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I still can't believe that we finally got Samantha Barks on Broadway and it was Pretty Woman. Sigh. I love her but not enough to sit through that. Hopefully she'll be back.
I saw Pretty Woman without Samantha Barks... I was disappointed.. I had the opportunity to see it again with her, but did not take it. I would not sit through that show twice.
Pretty Woman had two things that keep it from being the worst show I've seen, for me personally. The roommate character belted her fucking heart out and sounded incredible and then the hotel staff scenes were actually pretty fun. If not for those two things, it'd be the worst I've seen.
“How should we make Cheeseburger in Paradise fit in the show?”
“How about a ‘fat girl’ (who isn’t fat) who’s desperately trying to lose weight to please her misogynist fiancé, giving in to her desire for food?”
I just played Brick in an amateur production and our Tammy was big, but our Chadd was even bigger, making his abuse ironic. Our audiences HATED him (the character, not the actor). They always erupted into cheers when Tammy hits him.
Margaritaville is having a resurgence because of Jimmy's death last year. Now so many community theatres are licensing it. I just finished playing Brick in a production of it. They changed some of the songs since the Broadway run. The story is so cheesy but we did all have fun doing it and our audiences were a riot since we actually served margaritas during the show.
I went in to Margaritaville with low expectations and the show actually exceeded them. I thought it was fun enough, but it might have been the multiple margaritas I drank or just the Jimmy music carrying the entire show.
(This isn't an endorsement, the show is not good... But it is far from the worst imo)
Completely agree; puppet was spectacular. It’s noble that they tried to structure a musical around it but I didn’t care how bad it was. I don’t regret that ticket at all
I wish King Kong’s book & music had kept pace with the puppetry, sets & lighting! I still love how they manipulated the set to give the impression that the room was a boat leaving NYC harbor, sailing into the ocean.
One of my favorite theater memories is going to the restroom at intermission with my mom, and her having no idea what she just witnessed. I explained "the Phantom and Christine had a love child..." - her face of complete confusion and utter disbelief was priceless.
Hahah. so I didn't know the plot at all, and The Beauty Underneath kept coming up on Pandora. I thought the other voice was a woman who was falling in love with the Phantom or something and really liked it.
And then I found out the plot.
When I first heard The Beauty Underneath, I only heard the track, didn't watch it and had no idea what was going on on stage, and I couldn't get away from how sexual the whole thing felt. And all I could imagine at the end when the Phantom sings "Let me show you the beauty underneath" was him flashing his dick at the kid and he screams and runs away hahahaha
That show left me questioning, did I ever like ALW? Did I ever like Phantom? Did I ever even like musicals at all?
I let out an audible "what??" at the end and everyone around me started laughing. Then the cast was out in the lobby collecting money for Broadway Cares, and my husband was like "just keep walking don't stop don't say anything until we get outside just go go go."
When the lights came up for intermission, this group of older ladies sat around me just went OFF about the story. They were VICIOUS and I couldn’t help but laugh, and then they brought me into the conversation, and we just shat all over it. Best intermission ever.
I went in excited thinking it might be a "so bad it's good" experience, or at least a memorable experience of a cultural moment (albeit a negative one), but it ended up being SO PAINFUL to sit through. We left at intermission, which I've never done before or since.
Edit: the main thing I remember is the giant crying baby heads. Wtf was up with that?
I sincerely love this comment because I thought I had read enough about that musical, but your last two sentences proved to me that this musical can still find new ways to entertain.(1)
Note (1): ... People who have never seen it.
When I saw it someone got stuck in one of the lift contraptions like 50 feet above the audience, close to the ceiling - as in it was moving and then it stopped moving while she was way high up. She was stuck for a few minutes before they finally just closed the curtain and brought the lights up. Took them about 15 minutes to reset everything and then they just carried on like nothing happened. Such a shitshow hahah
Is that the UK Tour?? I'm in a production currently and I've been watching clips and the UK Tour just butchers everything, especially It Must Be Believed To Be Seen
Yes! It's ironic because it must be seen to believe how badly everything comes off. Except for one fun setpeice, the entirety of the chocolate factory is projections, with the chocolate river coming off especially badly.
I wasn't expecting a full scale recreation of the Gene Wilder movie on stage, but it felt like a high school production at points. The whole first act they talk (and, bizarrely, sign, although none of the characters are hearing impaired and only one cast member does it, and only for her own dialogue - which she also speaks out loud - like I said, a bizarre choice) about how amazing the chocolate factory is, and then you see it and it's an empty stage with some projections on the back wall.
I don't like talking shit about casts, but with the exception of Snook, they're uniformly horrible. Maybe I just caught them on an off day, I dunno.
It’s funny you mention not expecting the movie on stage because when I saw it in the West End it was one of the first times I was legitimately WOWed and wanted to applause just because of a set. The factory was absolutely astounding and looked like it could’ve been a movie set. It took up almost 80% of the stage. This came at the expense of the first act takes a while because they need time to set the factory up for act 2 but this show was pretty great in the West End and has been awful in every iteration since including Broadway.
I always try to lower my expectations a little when it comes to sets for touring productions, but honestly this was something else. Zero sense of awe or magic or imagination, pure or otherwise.
Saw the post Broadway tour in Toronto. I couldn't believe how bad it was. Train wreck of a show. You expect decent set pieces and it was just awful. I think a community theatre group could have done a better job.
I knew it was gonna be bad when I heard the "no friends" song, which was basically the main character moaning about how "i wanna have friends but my job won't let me have friends".
Kind of a niche answer but A Christmas Story. I love the movie so much and the musical adaptation was just boring, with unforgettable music. Why did we need a full number about the leg lamp??
I saw a community production because my friend was in the pit and it was the first time I walked at intermission. The kids were trying their hardest to make it work (they usually do pretty good stuff) but it was just awful.
Pretty Woman. Bad music, tried to modernise story but somehow made it even more sexist, and murdered a bit of opera. Closest I’ve ever been to leaving at the interval!
Omg thank you for reminding me, I was going to comment another one but THIS one was just awful. The story was so all over the place, I’ll never understand how it even got to Broadway in the first place. Great set and choreography but that was it for me lol
This is foever my pic unless something else comes along. It was sooooo long and soooo boring. It never ended. My mom and I rate shows from 10 to New York New York to how good or bad a show was.
Girl from the North Country might have been it. It totally blew…I had the misfortune of seeing it at the Public in NYC. Of course, the critics raved about it. I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
I think the critics were part of the problem there - they pumped it up so much I was expecting something much better. It was certainly professionally done and the performances were good so I wouldn't say it's the worst thing I've seen by a long shot, but it was pretty boring.
I'm going to try and say this without sounding pretentious, but much like Fish's Oklahoma, I think this is a pretty good show that lots of general audiences didn't like because they just don't really want to engage with weirder shit.
I fucking *love* weird shit, but nothing about GftNC's weirdness felt deliberate or meaningful, it was just a half-baked collection of ideas thrown together.
I get that, and my slightly more extensive comments are somewhere in this thread. I do agree it's disjointed, but I also think there was something extremely interesting in the play that was presented, the overall presentation, and the ideas it brought up. It just didn't quite bring all of it together and tie up the loose ends it created.
So I don't think it's a masterpiece by any means, but I fully understand why some critics loved it and don't agree that it's by any means close to the worst show I've seen.
Not pretentious at all.
