Carrie - The Musical

Brilliant artiste super agent fred informed us over ham omelets this morning that at one time the classic scary movie and pig’s blood festival Carrie was made into a musical. I initially thought he was making a joke, but a quick whiz through Wikipedia confirms that indeed Broadway seems to have been so dedicated to killing itself off that Carrie - The Musical opened in 1988. Even more amazingly, it was the product of the Royal Shakespeare Company originally and the great Barbara Cook took the Piper Laurie role as Carrie’s mother.

I remember 1988 as a time everybody was still doing lots of drugs, but I can’t believe anyone was ever loaded enough to think this was a good idea. In fact, the show only lasted five performances and according to Wikipedia “It inspired the title of Ken Mandelbaum's 1991 book Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops.” That’s a kind of deathless fame, but probably not what the producers were looking for.

So I’m off on two searches: one, any book with that title is one I need and two, I’m hoping youtube can come up with some pirated video of the show. If it does, you can rest assured I’ll share it here.

Also, super agent fred later referred to vichyssoise as a "mashed potato milkshake" which has nothing to do with Carrie, but I thought it was funny and I'm always willing to swipe anything amusing for this blog.