Why did Bonnie & Clyde flop? — Page 2

It flopped because they ruined it from La Jolla to Broadway. It wasn't a good show by the time it opened, but it was in La Jolla.

Same thing happened to Jekyll & Hyde. What wound up on Broadway was virtually unrecognizable compared to the Houston productions.

It flopped because of Frank Wildhorne's Name. He is the one they are making fun of "In the song that goes like this" in Spamalot. He is known as the Poperetta King. And that's not a complement.

NY Theatre can be a popularity contest and unfortunately Wildhorne is not popullar. I am not a fan of his past scores but I felt Bonnie and Clyde was a very different animal and had a gorgeous score showing a lot of respect for the 20's period and was quite a good musical. Unfortunately, the shark critics had their bleeding fish in Wildhorne and they devoured it ...in this case unfairly. I thought it had a compelling book, good music and great performances.

It was done by Slow Burn Theatre in Fort Lauderdale and all the critics and audiences in the Fort Lauderdale area were surprised that this very well constructed musical flopped in New York.

Another reason it flopped is the producer. Jeffrey Richards is a very smart but pragmatic producer. Getting some really bad reviews, he didn't give the show a chance to build an audience and he pulled the plug real fast. Jeff Richards does that. He simply cut his losses. He is successful and pragmatic producer and this is not the first time he pulled the plug fast. He did the same thing with The Anarchist and this pissed off Debra Winger and Patti Lupone but that's show biz.

Wasn't there another musical called Bonnie and Clyde or Clyde and Bonnie out about the same time

I think it only played in Atlanta or somewhere in the southeast?

It flopped for the same reason that any show flops. Not enough people wanted to see it to warrant keeping it running.

This was such a fascinating read!!!!! Thank you for it!!!

CATCH was awful. I hate when a main character narrates a show. The entire concept was ill-conceived. Might have a decent show in there somewhere, but the songs aren't catchy, and Tveitt was rather bland.

As for Bonnie and Clyde, Calhoun is an AWFUL director. The production was stagnant and rather underwhelming. I think the music isn't so bad, and Jordan was great in the role and Osnes was fine, but again, not an exciting performer.

Surprised it isn't done more regionally honestly.

@StageManager2: Thank you very much for that most fascinating read!

If the name Wildhorn on a musical is a kiss of death... have any musicals ever been penned successfully by a 'pen-name' only to later be revealed who the real author was?

Would a "Calmtrumpet" musical be a success only to wow people when they found out it is really a Wildhorn musical?

The real question is "why wasn't there positive buzz before the show opened?"

Right before the show closed the word of mouth was fantastic. Everyone was saying wonderful things, but it was too late at that point for it to matter. The show was already closing. This happens to a lot of great shows. They fail to get "the word out" before it's too late. The bad reviews aren't what technically killed the show, though good reviews would have helped to save it and get the word out faster.

So.... why didn't it sell tickets? Why weren't people buying tickets before the show opened? Or after it opened? Why didn't it have any positive buzz????

Many of the posters above give very valid reasons:

1. The theatre community had completely lost faith in Wildhorn after suffering through one of the biggest flops of all time, Wonderland.

2. The word of mouth from La Joya where it had played out of town was all mixed to negative. Many people did not understand why this was transferring (from the conversations I remember having back then).

3. Many doubted that a musical about Bonnie & Clyde would be a good subject matter for a musical.

4. Word of mouth was good, but it wasn't lighting bolt fast. I saw Hamilton on it's fourth preview and called everyone I knew. I was relentless - this didn't happen with Bonnie & Clyde.

5. Not enough papering or discounts. Most of you know I'm a concierge in Times Square and producers usually give us a stack of tickets to make sure everyone we think should see their show gets to see it. Bartenders, managers, valets... this did not happen. I remember a cool marketing discount campaign they did with wanted posters around town, but the show was already closing by then.

6. There was very little promotion done before the show opened. Where were the TV appearances, the special preview concerts? The demos of songs? What was done to get people hyped about this show before it started previews? There were probably several things, but I can't remember any of them off hand... so if they were done, they weren't done effectively.

7. Whizzer makes a great point. Who cares about the story of Bonnie & Clyde? It's been done to death. (pun intended.)

I remember specifically that I didn't believe the show would be any good after suffering through Wonderland. It took about 10 different people telling me it was great before I finally decided to go check it out, a week before it closed.