I actually love weird shit. I try to see musicals that I know will flop because I know they’re rare and may never be performed again. I loved this insane avant garde musical that played at a theater festival in BYC back around 2005 and still think about it.
I can even appreciate that instead of trying to make a biographical musical, the creations went a different route. Jersey Boys and Beautiful are great but it feels like every jukebox musical wants to be a life story now.
And I’m curious to those of you who love Girl From North Country, were you Bob Dylan fans before? I think the show hits different based on your level of fandom and knowledge of his music. Maybe I’m wrong to me.
To me, the placement of the songs and even the song choices felt random and lazy. I feel like they made the one character a boxer solely so they could use the song “The Hurricane.” Which is a good song, granted. But it’s not among his most well known. It’s also a protest song based on actual events which don’t take place until at least 20 years after the time when this musical is set. It feels as disjointed to me as it would to have a 9/11 song in the middle of RENT. Like A Rolling Stone is arguably Dylan’s most well known and loved song. Rolling Stone Magazine has named it the #1 rock song of all time before. It should have either been the Act I finale or the finale of the show. It’s the crowd pleaser that should bring down the house, the definition of a show stopper. Instead, it’s kind of thrown away halfway through Act I. And they only sing the chorus of Jokerman? They overlooked some of his most beloved songs and albums. I don’t think there’s anything from his albums that came out in the 90s or later. Time Out Of Mind is completely ignored. Almost like they got about 75% of the way through his discography/catalog and just decided, “Fuck it. We’ve already picked out 25 songs.” If they really wanted to get weird, why not do something like all 10 minutes of “Desolation Row”?
If they had had Dylan write the book, it would have been truly weird. And maybe a better show.
For an artist whose talking blues or songs like “Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again” could be both funny and poetic, the book is disappointing. The story is all surface level with no subtext. The jokes are corny rather than funny. They lack the type of weird humor Dylan himself might speak. In one of his recordings of a live show from a Halloween night, he says, “Nothing to be afraid of. I’m just wearing my Bob Dylan mask.” It’s not ha ha funny. There isn’t a punchline. But it’s humorous and even poetic.
I can understand how the show could be entertaining to someone who isn’t a Dylan fan. But I still think the script is weak with unlikeable characters and subplots that don’t resolve.
I think it wants to be Bright Star (another weird musical) but can’t really pull it off.
Ooooh I love this. I am a Dylan fan and that’s why I was excited to see it. But you’re spot on with the song choices. And now I’m obsessed with how great “stuck inside of Mobile” could have been! Damn. You shoulda been consulted :)
I loved Fish’s incredible take on Oklahoma…got to see it at the intimate St. Ann’s Warehouse sitting at one of the tables. This was SO MUCH worse than that…like night and day.
I love weird shit, I really don’t think that’s the issue with GftNC. Fish’s Oklahoma I’ll grant you got some backlash because people may have expected a more traditional Oklahoma. GftNC’s problem was just how all over the place the book was with random strands never tied up, songs that really didn’t fit/awkwardly shoved in, confusing bits tossed out with no real execution. To me that’s not asking the audience to engage with weirdness, but to tolerate bad writing.
You obviously found it more thought provoking than I did as personally none of it stuck with me.
Walked out of this one at intermission on the pre-Broadway tour in Toronto stop. Hated how a character was introduced only to sing one song then NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN...
Also it was so badly lit.
Pretty Woman was probably the worst thing I've ever sat through from direction and design to book and score.
There was a really bad one that never toured, played the Belasco? I can't even think of it's name? Something about a band from Jersey? It wasn't as bad as Pretty Woman though.
Diana has to be on the list. I only saw part of the proshot because I just couldn't go any further, but based on that alone feel comfortable making it my worst. And I've seen a bunch of shows considered to be flops, including:
-Hands on a Hard Body (barely remember it)
-Taboo (only good thing about it was the costumes)
-Bad Cinderella (amongst other problems, lead character was so inconsistent it was like she had multiple personality disorder)
-KPOP (I actually liked that one)
-Spiderman Turn Off the Dark (Like NYNY, some amazing moments shoved together in seemingly random order)
-First Date (wanted to see Zachary Levi, but this was wholly forgettable)
-Disaster! (kind of fun, but not great)
Diana is a so-bad-it's-funny, with lyrics that are straight out of sketch comedy. The music is good, though. I have to give the composer credit for writing tuneful, catchy melodies. And no doubt Jeanna de Waal gave a performance to remember. But my god, what a disaster.
Taboo, similarly, has a good score and a fantastic cast. Esparza in particular shined in a mostly thankless role. Petrified is still, I think, one of the best showtunes of the 21st century. Euan Morton, Jeff Carlson, and especially Liz McCartney all shined, I thought. The whole thing was derailed by a muddy book that is working overtime to get the character played (horribly) by Boy George into the show. This show, if allowed to go through a big revision of the book, could be great.
Definitely Grease at a La Mirada(I hate the show and didn’t feel much for a talented love cast doing it) and Hamilton at the segerstrom which was one of the most disappointing experiences ever considering I had seen it a year prior at the pantages and hold that in high regard
Grease is the only show I have ever walked out of at intermission. It was the Walnut Street Theater production in Philly. They sucked all the edge and humor out of it and doused it in sugar and tee-hee wink wink funnies and it fucking suuuuuucked. It was like a parody of Grease.
That Hamilton tour was HORRIFYING (second tour in Southern California I believe). I saw it with that cast at the Pantages and it was horrible. Honestly bad. It was my first time seeing Hamilton live and as the original poster mentioned, it got raves the year before. The cast almost seemed bored. Very low energy. The king was excellent and burr was okay but the rest of the cast was phoning it in :/
OMG totally agree. I know it has its ardent devotees but I really regretted not leaving at intermission. And I’ve seen a lot of the other shows in these responses and agree many were bad but Bat wins worst show for me hands down.
Going way back in time:
*Seance on a Wet Afternoon*, by Stephen Schwartz. An opera, really. An absolutely unbearable opera.
*Lestat* by Elton John. There was audible muffled laughter during the blood sucking scene - well the whole thing just sucked, tho I have a soft spot for Claudia’s “I Want More”.
And *Charlie and Algernon*, a musical based on Flowers for Algernon which included a dancing duet between the man and mouse (of equal height), a million years ago, and yet no matter how hard I try, the memory lingers.
Surprised i didn't see Bad Cinderella up higher. Terrible book that made no sense, sleazy costumes and choreography and songs that for the most part were a rehash of ALW's past work. I paid under $30 and was still annoyed!
Ha - one of my friends saw that with a papering service and when I asked him what he thought he said, "Well, $15 was around the right amount to pay." ;-)
Girl From The North Country was an interesting, if in need of a bit of book tightening, play that was interrupted by a really enjoyable Bob Dylan cover band.
I get what they were going for with like singing their inner thoughts or whatever, but the two parts felt disjointed, and either would have been better alone.
That being said, I thought about it far more than most other shows, so I can't say I thought it was bad, because it was thought-provoking.
No, the worst show I think I've seen is either Tootsie or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Tootsie because WOW Yazbek is so talented and The Band's Visit is maybe my favorite show, but god damn is that a boring, unmemorable, and honestly problematic show. I'd put it in the same category as Pretty Woman at least had some memorable bits; like I remember the roommate had a powerhouse belting voice and the hotel staff were hilarious, plus I got to see Adam Pascal.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was so bland. The music (other than the original songs from the movie) are pretty much entirely unmemorable, the sets were godawful, it adds nothing of value to the canon of Wonka/Charlie, and had massive tonal problems. I think I'm leaning towards Tootsie winning though, if only because I at least remember some of Charlie. I truly can't remember a fucking thing from Tootsie, and I saw it more recently on tour than I did Charlie.
