A flop. A stinker. Big money-losing, inadvertent-laughter-provoking, critically-bashed and/or audience-disdained fiascos. Turkeys. What is it about them that grabs us? Like the rubberneckers slowing down for a car wreck we buy up all the papers to read with glee the scathingly venomous diatribes and study box office figures, calculating nuts and percentages. And when we hear about these major disasters, we rush to get a glimpse before they're taken from us prematurely -- gotta be able to say, "I was in the audience for closing night of Legs Diamond!" So it was only a matter of time before sites began to crop up on the web dedicated to the (formerly?) abhorred.
Far more ambitious than sites devoted to a single flop are these two sites which offer surveys of all time great losers.
John Bronston's Lost Musicals website claims to be "dedicated to presenting and preserving the great lost musicals of the American Musical Theatre" -- basically a bunch of turkeys! It's a short list at this site (which hasn't been updated since October of 1997), but with good details about each show, production team and cast lists. Curiously, although there are lists of the songs from each production, there are no synopses. The author's primary intent is to convince amateur and civic groups of the validity of these washouts, and so what we also get are little essays of the author's opinion of the pieces -- although many of his suggestions would put the renting organizations in default of their licensing agreements. Included in his list are some oddities like the film, Dick Tracy, which he believes would make a good stage musical (and suggests how it should be done). But in the spirit of his intentions, he provides suggestions for contact information for people he believes would be helpful in securing rights. (By the way, the "Getting the rights to these Lost Musicals" link is broken; this is the correct link.)
Of far greater interest to devotees of dreckdom, is the Steve Clark's big and growing, oft-updated Musicals That Didn't... site. "Didn't" what is never clearly stated, but we know that what they didn't do is get anywhere. This extensively cross-linked site lists floppolas by name, by date, even by theatre. Yup, you can find out which theatre has had the majority of the flops -- at least based on the number of gobblers achieved with this week's input. He's also got a list of personnel and the flops they were attached to (which could aid in your research for the currently running Suite101.com Theatre contest). Each page devoted to a show contains the expected production team and casts lists and synopsis, as well as the list of the shows songs. Mr. Clark also provides some tidbits about each show -- background, award nominations, or history -- as well as some details about what the critics thought. About the only thing missing are some hard numbers about money lost by the shows, and details about the run -- he gives a date, but no explanation about whether it was the opening date, the first preview, or what, or whether his total number of performances includes previews. Of course he also provides a form for visitors to input data about their fave flops. And for no extra charge, in addition to providing a list of references used Mr. Clark has a very extensive list of musical theatre books and his thoughts about each.
Try as they may, producers can't seem to find a way to guarantee a sure-fire hit. So it seems as long as we have musicals we'll have some musical turkey to feast on. And as long as there's a web, there'll be some sites devoted to 'em!
Happy dining!
This article began three weeks ago with GobbleGobble.
And continued with Save the Turkey! - Part
1 and Part 2.
Which brings us to our continuing contest (ENDED):
TURKEY-LURKEY
Your humble author is no stranger to turkeys, having been involved
with a number himself. Obviously, I believe that the number of
bomb a person is involved with is not necessarily a reflection
on the person's talent or abilities. So, with that in mind, this
contest calls upon you to test your brain and research skills
to come up with the person involved with the largest number of
flops. Provide the person's name, as well as the complete list
of shows and the person's involvement. By the way, you can find
a gentleman with at least 17 at the Musicals
That Didn't... website.
Email your answers to me. In the case of a tie, the earlier submission will win -- unless different people come up with different flop-meisters with the same number of flops. In that case multiple entries may be awarded. As always, although anyone may submit an answer, only Suite101.com members are eligible for the prize, which is Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops by Ken Mandelbaum. The contest will run for five weeks in total, ending on September 21. Go to it!
C U @ the Theatre!
Originally published at Suite101.com Theatre, 9/15/98
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