Rosie O'Donnell and Taboo

Rosie saw an off-West End Musical in a church and said "I Love It! Let's produce it on Broadway!"

So she had Charles Busch completely rewrite it, changed or cut music till it looked and/or felt nothing like what she "Loved" in London.

And then she had Diva/Actor problems.

There were good performances but it was a mess.

I saw it multiple times. I thought it was excellent and "worked" beautifully. The performances and music were great. I believe, the backstage drama including Riedel's war with Rosie, made it impossible to overcome it's less than mainstream subject matter.



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I could be wrong, but I feel like it was originally a story that was inspired by the Taboo years in London, with Boy George et. al as characters within that universe, but Rosie and Busch had it rewritten to be more like a "life story" of his rise to fame

I saw it in London in some basement on a matinee in 2003, and even though the book was a little soapy, the score, the costumes, the cast and Euan Morton as George were just phenomenal. A couple of years later, it came to Broadway, still had a great cast, Euan, the costumes, and that score, one of the strongest of the decade. But it was saddled with another underwhelming book, a concept that wasn't a right fit for Broadway at the time, and marketing that confused people. I saw the show ten times on Broadway - would've seen it more if they did a better job at discounting ticket prices - and there was still a whole lot on that stage that was just so good. But mixed reviews, along with opening in the fall, didn't help.



And I think Rosie's massive image problem at the time was a big factor. The "queen of nice" or whatever her personality was during the talk show days, was replaced with a much more assertive, artsy, weird and yes, lesbian, and had a big part with turning off her built-in hausfrau crowd. And don't forget aside from the show, she had that very public lawsuit with her magazine that dragged her through the mud with some really troubling allegations. Anytime you heard Taboo, you heard Rosie, and you heard the lawsuit, and you heard about her $10 million personal investment. By that point, the show content itself, became lost in the rest of it.

I wish it could get retooled at least. It never even had a life regionally.

Did Boy George have anything to do with it off-West End?

Of course he did - he wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the music for TABOO - West End and Broadway. Also, his life story is part of TABOO's plot.

TABOO is basically a biographical musical telling the story of various real-life people that were part of the London underground club scene in the early 80's using the legendary club Taboo to connect the characters to each other. Legendary artist/designer Leigh Bowery (who George O'Dowd aka Boy George played in both productions) founded the club Taboo, where Boy George (played by Euan Morton in both productions) would begin his career as a singer and end up founding the band Culture Club, etc. Several still living people are portrayed in the musical like Steve Strange and Marilyn.

I was in my early teens when the London club Taboo existed and though I lived in the US, I followed the London music scene religiously so I was aware of these London personalities. For all the obvious reasons, I was excited to see TABOO when it was announced for Broadway. As things would have it, I arrived into NYC the Thursday morning of the show's opening night so I passed the theatre as the red carpet was being placed for that night. As was my tradition back in my pre-New Yorker days, I always bought my tickets the morning of the performance I wanted to see so my plan was to see the show the day after its opening: Friday night.

I still remember heading to the theatre around 9am and finding it deserted. Not a single person was waiting outside to buy tickets. A cleaning lady in the lobby saw me and let me wait inside for the box office to open. I bought 2 tickets first row Orchestra Center. 10:05am and not a single person ever entered the lobby. I hadn't read up on the reviews but this told me quite a bit.

Anyway, what did surprise me was the packed house that evening. I remember looking back from my first row seat and seeing the house full - mezzanine and balcony included, which baffled me but made me happy to see a full house. The audience's energy was electric and watching the show was a bit emotional for me. All the money put in was definitely up on that stage - the set design and especially the costumes were simply incredible. The recreation of a Leigh Bowery fashion show was hands-down mind-blowing in its detail recreations. It was indeed lavish.

Now, did this show belong on Broadway? Absolutely not. The subject alone was not suited for the Broadway demographic. It definitely belonged in a more intimate Off-Broadway house and scaled down to suit that - keeping it true to its original West End production. Rosie O'Donnell thought way too ambitiously and I think assumed her name alone would bring in everyone regardless of the show's content but things didn't work out that way. The show closed 3 months later.

I never saw the original off-West End or Broadway production, but I must have played the Broadway cast recording hundreds of times. I believe it's one of the best Broadway scores I've heard. I would have ranked it either first or second (behind Caroline, or Change) at the Tonys that year.

Thanks everyone for responding. As I said, I do remember bits and pieces of this on B'way and then Rosie talking about it in person and in her book (and at the time, she and Boy George were no longer on speaking terms), but never knew the whole history of this. I do recall wanting to see it - but by the time I got back to NY (I used to go every four months or so) it had opened and already closed.

Do you have a link to the documentary? I'd love to watch it.

I don't think it's streaming anywhere, but it's ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway

GavestonPS said: "The life and death of TABOO is covered rather extensively in that documentary that follows four shows aiming for Broadway that season. The others were WICKED, AVENUE Q and CAROLINE OR CHANGE.

I don't get the talk about the "great score". We are talking Boy George/Culture Club-type music, right? Not bad as mid-1980s pop goes, but hardly "great" by Broadway standards. Somebody please save me the download fee and tell me what I am missing...



It's truly a beautiful pop score, with great variety and some moving songs. I'd say easily one of the best scores written for Broadway by a pop composer in the last 20 years.