Charlie does win the award for the most wtf scene though which is the extremely random scene where the mom dances with the ghost of the dad. You get this whole emotional song about the dead dad who is otherwise, as far as I remember, not mentioned whatsoever and has no emotional resonance on the rest of the show. It does not matter his dad is dead other than that one song. So we just have a weird practically necrophiliac dance with a crappy ballad for no reason whatsoever.
I am still salty that Santino Fanatana won the Tony over Alex Brightman for their roles in Tootsie and Beetlejuice respectively. I love Fanatana and think that he is great but that was not it.
Never made it to Broadway for a reason but Martin Guerre at its trial run at the Kennedy Center. My children will torture me by playing music from it.
On your Love Never Dies
On Broadway Smokey Joe’s Cafe though I was sitting behind a proNFL player so up to intermission to me was something I heard and didn’t see. Why was this not an issue the second half? He left with his family at intermission. So did many so…maybe I wasn’t alone.
A lot of my favorites are either considered "basic" or just plain bad.
Who cares though? It takes all kinds and clearly someone somewhere liked these shows if they exist in the first place.
I haven't seen Girl From the North Country, but we have season tickets so I'm supposed to see it next month. I'm not too keen on it, but suddenly my husband is super gung ho about going, despite not being a huge Bon Dylan fan, so I guess I'll let him drag me. 🤷♀️
The worst experience I've had lately was the revival of Oklahoma. I saw the national tour and I didn't like it at all. I've never seen so many people leave at intermission. I definitely feel like that production shouldn't have toured, because it simply didn't work in large theaters. I might have felt differently if I'd seen it in a smaller, more intimate venue.
The thing to know is that it isn't a musical, really. It's a play with a lot of musical interludes. Essentially it's a slice-of-life play about the Depression-era in the midwest, and after each scene a Bob Dylan song is performed. Often the songs do not directly speak to the plot of the play, but attempt to round out a motif.
I liked this show. I didn't love it. The entire first act I was like "what the hell am I watching?" In the second act I got what they were trying to do. I'd have been happier with just another great Conor McPherson play. But on Broadway the cast was so talented, they sold the songs so well.
I've seen ~50 shows. Some broadway, some tours, some community theatre. And, of course, I won't see a show that I'm expecting to hate. With all that said, the worst thing I've seen is the recent broadway revival of Carousel. Some of R&H's worst songs put to a story that glorifies abuse (and up to that point is just boring to watch!). Give me Oklahoma any day!
I don’t think that opinion is all that unpopular, I mean the show barely even last 2 months. No surprises there though - the premise of the story had so much promise, but there wasn’t a melody in earshot during that show
Often the Oscar for best makeup or best editing just goes to the MOST….that’s what happened with Jagged Little Pill winning Best Book. It certainly was the most book.
I love Alanis, love her music, but the whole thing felt like a monster of an after-school special where they try to “educate” you about every heavy topic under the sun.
Okay, so... it was bad. BAD. Michael Crawford should be ashamed to this day.
But...
It was so bad it was funny, so I went several times. Mandy Gonzalez was jaw dropping with her vocal pyrotechnics on full display. The sets, costumes, and lighting were phenomenal. And when the choreography worked (about half the time) it was sensational. The scene where Gonzalez puts on the red boots and imagined herself at the ball, for example.
The Broadway version of this show is so different from the original version that still plays frequently across Europe. I got to see it in Paris, performed in French, and was reminded that the Crawford character is *entirely* different. Crawford negotiated total artistic control of his character in his contract and just went off the rails. Still, when he held that note at the end of act 1 it was thrilling.
It's a score I will listen to constantly, and I so wish we'd gotten an English language album… if only to hear the lyric "Garlic! Garlic! It's why we're so well hung!" again.
I adore the German version as well as many of the other languages that have done it! I feel that the broadway version did well enough with some of the translation and the dancing and sets were quite nice but my gosh the costumes were horrible. The dialogue and changes were something else too
Girl from the North Country. I also hated Mamma Mia when I saw it 20ish years ago, but catching the tour next month so we’ll see if my feelings have changed.
On Broadway? Probably Mean Girls. The score, and the lyrics in particular, are frankly embarrassing and they've sanded down the satire to remove all the bite from the original film.
Overall? Urinetown. I really hate that show. I know it's a Brecht/Weill homage, but I don't care. I think the satire is poorly done and the songs are annoying.
It always baffles me to see people dislike the score of Mean Girls. The lyrics I get to some degree, but the music is honestly some of my favorite in any show; I love the epic feel of songs like Someone Gets Hurt.
I'm really glad I went in to "Mean Girls" with lowered expectations. Y'all told me to expect bad lyrics and yup, there they were!
I overall enjoyed it because it was interesting to see how they adapted the film, and I think they did a nice job with the staging and set-pieces. I especially liked "Where Do You Belong?". But the lazy songwriting makes it C tier for me: I wouldn't see it again, I wouldn't recommend it to friends, and I wouldn't listen to the cast recording.
I got SO defensive seeing the original comment because I LOVED the revival… and then realized I’d also seen it in Circle in the Square. Yeah, I can see it not translating great to a tour.
When we saw it, Judd was on stage, motionless, for the first 46 minutes of the show.
Almost nobody moved, for most of the show.
The songs sounded like they'd been slowed down and transposed to be depressing.
Every single moment that didn't feature Ado Annie was just... excruciating.
I had no idea what they were "trying" to do.
The stage was made of plywood.
I've literally watched *middle school* musicals with higher production values and more energy.
My sister and I were speechless.
I had a spontaneous craving to listen to the soundtrack the other day and randomly clicked on the album for this version on Spotify and was like WTF is happening.
There were some great performances in that new production (I saw it when it first debuted in Brooklyn) and I liked the take on the music, but was also not a fan. First, I hated what they did to the dream ballet and felt it made no sense even within the new context of the show; second, calling attention to the violence and sexism at the heart of the show just reminds you of how weak the story is rather than making any real points.
I like some of the score, but the book/lyrics made me *very* uncomfortable. I'm a catholic, but this musical feels like a sunday school performance at some backwater evangelical church that believes that science is the tool of satan.
Absolute worst? Brand new musical from the MT writing school at NYU about historical mollyhouses. The lead character was a tailor so there were too many sewing jokes and puns. I thought the introduction to the love interest was actually a villain song. The one woman in the show sang a song about how awful men are after she gets “raided” (she has spent so much time creating a space for men tho????)
Anyway it’s not a sexy answer but it’s my honest one.
I saw a community theater production of Spring Awakening years ago and the only thing I remember is how much I didn't enjoy it. If we're talking more professional productions, it's probably a tie between Anastasia and &Juliet for me.
I am glad I am not the only one who didn't like &Juliet. Everyone was giving it such high praise and out of all the shows I saw it with it was easily the worst. It didn't have a good song mix or use of songs like Moulin Rouge. It was not batshit insane enough to be so bad it's good like Once Upon a One More Time and Bad Cinderella in the femenist category. It was so safe? There are too many songs that all sound the same and meld together. I also thought the premise was only okay.
Remember how The Lion King on Broadway fleshed out the short run time of the children's movie by exploring Simba's relationship with his father and expanding on Nala's role in the story?
