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[0:58] Holly Morgan: Welcome back to Out for Blood. We're reassessing Broadway's uber-turkey, Carrie the Musical. My name is Holly. And I'm Chris.

[1:06] Chris Adams: You may remember, Carrie closed down after just two weeks of performances, breaking records as Broadway's most expensive flop to date, with $8 million down the crapper.

[1:16] Holly Morgan: Well, that's a succinct way of saying it. But with an epic standing ovation on closing night, and reports of its astonishingly madcap visuals and songs sweeping around theatrical communities, it had become instantly legendary.

[1:30] Chris Adams: If you hadn't seen Carrie, you simply weren't part of that year's hottest gossip topic on Broadway.

[1:35] Holly Morgan: Within weeks of the show closing, a small advert appeared in the back pages of Theatre Week magazine.

[1:42] Chris Adams: "Are you a friend of Carrie?" it asked in bold black and red type, followed by a postal address in New York's West Village, the city's gay district.

[1:50] Holly Morgan: Looking on Google, it's a fairly anonymous looking apartment building now, sandwiched between a Steiner bookshop and a Mormon church.

[1:57] Chris Adams: We have no idea what happened if you did indeed contact this mysterious fan club address. Were you added to some kind of special list? Did you get a free unitard in the mail?

[2:06] Holly Morgan: If anyone has got any leads, please do get in touch.

[2:09] Chris Adams: I have a theory.

[2:09] Holly Morgan: Go on.

[2:10] Chris Adams: So I think the Friends of Carrie Club was the first Carrie underground bootleg trading community.

[2:16] Holly Morgan: Ah, so you see there never was an official cast album made of the original production of Carrie.

[2:21] Chris Adams: A recording studio had been booked in June 1988, a few weeks after the show opened, but with the cast quickly scattered by the closure, and nobody to put up the funds, this very unique show was never officially saved for posterity.

[2:35] Holly Morgan: The window of opportunity closed quickly.

[2:37] Chris Adams: It was never documented. We never made an album. We should have made an album. That was crazy that we never did that because we were all still here. But I guess, you know, there was so much going on and people didn't have the money. The producer had run off.

[2:53] Holly Morgan: There may have been no authorised recording, but there are certainly plenty of unauthorised ones.

[2:58] Chris Adams: And without those, we probably wouldn't be here discussing the show.

[3:02] Holly Morgan: Then, as now, there was a small but dedicated community of theatre fanatics who would illicitly record new Broadway shows, trading them amongst themselves in secretive groups.

[3:12] Chris Adams: Nowadays, a quick YouTube search using the right keywords brings up a plethora of decent quality videos of major new musicals, filmed discreetly on audience members' phones and distributed to the world in seconds.

[3:22] Holly Morgan: Not that we would encourage such behaviour.

[3:24] Chris Adams: Of course not.

[3:25] Holly Morgan: But back in the late 80s, though, it wasn't quite as simple.

[3:28] Chris Adams: Camcorders and tape recorders were bulky and noisy and needed regular tape and battery changes.

[3:33] Holly Morgan: They had to be disguised in increasingly creative ways.

[3:37] Chris Adams: There are stories on internet message boards about avid bootleg traders in the 80s booking out entire sections of Broadway theatres and surrounding themselves with friends to hide their oversized recording equipment from prowling ushers.

[3:49] Holly Morgan: Chris and I have been known to go to similar lengths to smuggle in handbag booze.

[3:52] Chris Adams: Don't tell them the secrets.

[3:54] Holly Morgan: And even if someone did successfully capture the show between the heads of other audience members without detection, the only way to distribute these recordings was on old-fashioned video or audio cassette tapes sent by mail.

[4:05] Chris Adams: With real stamps.

[4:07] Holly Morgan: Friend of Carrie, Geoffrey McCann, remembers the exchanges.

[4:10] Geoffrey McCann: Oh, you had to struggle, like, oh, I want the Barbara Cook version. Oh, I have a different take of that night. Like, oh, yeah, like it was just the craziest thing. And praying that the tapes don't disintegrate.