This is a great question because I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes a good show close.

Updated On: 7/28/16 at 10:14 AM

Self-described "pseudo-historian" StageManager2 writes, "Despite the myth, the fact is they were two, young, poor, starstruck kids who got in way over their heads and paid the ultimate price."

Actually, authentic history shows us that they murdered at least 13 people and robbed small family-owned stores, as well as banks patronized by poor and lower-class investors, taking the money of those who could least afford to lose it or defend themselves.

Some may like to romanticize this kind of pathological behavior, but there is absolutely nothing to admire about these two psychopaths who chose to hurt rather than help.

newintown: "Actually, authentic history shows us that they murdered at least 13 people and robbed small family-owned stores, as well as banks patronized by poor and lower-class investors, taking the money of those who could least afford to lose it or defend themselves."



Correction: the Barrow Gang (which at one point consisted of 9 members) was responsible for 13 murders (mainly lawmen), not just by Bonnie & Clyde themselves. In fact, Bonnie may not have ever (intentionally) killed anyone, though there are reports that she fired a gun several times during the gun fights/getaways (including in Blanche Barrow's memoir, My Life With Bonnie and Clyde), but she mainly loaded the weapons that likely killed others (per gang member W.D. Jones' account in a 1968 Playboy interview, which described her as "a hell of a loader". At any rate, she was an accomplice to 100 or more felony criminal acts, including several murders, kidnappings, robberies, auto thefts, and that major jailbreak I mentioned above (not where Bonnie smuggled a gun into Clyde, but the bigger one years later, after they gained notoriety), in which a guard was killed in the melee and several prisoners escaped. So, yeah, I agree she was equally responsible for aiding & abetting Clyde, but more often than not she didn't pull the trigger, though she and Clyde were the face of the gang, since he was the leader and she his "moll."



newintown: "Some may like to romanticize this kind of pathological behavior, but there is absolutely nothing to admire about these two psychopaths who chose to hurt rather than help."



I'm not romanticizing; I'm being realistic. All of the reputable B&C biographies/historians say the same thing, that Clyde hated being and looking like poverty and aspired to be a famous outlaw, like his childhood heroes Jesse James and Billy the Kid. Bonnie's misfortune was meeting Clyde and falling madly in love with him. From the moment they met, the pair was inseparable, except for the two years Clyde spent at Eastham (though they wrote each other passionate letters), and early in their career when Bonnie was captured after a botched robbery and spent two months in jail. She immediately rejoined Clyde after her release, and for the next two years, they were always together. No one could convince her to give herself up, not even her own mother, with whom she had been close to prior to Clyde. Even Clyde tried to get her to save herself, but she refused. She knew that Clyde was going to be killed, eventually, and she wanted to die with him.



For his part, Clyde proved his devotion to Bonnie by always looking out for her well-being (within the context of their fugitive life), especially in their last year, when Bonnie's leg was badly burned, after Clyde accidentally flipped the car over and it caught fire. From then on, she walked with a limp, or sometimes had to be carried by Clyde. IMO, this incident is evident that Clyde was not a true psychopath, as some have tried to paint him. A psychopath would not have devoted himself to caring for Bonnie so tenderly after such an accident. Some folks told Bonnie's family that they could expect to find her dead in a ditch, because there was no way that cold-blooded killer Clyde Barrow was going to keep a woman around who was a burden to him and an actual danger to his life on the run; however, Clyde loved and cared for Bonnie the best he could. He always made sure she escaped with him during the gun battles, and, in fact, by the end, they were the two remaining Barrow Gang members. The others were either captured, killed, or left of their own accord.



It seems to me that you are the one who is relying on old, debunked, sensational accounts of the pair, in which they were portrayed as sadistic, mad-dog killers, a la Mickey & Mallory Knox. First of all, they only shot to fight their way out of roadblocks and such, never for the thrill of killing people. Most of their murders were accomplished this way. Furthermore, they weren't even master criminals or efficient thieves. Their take was never large, and they often screwed up robberies, in which people got killed or injured. In fact, John Dillinger, who tried to avoid violence as much as possible, called them "A bunch of punks, who are giving bank-robbing a bad name." What made them legendary was Clyde's driving talent, the many gun battles, their almost superhuman ability to evade capture (until they were betrayed), and, of course, the presence of Bonnie Parker. She added a feminine touch to an otherwise male-dominated underworld. Also, Bonnie never divorced her husband Roy (she thought it was in bad taste to do so while he was in prison), so a married woman shacking up with a known criminal was scandalous then.