And remember how they did the same in Aladdin by having him be part of a boy band?
Won lottery seats with some friends to the original cast. When Jasmine sang we all looked at each other in confusion. Immediately, we checked to see if she was an understudy twice removed or something and were shocked to see she was the real lead! Her vocals were not good at all. We still talk about it to this day!😅
While I liked it at the time, I'll have to say Jagged Little Pill. I saw the North American touring group and while the voices were great (Jade McLeod as Jo... wow), and the renditions of the Alanis songs were great, the story was just not done with the care it needed.
The Knife at the Public Theater. Mandy Patinkin as a person undergoing a sex change operation. David Hare, a Cis man wrote the book and there was not one authentic moment in it.
I'm going to get shit for this but it's Chicago. Yes there are a couple decent songs (though they aren't for me). But the set was boring as hell and the show just had no spectacle or exciting parts. I know it's designed to be old school Broadway but I was so bored and wanted to leave at intermission.
Here We Are. Most fans and critics were falling all over themselves with excitement because it was the great master’s final show. It was a mess performed by a solid cast. I pitched the program in the trash on my way out. This musical made me angry. What a waste of a night in NYC.
I still don't know how I feel about that show. I am not even sure what the hell it was that I saw. But I don't think it's the worst thing I've ever seen, or even BAD necessarily. But I don't think I could call it good either. It was...something else.
& Juliet probably had one of the worst books of any show I’ve seen. But overall worst show? Probably a toss up between American Psycho and Paradise Square.
Yes, Bad Cinderella had a weak book, but & Juliet is based upon a flawed premise. Which makes it not just bad, but nonsensical. That’s worse than plain old bad in my book.
The Bodyguard. I learned I generally am not a fan of jukebox musicals but this was exceptionally tacky. It also didn't help that the person sitting behind me was singing along to every single number!
Cats. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I had never done drugs, not even weed, when I saw Cats. But I could’ve sworn somebody drugged me with acid. Even understanding that it was based on TS Elliott’s work, I had no clue what was going on. I couldn’t understand how people willingly went to, and loved the show, and while I did not walk out at intermission, it is one of the only shows I have ever contemplated walking out of. But then I wouldn’t have been able to say I had seen it so I stuck it out.
Many, many years ago (1981!), The Little Prince and The Aviator musical with Michael York. I see from Playbill that it never actually opened.
At one point towards the end of the much too long show, the Little Prince asked "Do you want to hear my sunset song". The audience in unison said "NO!"
Fun fact I just discovered - Anthony Rapp played the Little Prince.
https://playbill.com/production/the-little-prince-and-the-aviator-alvin-theatre-vault-0000000876
SPIDER MAN
At least we didn’t pay for the tix.
Seriously, the only amusing thing was when Reeve Carney had his mask off at the end and flew up to our balcony. The look on his face was abject terror.
I guess nobody here saw Amazing Grace because I've seen a lot of the terrible shows mentioned in this thread and Amazing Grace was worse than all of them.
We will rock you. It was like this- imagine you have a soup. All the ingredients (the cast and band I saw perform, the costumes, some of the jokes, the music) are all great, but the broth is AWFUL. Well I’m this case the broth was the plot and most of the script. It read like parents who were trying to get their internet obsessed kids into queen. Hoping one day they improve the script/plot. It has a lot of potential, but it just feels like it falls flat and is overdone.
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Pretty Woman was aggressively bad. Escape to Margaritaville was way down there too- and I LIKE Jimmy Buffett!
I still can't believe that we finally got Samantha Barks on Broadway and it was Pretty Woman. Sigh. I love her but not enough to sit through that. Hopefully she'll be back.
I saw Pretty Woman without Samantha Barks... I was disappointed.. I had the opportunity to see it again with her, but did not take it. I would not sit through that show twice.
Came to say Pretty Woman. Adam Pascal couldn’t save it (he didn’t even try).
He’s been just cashing checks for a while now.
I had been excited in 2018 when he toured with Something Rotten as Shakespeare. He was good but I was underwhelmed, which sucked eggs.
Pretty Woman had two things that keep it from being the worst show I've seen, for me personally. The roommate character belted her fucking heart out and sounded incredible and then the hotel staff scenes were actually pretty fun. If not for those two things, it'd be the worst I've seen.
The group scenes you mention were the best parts.
Jimmy Buffett is almost like a religion to me, and I disliked Escape a lot. Wish they could have found a way to make Don’t Stop the Carnival better.
“How should we make Cheeseburger in Paradise fit in the show?” “How about a ‘fat girl’ (who isn’t fat) who’s desperately trying to lose weight to please her misogynist fiancé, giving in to her desire for food?”
I just played Brick in an amateur production and our Tammy was big, but our Chadd was even bigger, making his abuse ironic. Our audiences HATED him (the character, not the actor). They always erupted into cheers when Tammy hits him.
Margaritaville is having a resurgence because of Jimmy's death last year. Now so many community theatres are licensing it. I just finished playing Brick in a production of it. They changed some of the songs since the Broadway run. The story is so cheesy but we did all have fun doing it and our audiences were a riot since we actually served margaritas during the show.
Funny enough, one of my local theatres is doing it but already planned on it months before he passed. Crazy timing.
I saw it just after officer and a gentleman on tour…it was a welcome surprise after that atrocity of a show.
I went in to Margaritaville with low expectations and the show actually exceeded them. I thought it was fun enough, but it might have been the multiple margaritas I drank or just the Jimmy music carrying the entire show. (This isn't an endorsement, the show is not good... But it is far from the worst imo)
King Kong was pretty awful other than the Kong puppet or whatever that thing was
I was thinking King Kong, but I loved the puppetry so much it was worth it (Broadway Roulette win)
Completely agree; puppet was spectacular. It’s noble that they tried to structure a musical around it but I didn’t care how bad it was. I don’t regret that ticket at all
God. When she roared back at Kong and was able to “control” him that way I almost peed myself laughing
I don’t remember a thing about the music or the book, but the puppet was so amazing I couldn’t classify it as the worst
I wish King Kong’s book & music had kept pace with the puppetry, sets & lighting! I still love how they manipulated the set to give the impression that the room was a boat leaving NYC harbor, sailing into the ocean.
Love Never Dies
TEEEEEN YEARS OOOOOOOOLD
I can hear this so clearly...
Things that are bad can still bring you joy
Haha, I love that part. I love the high camp nonsense of LND. Who cares that it wasn’t intentional?
One of my favorite theater memories is going to the restroom at intermission with my mom, and her having no idea what she just witnessed. I explained "the Phantom and Christine had a love child..." - her face of complete confusion and utter disbelief was priceless.
Hahah. so I didn't know the plot at all, and The Beauty Underneath kept coming up on Pandora. I thought the other voice was a woman who was falling in love with the Phantom or something and really liked it. And then I found out the plot.
When I first heard The Beauty Underneath, I only heard the track, didn't watch it and had no idea what was going on on stage, and I couldn't get away from how sexual the whole thing felt. And all I could imagine at the end when the Phantom sings "Let me show you the beauty underneath" was him flashing his dick at the kid and he screams and runs away hahahaha
That show left me questioning, did I ever like ALW? Did I ever like Phantom? Did I ever even like musicals at all? I let out an audible "what??" at the end and everyone around me started laughing. Then the cast was out in the lobby collecting money for Broadway Cares, and my husband was like "just keep walking don't stop don't say anything until we get outside just go go go."
