Chapter 1: From Page to Stage

Out for Blood: The Story of Carrie the Musical

The episode introduces the podcast Out for Blood, which chronicles the history of Stephen King's Carrie musical from its literary origins to its infamous Broadway flop and eventual cult revival. Hosts Holly Morgan and Chris Adams explore the show's

Key takeaways

• Stephen King originally discarded his first four pages of Carrie before his wife Tabitha King encouraged him to continue the novel.
• Lyricist Dean Pitchford, composer Michael Gore, and screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen spent roughly three years developing Act One of the musical as a part-time project.

Main topics

• Origins of Stephen King's Carrie novel
• Development and writing team behind the musical

Notable quotes

"It's been called Broadway's greatest flop. It closed early, losing $8 million in just two weeks."

Conclusion

The episode successfully establishes the podcast's investigative tone while providing a rich

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo. And you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit bpm.fm to discover more. Speaker 4 (0:15) There he goes. Oh god. Oh my Speaker 2 (0:17) god, your whole life is in here. Do you know where it is? Speaker 4 (0:22) There's the playbill. Oh my god! DVD, it's not on DVD is it? Speaker 2 (0:26) No, it certainly is not. Dream girls! Oh here Speaker 4 (0:30) we go, videotaped. Oh Speaker 2 (0:33) my god! It exists. We didn't even bother to rewind it. Speaker 4 (0:39) We must have just stopped halfway. Speaker 2 (0:41) Got what we came for. You Speaker 4 (0:43) ready for this? I Speaker 2 (0:44) think so. Oh my god, what if it doesn't work? It better still Speaker 4 (0:46) work. I Speaker 2 (0:47) get stuck! Speaker 4 (0:49) This is like gold dust. Speaker 1 (0:55) Lindsay! Speaker 4 (0:56) Oh Speaker 1 (0:57) my god! Speaker 2 (1:02) Oh I I could literally watch this any day I want on YouTube now. It's something about watching it on the video, isn't Speaker 1 (1:12) it? Speaker 4 (1:13) It's just looking at it too, like, copies and copies and copies. Yeah. Blurry. Speaker 1 (1:20) Let's do it. I remember the first time we ever watched it. She knows. Speaker 1 (1:26) I'm so sweet. Speaker 2 (1:39) Chapter 1. From Page to Stage. Speaker 4 (1:58) Welcome to Out for Blood, a new unofficial podcast taking a deep dive into Carrie, the musical. I'm Chris. And I'm Holly. It's been called Broadway's greatest flop. It closed early, losing $8 million in just two weeks. Speaker 2 (2:11) And sure, on the strength of the source material, many might be tempted to say I told you so. It is, after all, the unlikely tale of a killer telekinetic teen. Speaker 4 (2:20) This murderous musical, based on a Stephen King novel, was originally produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and written by the team behind the movie Fame. You Speaker 2 (2:29) know, just a classic combo. You've got Peaches and Cream, Sugar and Spice, the Royal Shakespeare Company. the creators of Fame. A high school horror in Speaker 4 (2:37) which all but one of the characters is dead by the final curtain, with reviews as shocking as the material. Speaker 1 (2:44) Stephen King's scary novel and movie Carrie. Pat Collins is here now with a review to tell us if this show's going to scare us right out of our $50 seats. What about it, Pat? Well, Speaker 7 (2:52) Jen Speaker 1 (2:52) and Van, Stephen King's horror movie has been turned into a horror of a Broadway musical. The only thing terrifying about Carrie is that there's a second act. Speaker 4 (3:03) But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We've got plenty of time to talk about those killer reviews. We Speaker 2 (3:07) will be taking you through the epic journey that is the story of Carrie, from the birth of an idea and Carrie's earliest workshop outing to the first tentative steps in the beating heart of literary England, plus a full autopsy of the infamous Broadway run. However... As you'll discover, with this remarkable show, there is always life after death, and we'll be covering all the reasons why this show returned in triumph from the musical theatre grave. Speaker 4 (3:32) So, what do people need to know before we set sail on the good ship Carrie? Speaker 2 (3:35) Right. So the show first opened and promptly closed in 1988. But the stunned reaction of critics and audience members made Carrie instantly legendary. There was even a book about short-lived musicals called Not Since Carrie, which cemented its position in theatre history as the Queen of Flops. There was never an official recording made of the show, but we can still get a sense of the madness through bootleg videotapes. Speaker 4 (3:58) And those videos gave people a peek at how wonderfully weird the show looked and sounded, and created a whole host of urban legends around the show, which kept the myth of Carrie alive over decades. Not Speaker 2 (4:08) least because, until recently, it was the most expensive Broadway flop ever, a record unbroken until the infamous Spider-Man musical over 20 years later. Speaker 4 (4:17) That's a Speaker 2 (4:17) whole other story. Speaker 4 (4:18) Yes, Speaker 2 (4:18) let's not get bogged down with Turn Off the Dark. Speaker 4 (4:21) But now, after being buried for all those years, Carrie is having a real comeback. Suddenly, it's one of the most performed shows in American high schools, and there's even been an episode of Riverdale based on it. Speaker 2 (4:32) Yes, Netflix algorithm, two early millennials are now watching Riverdale. What of it? Speaker 4 (4:37) So, how did this horror show of a musical come to be? How was it born? Why did it die? And how was it resurrected so triumphantly? And can all those myths and legends, bizarre rumours and stories, really be true? Speaker 2 (4:50) Was it really so bad that the audience booed when the cast took a bow? Did Speaker 4 (4:54) one Speaker 2 (4:54) of the lead Speaker 4 (4:54) actors nearly get decapitated on opening night? Speaker 2 (4:57) Did the director really misunderstand the brief to make the show more like Grease, as in, you know, Danny and Sandy, and instead make it more like Grease, as in, you know, tragedy and temples? And so he dressed the