[4:21] Holly Morgan: These recordings still survive. Many are hard to watch or listen to, with the sound and visuals degrading with each new generation of copies made over the years.

[4:29] Chris Adams: But they are a fascinating record of a legendary show continually in flux.

[4:34] Holly Morgan: The cast members' claims that they never performed the show twice is backed up in the recordings, which feature all sorts of baffling quirks and tweaks at performances just days apart.

[4:43] Chris Adams: It's also exciting to be able to hear how the audience reacted to some of the show's more bizarre sights and sounds.

[4:49] Holly Morgan: And, even if an official cast recording had been made, it would have been in a studio, without the live audience, and we'd never get a sense of the increasingly electric reaction from the crowds as the run went on, and more and more people came along to see if the show really was as crazy as they'd heard.

[5:03] Chris Adams: The most well-known audio recordings of the show are soundboard tapes from the closing nights in both Stratford and on Broadway.

[5:10] Holly Morgan: Rumoured to have been rescued by members of the crew, these recordings are live feeds of what's happening on stage, usually played backstage so that the crew and actors in their dressing rooms can keep track of the show.

[5:21] Chris Adams: The Broadway Closing Night audio is particularly clear, and various fans have tried remastering the sound quality.

[5:27] Holly Morgan: In fact, there was recently an online campaign to have the Broadway Closing Night recording saved in the National Recording Registry as a record of national importance.

[5:35] Chris Adams: Where do I sign?

[5:37] Holly Morgan: There are also plenty of other recordings made by audience members themselves. Some are much clearer than others.

[5:42] Chris Adams: You can imagine these fans dotted around the auditorium, clicking on their tape recorders and hiding them inside pockets and bags as the show began.

[5:49] Holly Morgan: There's also a pretty clear recording of the 1984 workshop of Act One, so if you're particularly obsessed, like us, you can hear how the show changed even before it made it to the stage.

[5:56] Chris Adams: The cast didn't even know it existed until recently.

[6:02] Julie Cohen: I didn't know there was a recording of Carrie, Laura, did you know there was a recording of that one?

[6:10] Laura Dean: I actually did know, and I found it once on the internet, and I think I have it on my computer, but honestly, I haven't listened to it.

[6:17] Annie Golden: And I thought to myself, I should listen to it and re-familiarize myself with the show. But that's where I got the bootleg copy from, you know, like a fan.

[6:25] Julie Cohen: Yeah, you do these things, and then, you know, they go into the ether, even in '85 when we did it, or '85 when we did it.

[6:33] Laura Dean: But they go into the ether, and then somebody surfaced with it and said, wait, you haven't heard it? Oh, I've had it for years.

[6:41] Annie Golden: But Carrie really lived on through illegal video recordings of the show. And of course, that's how we and many other fans first discovered it.

[6:48] Julie Cohen: And before YouTube, the only way to experience these was on good old-fashioned VHS tapes.

[6:53] Laura Dean: Copies were sent around the world by eager traders and sellers, who saw the opportunity to make a quick buck from musical theatre aficionados, desperate to see what all the fuss was about.

[7:02] Chris Adams: By December 1988, just a few weeks after the show closed, video bootlegs were apparently circulating for $65 and up.

[7:10] Holly Morgan: And by the mid-90s, some fans claimed to have seen videos of the show for sale for hundreds of dollars.

[7:15] Chris Adams: How much did you pay?

[7:16] Holly Morgan: I mean, what are student loans for?

[7:19] Chris Adams: Later, as the internet grew more and more accessible, forums and sites began to appear, where fans would submit the rare photos and videos they had collected.

[7:24] Holly Morgan: Robbie Rizel created one of the first online presences for Carrie collectors.

[7:32] Robbie Rizel: I grew up loving two things, Betty Buckley, musical theatre, and the novel Carrie. And when I discovered that both of those things came together in this musical form, I went online to find out anything about it.