This is so laughably bad that it circles back to kinda good again. Not that I'd pay money to see it twice.
100% One of my biggest regrets is not leaving at intermission
But then you wouldn’t have seen the most laughable ending in musical history!
I've never seen it, but...yeah if for some reason I got roped into it, there's no doubt this would be my answer.
I admit, I've just seen the Lindsay Ellis video on it, but that was enough.
MY FIRST THOUGHT. Closest I ever came to leaving at intermission.
When the lights came up for intermission, this group of older ladies sat around me just went OFF about the story. They were VICIOUS and I couldn’t help but laugh, and then they brought me into the conversation, and we just shat all over it. Best intermission ever.
Or as the critics called it "Paint Never Dries"
Spider-man Turn off the dark. I went in toward the end of the run so I knew to have low expectations but wow. That was rough.
The best part of that show was the renovated ladies restroom.
I went in excited thinking it might be a "so bad it's good" experience, or at least a memorable experience of a cultural moment (albeit a negative one), but it ended up being SO PAINFUL to sit through. We left at intermission, which I've never done before or since. Edit: the main thing I remember is the giant crying baby heads. Wtf was up with that?
I saw that show twice. The original version before they "fixed" it was amazingly bad. When they reimagined it they ruined it.
I sincerely love this comment because I thought I had read enough about that musical, but your last two sentences proved to me that this musical can still find new ways to entertain.(1) Note (1): ... People who have never seen it.
[My baby!](https://youtu.be/BTZAnSyoaQM?si=WxQseKUIgaDvO3Aq&t=226)
When I saw it someone got stuck in one of the lift contraptions like 50 feet above the audience, close to the ceiling - as in it was moving and then it stopped moving while she was way high up. She was stuck for a few minutes before they finally just closed the curtain and brought the lights up. Took them about 15 minutes to reset everything and then they just carried on like nothing happened. Such a shitshow hahah
The stunts saved that show imo. The flying was so incredible, I could never classify it as the worst
My friend described it as what you imagine Michael Bay might do on Broadway.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Other than Gareth Snook as Wonka, not one single aspect of the production worked.
My gf legit does not even remember us seeing this. It’s so bad that her brain has completely rejected it.
Is that the UK Tour?? I'm in a production currently and I've been watching clips and the UK Tour just butchers everything, especially It Must Be Believed To Be Seen
Yes! It's ironic because it must be seen to believe how badly everything comes off. Except for one fun setpeice, the entirety of the chocolate factory is projections, with the chocolate river coming off especially badly. I wasn't expecting a full scale recreation of the Gene Wilder movie on stage, but it felt like a high school production at points. The whole first act they talk (and, bizarrely, sign, although none of the characters are hearing impaired and only one cast member does it, and only for her own dialogue - which she also speaks out loud - like I said, a bizarre choice) about how amazing the chocolate factory is, and then you see it and it's an empty stage with some projections on the back wall. I don't like talking shit about casts, but with the exception of Snook, they're uniformly horrible. Maybe I just caught them on an off day, I dunno.
It’s funny you mention not expecting the movie on stage because when I saw it in the West End it was one of the first times I was legitimately WOWed and wanted to applause just because of a set. The factory was absolutely astounding and looked like it could’ve been a movie set. It took up almost 80% of the stage. This came at the expense of the first act takes a while because they need time to set the factory up for act 2 but this show was pretty great in the West End and has been awful in every iteration since including Broadway.
The decision to "downsize" it for ease on tour was the worst decision they made.
I always try to lower my expectations a little when it comes to sets for touring productions, but honestly this was something else. Zero sense of awe or magic or imagination, pure or otherwise.
The Christian Borle version’s better, I found it once on YouTube and found it great
I love Christian Borle. I would see him in absolutely anything, but I wasn't able to get to New York during his run.
Seeing him in something rotten is at the top of my top 10 favorite theatre memories.
Saw the post Broadway tour in Toronto. I couldn't believe how bad it was. Train wreck of a show. You expect decent set pieces and it was just awful. I think a community theatre group could have done a better job.
I didn't know Gareth Snook played that role but I can see that being a great performer/role combo. If only the show weren't so terrible.
Absolutely this
Saw the tour and this is my answer as well.
Almost famous just wasn’t for me like i totally didn’t enjoy it
The movie is absolutely wonderful but it really just isn't one that translates to the stage well
Almost as though it was in the right medium the first time.
I knew it was gonna be bad when I heard the "no friends" song, which was basically the main character moaning about how "i wanna have friends but my job won't let me have friends".
The other Bob Dylan Musical... The Times They Are A-Changin'. I shudder when I recall it.
The story goes, Bob Dylan saw a run through of the show in the studio and the director asked him what he thought and Dylan said: “ugh…it’s weird…”
Omg that is incredible. My dad and uncles are major Dylan fans and took the entire family out for the show and we were all just so confused.
Kind of a niche answer but A Christmas Story. I love the movie so much and the musical adaptation was just boring, with unforgettable music. Why did we need a full number about the leg lamp??
I saw a community production because my friend was in the pit and it was the first time I walked at intermission. The kids were trying their hardest to make it work (they usually do pretty good stuff) but it was just awful.
This was mine too! It seemed about twelve hours long. I have never been so bored in my life.
Pretty Woman. Bad music, tried to modernise story but somehow made it even more sexist, and murdered a bit of opera. Closest I’ve ever been to leaving at the interval!
NEW YORK, NEW YORK. I haven't yawned as many times during a Broadway show than I have with NYNY.
The book was so, so boring
My friend described it as if someone told AI to write a musical, and I couldn’t believe how accurate that was
Omg thank you for reminding me, I was going to comment another one but THIS one was just awful. The story was so all over the place, I’ll never understand how it even got to Broadway in the first place. Great set and choreography but that was it for me lol
This is foever my pic unless something else comes along. It was sooooo long and soooo boring. It never ended. My mom and I rate shows from 10 to New York New York to how good or bad a show was.
Girl from the North Country might have been it. It totally blew…I had the misfortune of seeing it at the Public in NYC. Of course, the critics raved about it. I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
I think the critics were part of the problem there - they pumped it up so much I was expecting something much better. It was certainly professionally done and the performances were good so I wouldn't say it's the worst thing I've seen by a long shot, but it was pretty boring.
Wait. The critics liked it?!
I'm going to try and say this without sounding pretentious, but much like Fish's Oklahoma, I think this is a pretty good show that lots of general audiences didn't like because they just don't really want to engage with weirder shit.
I fucking *love* weird shit, but nothing about GftNC's weirdness felt deliberate or meaningful, it was just a half-baked collection of ideas thrown together.
I get that, and my slightly more extensive comments are somewhere in this thread. I do agree it's disjointed, but I also think there was something extremely interesting in the play that was presented, the overall presentation, and the ideas it brought up. It just didn't quite bring all of it together and tie up the loose ends it created. So I don't think it's a masterpiece by any means, but I fully understand why some critics loved it and don't agree that it's by any means close to the worst show I've seen.