In short, the story of Bonnie and Clyde is really just the tragedy of two kids from the West Dallas slum, who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for excitement and fame, albeit briefly. I used that term, because in tragic plays, the protagonists are doomed by tragic flaws and moral weaknesses that cause their eventual demise.

WhizzerMarvin: "I also remember there being some director's note in the Playbill about how Clyde wasn't a homosexual or bi-sexual, or at least it hadn't been substantiated and therefore they weren't going to include it in their musical. It was this kind of announcement of wholesomeness and stripping of the gritty that would have been fine in the 1950s, but by 2011 I would much rather have seen an exploration of what life was like to be in the Barrow gang and explore Clyde's sexual proclivities."



Oy, this tired rumor! Clyde was not gay. He had several girlfriends before Bonnie, and two of their names he got tattooed on his body. (Bonnie also had a tattoo of two hearts with the names 'Bonnie & Roy.' Yes, he was repeatedly raped in prison by a much bigger guy. Clyde was only 5'7", 135 lbs, and had a very youthful appearance. When he went to Eastham Prison Farm, he had just turned 20, but looked two or three years younger. (Bonnie also looked very young, since she was quite petite.) At Eastham, Ed Crowder, who stood 6'4" and was an imposing figure, took advantage of the boyish Clyde. Prison life did change Clyde, but he didn't "turn gay" as a result. Rather, it made him very angry with the Texas prison system (and the law, in general) and he emerged from it an even more dangerous man, intent on revenge. Before Eastham, he had been just a petty thief, who stole cars, turkeys, and other odds and ends. Crowder, whom he lured to a secluded spot and bludgeoned to death with a lead pipe, was his first murder victim.



In the early drafts of the script, the Beatty/Dunaway film originally featured a love triangle between Clyde, Bonnie, and the C.W. Moss character, who was a composite of W.D. Jones (until Buck & Blanche are captured) and Henry Methvin, whose father betrayed B&C. The rumor at the time was that Bonnie was a nymphomaniac and Clyde a homosexual, so to satisfy both their needs, another man was incorporated into their lovemaking, but all this info was taken from trashy, pulp novels, which were written more for sensationalism than accuracy.



Here's what W.D. Jones, who was 16-then-turned-17 during his time with B&C, had to say about Clyde's supposed homosexuality in the aforementioned '68 Playboy interview.



"I run with Clyde and Bonnie for more than eight months. That was all I could stand. I left them up in Mississippi and hitchhiked back to Texas. The law caught me in Houston. My running was over. I was in the joint when word came on May 23, 1934, that Clyde and Bonnie was killed near Arcadia, Louisiana. I've heard stories since that Clyde was homosexual, or, as they say in the pen, a 'punk,' but they ain't true. Maybe it was Clyde's quiet, polite manner and his slight build that fooled folks.

"He was only about five feet, six inches tall and he weighed no more than 135 pounds. Me and him was about the same size, and we used to wear each other's clothes. Clyde had dark hair that was wavy. He never had a beard. Even when he didn't shave, all he had on his chin was fuzz.

"Another way that story might have got started was his wearing a wig sometimes when him and Bonnie had to drive through a town where they might be recognized. He wore the wig for disguise and for no other reason.

"Clyde never walked right, either. He'd chopped off his big toe and part of the second toe on his left foot when he was in prison, because he couldn't keep up, with the pace the farm boss set.

"Or the story could have come from sensation writers who believed anything dropped on them and who blew it to proportions that suited their imagination.

"I knew a lot of convicts the years I was in prison -- some of them years on Eastham Farm where Clyde had served his time-and none of them had a story on him being a punk. Matter of fact, nobody -- not the police who asked me questions for hours and hours or the reporters who got in to see me-ever mentioned it. The subject just never come up then.

"It's just here recently, more than 30 years since Clyde was killed, that I've heard the story. I was with him and Bonnie. I know. It just ain't true."



More of the interview in the link below:

https://www.cinetropic.com/janeloisemorris/commentary/bonn%26clyde/wdjones.html