[7:41] Robbie Rizel: But of course, nothing existed at that time.

[7:53] Robbie Rizel: Truly, going online was like inserting an AOL diskette and getting 10 free hours. So there really wasn't anything.

[8:04] Robbie Rizel: So I created a website with images that I found of the show.

[8:13] Robbie Rizel: I went to the local library to hand-type the reviews from Stratford and from New York, and put them online.

[8:23] Chris Adams: Robbie's site rapidly expanded beyond text and photos to include the bootleg video and audio recordings that had been made of the original performances.

[8:32] Robbie Rizel: The first time I got a hold of any kind of bootleg for the show, it was a double audio cassette of the closing night soundboard. And you know, they're all very different. But they came in the mail to me.

[8:44] Robbie Rizel: There was a guy in the bootleg community who thought that I should have this. And so he sent that along to me with a playbill from the show, and I was mesmerized.

[9:05] Robbie Rizel: People wanted to help bring Carrie online and have this legendary show that so few people had seen or heard to a bigger crowd.

[9:19] Robbie Rizel: It truly was when the internet was just sort of coming of age. The website was built in, I think, GeoCities at first, before we had a URL of our own.

[9:31] Chris Adams: As more and more people got online, the site rapidly grew in popularity.

[9:36] Robbie Rizel: It even featured in an article in Entertainment Weekly magazine.

[9:39] Robbie Rizel: I remember it vividly because I was an Entertainment Weekly subscriber, and I did not know this was happening.

[9:45] Robbie Rizel: I opened it up, and there it was. The analytics of the website just flew.

[9:51] Chris Adams: It just went sky high.

[9:53] Robbie Rizel: It's a phenomenon that can't truly be explained, but I definitely got to live through it in its heyday.

[10:00] Holly Morgan: Thanks to sites like Robbie's, bootleg recordings, previously exchanging for cold, hard cash, were now free to view around the world at the click of a mouse.

[10:09] Chris Adams: Including here in merry old England, where us pioneering Brits had also discovered the World Wide Web.

[10:15] Craig Hepworth: I used to go to the Internet Cafe, and I started researching it on the Internet Cafe.

[10:20] Craig Hepworth: There were a couple of websites devoted to Carrie, and there was a guide that I could get an audio from.

[10:28] Craig Hepworth: I think it was the Broadway soundboard audio, so I got that first, and I fell in love with it.

[10:39] Craig Hepworth: It was such a strange mash-up of a show, but there was something that was so unique and interesting about it.

[10:45] Craig Hepworth: I mean, the flaws of the show were very obvious, but I think its strengths were also equally obvious. And I just became really obsessed with this show, this strange show.

[10:56] Craig Hepworth: So I kind of went on this crazy mission. I just wanted to know everything I could about Carrie.

[11:00] Holly Morgan: Perhaps the most well-known video of Carrie is a full show recording from the 3rd March 1988 in Stratford, filmed from a fixed position at the back of the auditorium.

[11:10] Chris Adams: It wasn't made by an audience member, but by the RSC, who always make a simple recording of their shows for the archives.

[11:16] Holly Morgan: It's the only video of the entire show, and until the mid-90s, the only way to see it was to book an actual real-life appointment to attend a screening room at the RSC offices in Stratford-upon-Avon.

[11:28] Chris Adams: But then, mysteriously, the video of the full show popped up in the online bootleg communities.

[11:34] Craig Hepworth: So I phoned them and I said, "Do you have a copy of Carrie?" And they were like, "Oh, we've not heard anybody ask to come and see that one ever."

[11:40] Craig Hepworth: I was like, "Wow, that's crazy." So I booked to go down and view the show with a couple of friends.

[11:48] Craig Hepworth: And I remember we got there, we signed in, and they took us into a room, and they rolled in this old TV, you know, with the video recorder. This was in the 90s, late 90s, I think.

[11:58] Craig Hepworth: Anyway, after we'd watched it, well, first of all, I remember watching it and thinking, "My God, this is not what I expected it to look like." And then just being thrilled and fascinated by this show as well.