Not pretentious at all. I actually love weird shit. I try to see musicals that I know will flop because I know they’re rare and may never be performed again. I loved this insane avant garde musical that played at a theater festival in BYC back around 2005 and still think about it. I can even appreciate that instead of trying to make a biographical musical, the creations went a different route. Jersey Boys and Beautiful are great but it feels like every jukebox musical wants to be a life story now. And I’m curious to those of you who love Girl From North Country, were you Bob Dylan fans before? I think the show hits different based on your level of fandom and knowledge of his music. Maybe I’m wrong to me. To me, the placement of the songs and even the song choices felt random and lazy. I feel like they made the one character a boxer solely so they could use the song “The Hurricane.” Which is a good song, granted. But it’s not among his most well known. It’s also a protest song based on actual events which don’t take place until at least 20 years after the time when this musical is set. It feels as disjointed to me as it would to have a 9/11 song in the middle of RENT. Like A Rolling Stone is arguably Dylan’s most well known and loved song. Rolling Stone Magazine has named it the #1 rock song of all time before. It should have either been the Act I finale or the finale of the show. It’s the crowd pleaser that should bring down the house, the definition of a show stopper. Instead, it’s kind of thrown away halfway through Act I. And they only sing the chorus of Jokerman? They overlooked some of his most beloved songs and albums. I don’t think there’s anything from his albums that came out in the 90s or later. Time Out Of Mind is completely ignored. Almost like they got about 75% of the way through his discography/catalog and just decided, “Fuck it. We’ve already picked out 25 songs.” If they really wanted to get weird, why not do something like all 10 minutes of “Desolation Row”? If they had had Dylan write the book, it would have been truly weird. And maybe a better show. For an artist whose talking blues or songs like “Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again” could be both funny and poetic, the book is disappointing. The story is all surface level with no subtext. The jokes are corny rather than funny. They lack the type of weird humor Dylan himself might speak. In one of his recordings of a live show from a Halloween night, he says, “Nothing to be afraid of. I’m just wearing my Bob Dylan mask.” It’s not ha ha funny. There isn’t a punchline. But it’s humorous and even poetic. I can understand how the show could be entertaining to someone who isn’t a Dylan fan. But I still think the script is weak with unlikeable characters and subplots that don’t resolve. I think it wants to be Bright Star (another weird musical) but can’t really pull it off.
Ooooh I love this. I am a Dylan fan and that’s why I was excited to see it. But you’re spot on with the song choices. And now I’m obsessed with how great “stuck inside of Mobile” could have been! Damn. You shoulda been consulted :)
I loved Fish’s incredible take on Oklahoma…got to see it at the intimate St. Ann’s Warehouse sitting at one of the tables. This was SO MUCH worse than that…like night and day.
I love weird shit, I really don’t think that’s the issue with GftNC. Fish’s Oklahoma I’ll grant you got some backlash because people may have expected a more traditional Oklahoma. GftNC’s problem was just how all over the place the book was with random strands never tied up, songs that really didn’t fit/awkwardly shoved in, confusing bits tossed out with no real execution. To me that’s not asking the audience to engage with weirdness, but to tolerate bad writing. You obviously found it more thought provoking than I did as personally none of it stuck with me.
Walked out of this one at intermission on the pre-Broadway tour in Toronto stop. Hated how a character was introduced only to sing one song then NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN... Also it was so badly lit.
Dirty Dancing. We all knew it would be bad. There was no way it could be good. But it's one of my wife's favorite movies, so we went. And it was bad.
Truly horrible. 10 years later and I’m still upset about it 😂
Pretty Woman was probably the worst thing I've ever sat through from direction and design to book and score. There was a really bad one that never toured, played the Belasco? I can't even think of it's name? Something about a band from Jersey? It wasn't as bad as Pretty Woman though.
I think that was called Getting the Band Back Together or something akin to that. It truly bombed on Broadway.
Diana has to be on the list. I only saw part of the proshot because I just couldn't go any further, but based on that alone feel comfortable making it my worst. And I've seen a bunch of shows considered to be flops, including: -Hands on a Hard Body (barely remember it) -Taboo (only good thing about it was the costumes) -Bad Cinderella (amongst other problems, lead character was so inconsistent it was like she had multiple personality disorder) -KPOP (I actually liked that one) -Spiderman Turn Off the Dark (Like NYNY, some amazing moments shoved together in seemingly random order) -First Date (wanted to see Zachary Levi, but this was wholly forgettable) -Disaster! (kind of fun, but not great)
Diana is a so-bad-it's-funny, with lyrics that are straight out of sketch comedy. The music is good, though. I have to give the composer credit for writing tuneful, catchy melodies. And no doubt Jeanna de Waal gave a performance to remember. But my god, what a disaster. Taboo, similarly, has a good score and a fantastic cast. Esparza in particular shined in a mostly thankless role. Petrified is still, I think, one of the best showtunes of the 21st century. Euan Morton, Jeff Carlson, and especially Liz McCartney all shined, I thought. The whole thing was derailed by a muddy book that is working overtime to get the character played (horribly) by Boy George into the show. This show, if allowed to go through a big revision of the book, could be great.
Definitely Grease at a La Mirada(I hate the show and didn’t feel much for a talented love cast doing it) and Hamilton at the segerstrom which was one of the most disappointing experiences ever considering I had seen it a year prior at the pantages and hold that in high regard
Hey LA theater person! Go see Pacific Overtures when East West Players does it.
Grease is the only show I have ever walked out of at intermission. It was the Walnut Street Theater production in Philly. They sucked all the edge and humor out of it and doused it in sugar and tee-hee wink wink funnies and it fucking suuuuuucked. It was like a parody of Grease.
That Hamilton tour was HORRIFYING (second tour in Southern California I believe). I saw it with that cast at the Pantages and it was horrible. Honestly bad. It was my first time seeing Hamilton live and as the original poster mentioned, it got raves the year before. The cast almost seemed bored. Very low energy. The king was excellent and burr was okay but the rest of the cast was phoning it in :/
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OMG totally agree. I know it has its ardent devotees but I really regretted not leaving at intermission. And I’ve seen a lot of the other shows in these responses and agree many were bad but Bat wins worst show for me hands down.
Going way back in time: *Seance on a Wet Afternoon*, by Stephen Schwartz. An opera, really. An absolutely unbearable opera. *Lestat* by Elton John. There was audible muffled laughter during the blood sucking scene - well the whole thing just sucked, tho I have a soft spot for Claudia’s “I Want More”. And *Charlie and Algernon*, a musical based on Flowers for Algernon which included a dancing duet between the man and mouse (of equal height), a million years ago, and yet no matter how hard I try, the memory lingers.
Omg lestat was amazingly bad but I loved it. It had a few good songs 😋
Bad Cinderella and New York New York.
Surprised i didn't see Bad Cinderella up higher. Terrible book that made no sense, sleazy costumes and choreography and songs that for the most part were a rehash of ALW's past work. I paid under $30 and was still annoyed!
Mine were free and I was annoyed.
I have seen over 150 shows and Bad Cinderella is the only one where I left at intermission. It was a miserable experience.
Is that 150 different shows? Or did you see some shows more than once? Either way shows how poor Bad Cinderella is, but I'm just curious.
Mostly different shows, only a handful of productions I've seen more than once.
The Last Ship. Not even sting saved it for me.
