group of paedophiles sing about taking MANY girls virginity. Includes the great line - "lots of great nights in bed with a steel automaton" :O

Broken Promise Land of 15 - an unreliable narrator sings about being in love with a 15 year old girl
Dante Petrach and Poe - a paedophile attempts to justify his obsession by referring to classic literature
How Far is it to the next Town? One paedophile, who has kidnapped Lolita, is chased by another paedophile across America, to kidnap her himself in order to make dirty films with her.

At some stage they must have realised that no Broadway house would EVER be occupied by this car-crash of a show.

Updated On: 11/1/14 at 12:39 PM

They Shoot Horses Don't They" of movie of same name

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Little World, Hello!

(Closed before rehearsals)

Also, Mata Hari

(Closed in Washington D.C.)

And Love Match

(Closed in Los Angeles)

Not to forget, The Prince of Grand Street

(Closed in Boston)

Updated On: 11/1/14 at 07:36 PM

I thought the attempted musical version of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? eventually became STEEL PIER when they couldn't get the rights. Or is my mind just formulating that because of the similar subject matter?

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My two cents for what it's worth...:)

Egghumor - Thanks for posting THE AMAZING ADELE poster. I've never seen it before. Tammy Grimes was indeed the star as credited below as Adele:

http://www.ovrtur.com/production/2879740

Miranda3 - The Cleo Laine COLETTE is not the same show. The Broadway bound COLETTE had a very pleasant score by THE FANTASTICKS' Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt. A few of the songs can be heard on THE LOST BROADWAY cd series. There's also the reworking of the show titled COLETTE COLLAGE available on CD at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Colette-Collage-1994-Studio-Cast/dp/B0000014U3/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1415018314&sr=1-1&keywords=colette+collage

Mr. Nowack - I also had heard that the rights to THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY? weren't available so the creators came up with a story set in the same period titled STEEL PIER.

I saw another musical based on Jimmy Durante titled DURANTE that played the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles. The problem was there was absolutely no conflict in the comedian's life so the book suffered:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-11-09/news/8901290454_1_club-durant-frank-peppiatt-john-aylesworth

CHAPLIN with Anthony Newley was a show I saw in its first preview and final performance that played the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Of all the shows I've seen pre-Broadway, this one had the most retooling I've ever seen. Songs were either changed or totally dropped, book scenes were rewritten and edited and the whole show was changed for the better. One of the major problems was the creators were unable to get the rights to the Little Tramp character so closely associated with the comic which the audience expected to see at some point in the show. Overall by closing the show was definitely ready for Broadway but lack of funds prevented it from ever opening there.