[12:10] Craig Hepworth: I couldn't believe this next bit. Anyway, I bought a blank videotape with me. And I decided if I got the opportunity, I was going to leave with the Carrie tape and leave them with the blank tape.

[12:24] Craig Hepworth: And I did. I switched the tapes and I ran through Stratford-upon-Avon, panicking that they were going to be chasing us down the road.

[12:33] Craig Hepworth: And then I got home and I copied Carrie and then I sent them the copy back, which I know is very bad, but I really wanted to keep hold of the original and it was just sat there.

[12:44] Craig Hepworth: So I still have the original Carrie video and I ended up sending it out, and especially to people who had like the Carrie fan sites and stuff like that, just to, so the Carrie fans could finally see this show in full.

[13:00] Craig Hepworth: I didn't realize the video would kind of go on to be such a huge deal. But yeah, I still have the master here. Simple video. It didn't have a case or anything. It just has Carrie 1988 written on the side.

[13:13] Holly Morgan: But yeah, that's how I got hold of Carrie.

[13:17] Chris Adams: The holy grail.

[13:18] Holly Morgan: He's like some sort of Robin Hood bootleg thief.

[13:21] Chris Adams: There are some other videos from Stratford filmed in the rehearsal studio and of the cast taking part in the tech rehearsals. And many of these do seem quite official.

[13:26] Holly Morgan: We know the RSC was obviously hoping for a big hit with Carrie. So it seems they were keen to document the creative process.

[13:34] Chris Adams: Thank you, 80s RSC marketing team.

[13:37] Holly Morgan: Cast and crew members also recall that other early performances in Stratford were filmed, but no other footage of the actual show on stage during the UK run has surfaced.

[13:46] Chris Adams: We also know a film of the show was sent to Betty Buckley when the writers were courting her to take over from Barbara Cook. So who knows? Somewhere there may well be a treasure trove of VHS tapes of the Stratford Carrie in an office somewhere.

[13:57] Holly Morgan: But what about the Broadway production? Well, some individual scenes were performed.

[14:01] Jeremy Studd: Considering the scathing reception from the TV news shows after opening night, the producers maybe came to regret that decision. But this footage, known as the B-Roll or the Press Reel, is the only professionally made performance footage of the original Carrie that exists. As the final performance was announced with just a couple of days' notice, and realizing there was no full video of the final version of the show, ensemble member Scott Wise decided he couldn't miss the opportunity to capture it for posterity. Deputy Stage Manager Jeremy Studd called the cues for every performance from high up at the back of the theatre, above the heads of the audience. Once the cast had been informed of the show's imminent closure, he remembers Scott coming to have a word.

He came to me and he said he had one of those old video camcorders, and he said, do you mind if I film the show? And I said, well, from where? And he said, well, up where you are, because you've got the best view of the show. And I was on the gantry where the follow spot operators were, and I was calling the show from in the middle of them. Jeremy had a word with the follow spot operators, who, being highly unionized, were sticklers for the rules. We checked with the spot guys, they didn't seem to mind too much. I think a few dollars exchanged hands or whatever. And so Scott placed the camera between my feet and changed the film, I changed the card at the interval, and that is why you have that footage which is shown on YouTube.

So it's thanks to Scott and Jeremy that we have any live footage from Broadway at all. But due to the limitation of 80s camcorder batteries, all we have is the first half; the footage cuts off during the intermission. Basically, all he's got is the audience for half an hour, and then the first half of the show. So, we'll never see that Broadway blood-soaking finale. Nobody has ever provided evidence of seeing a full film of the New York edition of the show, although rumors persist that an audience-filmed bootleg exists in the hands of one prominent collector. Whether a full recording of the infamous Broadway production will ever emerge, only time will tell. You may be able to get high-definition phone videos of any musical going these days, but if you ask me, those blurry, shaky 80s camcorder and tape recordings of the original Carrie add to its charm and its mystique.