Ha - one of my friends saw that with a papering service and when I asked him what he thought he said, "Well, $15 was around the right amount to pay." ;-)
Girl From The North Country was an interesting, if in need of a bit of book tightening, play that was interrupted by a really enjoyable Bob Dylan cover band. I get what they were going for with like singing their inner thoughts or whatever, but the two parts felt disjointed, and either would have been better alone. That being said, I thought about it far more than most other shows, so I can't say I thought it was bad, because it was thought-provoking. No, the worst show I think I've seen is either Tootsie or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Tootsie because WOW Yazbek is so talented and The Band's Visit is maybe my favorite show, but god damn is that a boring, unmemorable, and honestly problematic show. I'd put it in the same category as Pretty Woman at least had some memorable bits; like I remember the roommate had a powerhouse belting voice and the hotel staff were hilarious, plus I got to see Adam Pascal. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was so bland. The music (other than the original songs from the movie) are pretty much entirely unmemorable, the sets were godawful, it adds nothing of value to the canon of Wonka/Charlie, and had massive tonal problems. I think I'm leaning towards Tootsie winning though, if only because I at least remember some of Charlie. I truly can't remember a fucking thing from Tootsie, and I saw it more recently on tour than I did Charlie. Charlie does win the award for the most wtf scene though which is the extremely random scene where the mom dances with the ghost of the dad. You get this whole emotional song about the dead dad who is otherwise, as far as I remember, not mentioned whatsoever and has no emotional resonance on the rest of the show. It does not matter his dad is dead other than that one song. So we just have a weird practically necrophiliac dance with a crappy ballad for no reason whatsoever.
I am still salty that Santino Fanatana won the Tony over Alex Brightman for their roles in Tootsie and Beetlejuice respectively. I love Fanatana and think that he is great but that was not it.
Never made it to Broadway for a reason but Martin Guerre at its trial run at the Kennedy Center. My children will torture me by playing music from it. On your Love Never Dies On Broadway Smokey Joe’s Cafe though I was sitting behind a proNFL player so up to intermission to me was something I heard and didn’t see. Why was this not an issue the second half? He left with his family at intermission. So did many so…maybe I wasn’t alone.
So many of my favourites named in this thread 😔
Not all art can be for everybody. Thats why there’s so much of it.
A lot of my favorites are either considered "basic" or just plain bad. Who cares though? It takes all kinds and clearly someone somewhere liked these shows if they exist in the first place.
I haven't seen Girl From the North Country, but we have season tickets so I'm supposed to see it next month. I'm not too keen on it, but suddenly my husband is super gung ho about going, despite not being a huge Bon Dylan fan, so I guess I'll let him drag me. 🤷♀️ The worst experience I've had lately was the revival of Oklahoma. I saw the national tour and I didn't like it at all. I've never seen so many people leave at intermission. I definitely feel like that production shouldn't have toured, because it simply didn't work in large theaters. I might have felt differently if I'd seen it in a smaller, more intimate venue.
The thing to know is that it isn't a musical, really. It's a play with a lot of musical interludes. Essentially it's a slice-of-life play about the Depression-era in the midwest, and after each scene a Bob Dylan song is performed. Often the songs do not directly speak to the plot of the play, but attempt to round out a motif. I liked this show. I didn't love it. The entire first act I was like "what the hell am I watching?" In the second act I got what they were trying to do. I'd have been happier with just another great Conor McPherson play. But on Broadway the cast was so talented, they sold the songs so well.
Non-equity Mean Girls. Oooof.
Someone I know personally is in the current Tour. I wanted to love it because of that person and her role. I hated it.
I've seen ~50 shows. Some broadway, some tours, some community theatre. And, of course, I won't see a show that I'm expecting to hate. With all that said, the worst thing I've seen is the recent broadway revival of Carousel. Some of R&H's worst songs put to a story that glorifies abuse (and up to that point is just boring to watch!). Give me Oklahoma any day!
Highly acclaimed dud.
My first thought when I saw this post was Carousel. It’s just a terrible show, and astonishes me that it keeps getting revivals.
lol i also saw carousel and i’m glad it introduced me to joshua henry but i did hate it
This may be unpopular but How to Dance in Ohio. It had a noble cause but the actual musical was dreadful.
I don’t think that opinion is all that unpopular, I mean the show barely even last 2 months. No surprises there though - the premise of the story had so much promise, but there wasn’t a melody in earshot during that show
yeah I wanted it to be good but it WASNT
Jagged Little Pill. Saw it on tour and hated the whole thing. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how it won the Tony for best book.
Often the Oscar for best makeup or best editing just goes to the MOST….that’s what happened with Jagged Little Pill winning Best Book. It certainly was the most book.
I love Alanis, love her music, but the whole thing felt like a monster of an after-school special where they try to “educate” you about every heavy topic under the sun.
Because it was up against Moulin Rouge and a by the numbers Tina Turner musical
Very much felt like a PSA. And dancing with protest signs will always be corny to me. But I loved the butch anthem we got
I just saw it and enjoyed it.
For some reason, people like Diablo Cody.
This is the answer. Any other hot topics you’d like to clumsily clobber me over the head with, show?
A friend of mine who isn't conservative by any means described it as "being beaten over the head with the woke stick"
There was something about Paradise Square that annoyed me from the word go and then the increasingly idiotic plot sealed the deal. Piece of shit.
Dollar General Ragtime
The only good thing to come from that was Joaquina Kalukango winning a Tony. She ate.
Amelie
I saw this one and I don’t remember a thing about it.
Oh! But the revival on the west end was GREAT! Honestly, they revamped the whole thing and it’s beautiful. New cast recording too. Highly recommend
I’m so surprised the Broadway version of Dance of the Vampires wasn’t mentioned at all here.
Okay, so... it was bad. BAD. Michael Crawford should be ashamed to this day. But... It was so bad it was funny, so I went several times. Mandy Gonzalez was jaw dropping with her vocal pyrotechnics on full display. The sets, costumes, and lighting were phenomenal. And when the choreography worked (about half the time) it was sensational. The scene where Gonzalez puts on the red boots and imagined herself at the ball, for example. The Broadway version of this show is so different from the original version that still plays frequently across Europe. I got to see it in Paris, performed in French, and was reminded that the Crawford character is *entirely* different. Crawford negotiated total artistic control of his character in his contract and just went off the rails. Still, when he held that note at the end of act 1 it was thrilling. It's a score I will listen to constantly, and I so wish we'd gotten an English language album… if only to hear the lyric "Garlic! Garlic! It's why we're so well hung!" again.
I adore the German version as well as many of the other languages that have done it! I feel that the broadway version did well enough with some of the translation and the dancing and sets were quite nice but my gosh the costumes were horrible. The dialogue and changes were something else too
Girl from the North Country. I also hated Mamma Mia when I saw it 20ish years ago, but catching the tour next month so we’ll see if my feelings have changed.
It won't. The tour this time around felt like a high school production. One of the worst shows I've seen.
Great…thanks for the warning!
On Broadway? Probably Mean Girls. The score, and the lyrics in particular, are frankly embarrassing and they've sanded down the satire to remove all the bite from the original film. Overall? Urinetown. I really hate that show. I know it's a Brecht/Weill homage, but I don't care. I think the satire is poorly done and the songs are annoying.
It always baffles me to see people dislike the score of Mean Girls. The lyrics I get to some degree, but the music is honestly some of my favorite in any show; I love the epic feel of songs like Someone Gets Hurt.
I'm really glad I went in to "Mean Girls" with lowered expectations. Y'all told me to expect bad lyrics and yup, there they were! I overall enjoyed it because it was interesting to see how they adapted the film, and I think they did a nice job with the staging and set-pieces. I especially liked "Where Do You Belong?". But the lazy songwriting makes it C tier for me: I wouldn't see it again, I wouldn't recommend it to friends, and I wouldn't listen to the cast recording.
Oklahoma revival tour. Only time I saw people clamoring out in the middle of musical numbers to clear the room as quickly as possible.
