No TOOTSIE? That's the worst of the shows I personally got to see (though maybe not fair to call it "worst of the decade", I know I'm probably in the minority). I heard justifications for the book, but I thought the book was worse than the music. The changes they made from screen to stage made absolutely no sense! They took a screenplay that is taught in screenwriting classes and touted as a shining example of storytelling and removed most of the aspects that made it work. CURSED CHILD is a similar case of "story does not work whatsoever," but apparently the sets and staging make up for it. I've yet to see it.
Great call on Living For Love. We saw that at Williamstown (along with Fool For Love, talk about opposites) and were shocked it was moving to B'way, it was so bad.
I know it never made it to Broadway, but the worst show I sat through this decade was The Bodyguard. So many things wrong with it. The gunshot with the house lights up was terrifying. The cast didn’t acknowledge the band during bows. Over all a terrible night at the theatre.
Putting in my vote for The Anarchist, it was truly baffling in its badness. And not on Broadway, but A Parallelogram at Second Stage is one of the only professional shows I've ever walked out of at intermission. I also despised Eddie and Dave at the Atlantic. It technically opened in fall 2009, but Memphis was appallingly bad and pisses me off to this day. A small list of others that do not make me (quite) as angry, but that I rediscovered by going through Playbill Vault and were painful to watch:
I've heard that On a Clear Day is a very hard show to pull off, but did you see the more recent mounting at Irish Rep? Was that one more successful than Connick Jr.'s production?
Ado Annie D'Ysquith said: "I've heard that On a Clear Day is a very hard show to pull off, but did you see the more recent mounting at Irish Rep? Was that one more successful than Connick Jr.'s production?"
I didn't see it. I think a lot of the music is quite beautiful, but the Broadway revival was truly terrible (apart from Jessie Mueller) and one of the ugliest things I've ever seen. Like, the set gave me a full-on headache with the swirling black and white nonsense.
One of the regrets I had was not seeing the "On a Clear Day" Broadway revisal. I recently thought about it and recalled trying to get a rush ticket but discovering it had closed the week before. I thought, "Well, I'll never get a chance to see that show, either revised or the original". I then remembered all of a sudden, "Wait, you saw it at Irish Rep!" Not horrible, but the fact that I had completely forgotten about seeing it says a lot.
I wrote in Moulin Rouge. One word - boring. Listening to Sahr struggle to croak through Nature Boy is the nadir of my Broadway theatre-going journey to date.
These choices pale in comparison with the stinkers of the eighties, such as Moose Murders and Carrie. Hopefully, the twenties will give us all some hot garbage!