And the demand for those rare recordings, not to mention the thrill for fans receiving them, was definitely a major part of what kept the legend of the show alive. They also inspired a new generation of creatives and composers.

[16:28] Joe Iconis: Hi, I'm Joe Iconis. I'm a musical theatre writer and performer. I wrote Be More Chill and Broadway Here I Come and a whole bunch of other stuff. As well as being a very nice and very handsome Tony-nominated writer, Joe has been a self-confessed Carrie superfan from a young age. You know, I don't even know why. It's one of those things where Carrie kind of came into my life at a very young age, and it's kind of never left. I was close to the city. Without living in the city, I was lucky enough to see a lot of theatre. And how I educated myself as a young person was just reading all I could get my hands on about theatre and about how theatre was made. And so I remember I was at Barnes & Noble.

I would just go and I would look in the theatre section constantly, and I remember I saw Ken Mandelbaum's book Not Since Carrie. Perhaps the biggest thing to shift Carrie's failure into the mainstream was Ken Mandelbaum's book on flop musicals released in 1992, titled Not Since Carrie. The Bible. Yes. It covers hundreds of flops, but dedicates its opening and closing chapters to Carrie, essentially saying that no other Broadway flop had or ever would compare to the show. I was young enough that I was both immediately intrigued and immediately terrified by the cover image of, you know, that bizarre production shot of Lindsay Haitley, like, smiling covered in blood. And it was like, it truly was this thing of like, is that, is that blood?

The book's cover has a shot of Lindsay Haitley as Carrie, dripping with blood, smiling for the photographer between takes at a publicity shoot. And I just started reading about it and, you know, sort of imagining what it could be. And I just became obsessed with the show, with the musical. And, you know, in like my, in the early days of the Internet, I, you know, like 12-year-old Joe was like constantly, you know, Internet sleuthing, trying to find whatever information I could get my hands on about Carrie the musical, of which there was not a lot at that time. You know, it really felt like, it's like not only this musical that was like notorious because of, you know, its subject matter and because of what happened to it on, you know, on Broadway, but there just wasn't a lot about it in the way that there, there was about other sort of similarly large-scale, you know, unappreciated musicals.

I hate the F word, the flop word, you know, so I try to think of other words. This is now a Joe Iconis podcast, by the way. Now? This story gets too good not to include in full. Signing up on all the online theatre forums, he soon encountered nefarious types offering the various Carrie bootlegs for sale. For Joe, it was hard to resist.

[19:22] Joe Iconis: When I was like around 12, and so I then became like obsessed with, you know, trading bootlegs and VHSs and audios and all those things, and my number one thing was always Carrie. It's like, oh my gosh, you know, how do I get my hands on Carrie stuff? And at the start of that, it's like there wasn't Carrie stuff sort of floating around, and the like, the holy grail was like a video of Carrie, but I was like, I'll take anything. And then I finally found the audio, which is, I think, I mean, I think it's like the most well-known audio of like the final Broadway performance, the soundboard, you know, audio. And so I remember that I got it, and I think I paid for it. I think that it was like a person who was like not interested in trading.

They were like, I will sell you this Carrie audio for, you know, it was probably $100. It was like, I remember this, it was like expensive. A tidy sum for a 12-year-old. And I remember like both like trying to save money and also like having to ask my mom for money and like, and having to lie about it in the way that like when I watch movies and I see like, you know, high school kids lie about like money for drugs or something or like money for booze. I was literally like a middle school kid lying about money for my Carrie audio bootleg, you know. But I got it, I did it, and it, you know, I put cash in the mail and I got the cassette tapes back. And I remember being in my bedroom and my uncle Walter had come over for dinner that night. And I was always, I have like a big Italian family and like we're always sort of like always around each other. At the family dinner, Joe had his mind on just one thing.

