Every good horror story needs a sequel, so here’s one for the 1988 Broadway flop Carrie – it’s coming back. The expensive musical, which ran for just five performances and was, at the time, the costliest disaster in Broadway history, is being workshopped by the producers behind Rent, Avenue Q and West Side Story.
They’re rewriting the thing from top to bottom, apparently, although many of the songs – which are praised in the NY Post – will remain. The workshop will decide whether or not Carrie gets another chance at the Great White Way.
What was so bad about Carrie the first time through? I think the following anecdote – my favorite of the day, and the whole reason I’m running this story – explains it all:
In the ridiculous camp were the sets (a high school gym that looked like a Greek temple) and the costumes (teenagers in white togas).
Why the Greek look for a show set in a small American town?
Fran Weissler, who produced the original, tells the story that when she met with British director Terry Hands, then riding high at the Royal Shakespeare Company, she told him the dance at the gym should play like “Grease.”
He came back a few days later with sketches of people in togas wandering around the Ancient Agora of Athens.