cast in togas. So over Speaker 1 (5:16) the next few weeks, we're going to Speaker 2 (5:17) dig deep. Too deep, maybe? Never too deep. We're going to open the archives, dust off our playbills and speak to the people who were really there to find out the truth. We will meet original cast and crew members, some famous fans, and we've even tracked down audience members who still remember their fateful trip to the theatre back in summer 1988, as well as the people involved in bringing Carrie back to life. Speaker 4 (5:37) It's been an adventure, and along the way we'll delve into the show's score, remember some key scenes, and look at some of the frankly mystifying design choices, and ask why Carrie's story has lived on all these years. Speaker 2 (5:50) So... If you want to discover how the world's most prestigious Shakespearean theatre company ended up dressing someone in a red unitard while they sang a song about murdering a pig to the guy who played Leroy in Fame, then this is the podcast for you. Speaker 4 (6:02) Yep, watch out, cereal. Stand Speaker 2 (6:04) back, this American life. Speaker 4 (6:05) And as for Holly and I, we discovered Carrie the Musical when we acquired a dusty VHS tape back in the Dark Ages, sometime in the early 2000s. Speaker 2 (6:13) Now, a VHS to all the Riverdale fans who've joined us was... See, Speaker 4 (6:19) I was a big Stephen King fan as a teenager. I read loads of his novels and in particular, I loved Carrie. And I remember I had a poster for the film on my wall. It said, if you have a taste for terror, take Carrie to the party. Now, they'd obviously changed the word prom for party because I guess in the 70s, British people didn't know what a prom was. Speaker 2 (6:36) Now, a party to all of those who've been quarantining was... I genuinely can't remember. Anyway, as we'll find out, this is not the last time we'll hear about a British-American lost-in-translation scenario in this series. Oh, absolutely not. Speaker 4 (6:49) Once I got to university, I found my tribe in the theatre societies and we ended up doing shows together, didn't we? Speaker 2 (6:55) Yes, we did Bat Boy at the Edinburgh Festival. I Speaker 4 (6:58) directed it. Speaker 2 (6:59) I was in it. I was one of the leads, actually. pattern that was not to be repeated in my professional performing career. Now, if a musical about a girl whose first period triggers extrasensory powers sounds a bit out there, I present you with the classic tale of a misunderstood half-bat, half-boy who falls in love with his half-sister. I mean, Speaker 4 (7:17) unsubscribe now if you're not here for this weird musicals chat. Yeah, Speaker 2 (7:19) off you go. So Chris and I bonded over our love of stupid musical theatre, and you told me about Carrie, sort of like a jazz hands Mr Miyagi. Speaker 4 (7:27) I mean, I can't help but notice that you're positioning me as much older than you here. Yeah, that's quite intentional. Okay, Speaker 2 (7:32) right. This was before YouTube, if you can believe that we, I mean, especially I, am that old. You see, there was never an official cast recording of the musical. But Speaker 4 (7:41) I discovered this underground world of Carrie bootleg video trading. I naively sent off some money in the mail, maybe a cheque from my chequebook. A Speaker 2 (7:50) chequebook. Do you remember those? And then remarkably... the VHS actually turned up. Speaker 4 (7:55) And the rest is history. An obsession was born. Speaker 2 (7:58) I've never forgotten the thrill of seeing that weird, weird show for the first time. And rediscovering that dusty videocassette years later, with nothing else to do in the midst of a global pandemic, Chris and I thought, why not delve deep into the history of this mad musical? Exactly. And Speaker 4 (8:14) here we are. Speaker 2 (8:15) Holly, shall we tell the story of Carrie? I don't see why not. Let's do it. Speaker 4 (8:30) Our story begins in the early 1970s with a young high school teacher by the name of Stephen King, now one of literature's most well-known names. At the time, he was living with his wife, Tabitha, in a trailer, barely making ends meet and desperately submitting novels and short stories to publishers. Speaker 3 (8:45) I've been writing about Stephen King off and on probably for at least 20 years. Speaker 2 (8:52) Bev Vincent has published several books about Stephen and his work, and in 2018 co-edited the horror anthology Flight or Fright with the great man himself. He told us about the early days of Stephen's writing career. Speaker 3 (9:04) His wife was working in a donut shop, and one of the things he did to supplement their income was he wrote short stories. And he had a pretty successful run of selling these stories to the men's magazines for about $200 each. which in modern dollars, that's almost $2,000. And so, you know, if a kid got sick and needed medicine, he'd end up selling a short story and that would help, you know, tide them over. Speaker 4 (9:32) Originally, he saw Carrie as a quick story he could write and sell, earn some extra cash and pay a few bills. Speaker 3 (9:39) But as he started working on it, he realized this thing needs a longer buildup. It needs a bigger burn into the story. Speaker 3 (9:48) He didn't think, A, that he had the knowledge of what teenage girls experienced at that point to really do it justice, and B, he didn't think he had the time to devote to a novel, given that he'd already had two previously rejected ones. So he said, you know, I spend several months on this only for it not to raise any income. So he didn't think it was going to work. So after he had four or five pages of the story written, he decided, nah, I just can't do this. And he threw the pages away. Speaker 3 (10:18) Famously, his wife, Tabitha King, found the pages, read them, and encouraged him to continue on with the story. And when he complained that he didn't think he knew enough about the teenage girl's mentality to do the story justice, she said that she would help him with that. Speaker 2 (10:36) The novel focuses on Carrie White, a teenage misfit, bullied by her peers and abused by her ultra-religious mother, Margaret. The Speaker 4 (10:44) inspiration for the character and her plight came about after he witnessed one of