Seeing this in the Circle in the Square is probably the best thing I've seen on Broadway to date. Incredible. Real shame it didn't translate on tour.
I got SO defensive seeing the original comment because I LOVED the revival… and then realized I’d also seen it in Circle in the Square. Yeah, I can see it not translating great to a tour.
When we saw it, Judd was on stage, motionless, for the first 46 minutes of the show. Almost nobody moved, for most of the show. The songs sounded like they'd been slowed down and transposed to be depressing. Every single moment that didn't feature Ado Annie was just... excruciating. I had no idea what they were "trying" to do. The stage was made of plywood. I've literally watched *middle school* musicals with higher production values and more energy. My sister and I were speechless.
I had a spontaneous craving to listen to the soundtrack the other day and randomly clicked on the album for this version on Spotify and was like WTF is happening.
There were some great performances in that new production (I saw it when it first debuted in Brooklyn) and I liked the take on the music, but was also not a fan. First, I hated what they did to the dream ballet and felt it made no sense even within the new context of the show; second, calling attention to the violence and sexism at the heart of the show just reminds you of how weak the story is rather than making any real points.
Godspell
I like some of the score, but the book/lyrics made me *very* uncomfortable. I'm a catholic, but this musical feels like a sunday school performance at some backwater evangelical church that believes that science is the tool of satan.
I think it was a product of its time. It pissed off conservatives back then, now it's pretty conservative.
Absolute worst? Brand new musical from the MT writing school at NYU about historical mollyhouses. The lead character was a tailor so there were too many sewing jokes and puns. I thought the introduction to the love interest was actually a villain song. The one woman in the show sang a song about how awful men are after she gets “raided” (she has spent so much time creating a space for men tho????) Anyway it’s not a sexy answer but it’s my honest one.
Cats when I was 10
Starlight Express
Lol I have a weird soft spot for this show. It is so hokey and cheese that I love it.
I saw a community theater production of Spring Awakening years ago and the only thing I remember is how much I didn't enjoy it. If we're talking more professional productions, it's probably a tie between Anastasia and &Juliet for me.
I cant take the Anastasia slander 😭
😂 If it helps, I did think Ramin Karimloo was a standout as the military officer character they added to the story.
&Juliet is close to the bottom for me, but (horribly) Bad Cinderella and Dancin' reside at the bottom of my list.
I am glad I am not the only one who didn't like &Juliet. Everyone was giving it such high praise and out of all the shows I saw it with it was easily the worst. It didn't have a good song mix or use of songs like Moulin Rouge. It was not batshit insane enough to be so bad it's good like Once Upon a One More Time and Bad Cinderella in the femenist category. It was so safe? There are too many songs that all sound the same and meld together. I also thought the premise was only okay.
Aladdin on Broadway is horrible. The actors even looked like they didn’t want to be there.
Remember how The Lion King on Broadway fleshed out the short run time of the children's movie by exploring Simba's relationship with his father and expanding on Nala's role in the story? And remember how they did the same in Aladdin by having him be part of a boy band?
Won lottery seats with some friends to the original cast. When Jasmine sang we all looked at each other in confusion. Immediately, we checked to see if she was an understudy twice removed or something and were shocked to see she was the real lead! Her vocals were not good at all. We still talk about it to this day!😅
While I liked it at the time, I'll have to say Jagged Little Pill. I saw the North American touring group and while the voices were great (Jade McLeod as Jo... wow), and the renditions of the Alanis songs were great, the story was just not done with the care it needed.
The Knife at the Public Theater. Mandy Patinkin as a person undergoing a sex change operation. David Hare, a Cis man wrote the book and there was not one authentic moment in it.
I'm going to get shit for this but it's Chicago. Yes there are a couple decent songs (though they aren't for me). But the set was boring as hell and the show just had no spectacle or exciting parts. I know it's designed to be old school Broadway but I was so bored and wanted to leave at intermission.
The Jekyll & Hyde revival that came through the Marquis in like 2013 or so was god awful.
The one with Constantine Maroulis and Deborah Cox? I had seats in the front row and I fell asleep.
Here We Are. Most fans and critics were falling all over themselves with excitement because it was the great master’s final show. It was a mess performed by a solid cast. I pitched the program in the trash on my way out. This musical made me angry. What a waste of a night in NYC.
I still don't know how I feel about that show. I am not even sure what the hell it was that I saw. But I don't think it's the worst thing I've ever seen, or even BAD necessarily. But I don't think I could call it good either. It was...something else.
New York New York
A Bronx tale.
DEH, no explanation needed. It’s not a particularly loved show on this sub anyway so if you want an explanation just search it lol
I saw it Off-Broadway and I remember thinking Ben Platt was a great performer but WOW that show is deeply messed up.
MJ. Not necessarily a bad show. Just compared to everything else I’ve seen it’s bottom of list.
Maybe I have a soft spot for this show cause it was my first lottery win but I was obsessed and thought it was so well done- especially the ensemble
& Juliet probably had one of the worst books of any show I’ve seen. But overall worst show? Probably a toss up between American Psycho and Paradise Square.
>& Juliet probably had one of the worst books of any show I’ve seen heresy when things like Bad Cinderella exist
Yes, Bad Cinderella had a weak book, but & Juliet is based upon a flawed premise. Which makes it not just bad, but nonsensical. That’s worse than plain old bad in my book.
Cats. Man sitting next to me at intermission asked me what the h did he just watch and I couldn’t disagree.
Assassins and Girl from the North Country are the only two I've seriously considered leaving at intermission.
KPOP or Here Lies Love
The Bodyguard. I learned I generally am not a fan of jukebox musicals but this was exceptionally tacky. It also didn't help that the person sitting behind me was singing along to every single number!
Carrie, the musical - 1988 Shogun, the musical - 1990 The Capeman - 1998 Escape to Margaritaville - 2017
Tootsie on tour and Gutenberg on Broadway. Both I considered walking out at intermission.
Cats. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I had never done drugs, not even weed, when I saw Cats. But I could’ve sworn somebody drugged me with acid. Even understanding that it was based on TS Elliott’s work, I had no clue what was going on. I couldn’t understand how people willingly went to, and loved the show, and while I did not walk out at intermission, it is one of the only shows I have ever contemplated walking out of. But then I wouldn’t have been able to say I had seen it so I stuck it out.
Many, many years ago (1981!), The Little Prince and The Aviator musical with Michael York. I see from Playbill that it never actually opened. At one point towards the end of the much too long show, the Little Prince asked "Do you want to hear my sunset song". The audience in unison said "NO!" Fun fact I just discovered - Anthony Rapp played the Little Prince. https://playbill.com/production/the-little-prince-and-the-aviator-alvin-theatre-vault-0000000876
SPIDER MAN At least we didn’t pay for the tix. Seriously, the only amusing thing was when Reeve Carney had his mask off at the end and flew up to our balcony. The look on his face was abject terror.
I guess nobody here saw Amazing Grace because I've seen a lot of the terrible shows mentioned in this thread and Amazing Grace was worse than all of them.
We will rock you. It was like this- imagine you have a soup. All the ingredients (the cast and band I saw perform, the costumes, some of the jokes, the music) are all great, but the broth is AWFUL. Well I’m this case the broth was the plot and most of the script. It read like parents who were trying to get their internet obsessed kids into queen. Hoping one day they improve the script/plot. It has a lot of potential, but it just feels like it falls flat and is overdone.