[21:04] Joe Iconis: And I remember that night I was like holed up in my bedroom listening to Carrie. And I would like go downstairs and, you know, let myself be like kissed by, you know, aunts and uncles. And I would have like a few bites of pasta and then run back upstairs and like listen to two more songs, back downstairs, have some chicken, back upstairs, listen to a few more songs. I was just so excited and could not believe that I was finally getting to listen to this thing that I had read so much about and had like fantasized about for years. Was he impressed? I truly remember being like, oh my gosh, this isn't what I thought it was going to be at all. And then it immediately goes into the creepy like film story, like, you know, that opening.

That whole thing. And it was so like, oh my God, this is exactly what I hoped it would be. This is like creepy and it doesn't sound like musical theater. And this is amazing. So, yeah, I was just like totally blown away. I've had a lot of great things happen to me. But the absolute maddening joy of receiving the video cassette of Act One of Carrie on Broadway was like, there's just no other feeling. It'll never be tapped. Like any addict, Joe had to take things a step further.

[22:17] Joe Iconis: And I did, you know, what any like enterprising young theater fan would do. I used that video as leverage to get other videos. And so I was like, I got this video. So, you know, I'm trying to like, you know, trade and do my whole thing. And so I was very like public. I was very brazen and public online about being like, I have this video of Carrie. How cool is that? And also, what can you, you know, what can you give me for it? Not fully understanding the Internet. And so I'm in, I was probably, you know, a freshman in high school at this point. Things took a surprising and terrifying turn.

[23:47] Joe Iconis: Literally got a call one day from Betty Buckley's attorney. Like at my parents' house. And the lawyer literally is like, hi, this is Betty Buckley's lawyer. Am I speaking to Joseph Iconis? And he's like, yeah. And he's like, so you've got this illegal videotape. I'm going to need you to send me every copy you have or we'll be pressing charges. And I was like, okay, okay, fine. It was the most like frightening thing. And also it was like the first like, oh, the Internet's real. Like this isn't a joke. You know, like Betty Buckley will sue you if you have this videotape. And Betty Buckley can find me on suburban Long Island. So I, of course I made, of course I made like, you know, a copy of the tape and then sent that to the lawyer and then kept my own copy. Can you imagine? That's terrifying.

[24:42] Joe Iconis: And it's something I've never, I have not yet actually told Betty that story. And I've spent so much time, like truly, we've like hung out and like she knows my family. And like it's, but there's just never been a time where it's like, this is such a funny story because there's still part of me that's like, I don't want Ms. Buckley to be angry at me for trading this videotape, even though Nash would be so cool with it. Like she's super down with bootlegs these days. But yeah, it was so terrifying. How did Joe end up working with his icon?

[25:19] Joe Iconis: Betty Buckley, truly out of the blue a few years ago, she messaged me on Facebook. Like out of the blue. And she was like, oh, I really like, I like your stuff. I like your stuff a lot. I just wanted you to know. And, you know, maybe one day we'll get to work together. And it was the most like, no, this isn't this can't possibly be happening. And it was so terrifying. And I truly had this moment of like, I can't I can't not I can't not, you know, not work with Betty Buckley. Betty came to rehearse at Joe's apartment. He had to take a step back to fully appreciate the surreal scene.

[25:59] Joe Iconis: And I like one of the few I don't have any of my own show posters on the wall. But the one literally the one show poster that I have on my wall is Carrie framed. And it's like Betty Buckley. And I've had it since I was in high school. And it's like Betty Buckley is singing the song I wrote just for her. And in the song, she was kind of a violent woman. And the Carrie poster is framed on the wall. It was all just too much for me. So that was that was how Margaret White entered my life.

[26:29] Joe Iconis: Some songs from Carrie lived on in other recordings. Betty Buckley and Lindsay Haitley both recorded tracks on their own studio albums. In 1993, Betty released When There's No One on her album, Children Will Listen. And the following year, Lindsay sang Carrie on her CD, Sooner or Later. In 1996, Betty staged an AIDS fundraising concert at Carnegie Hall. And to the delight of fans, invited Lindsay on stage to perform the title track and their harrowing duet, And Eve Was Weak. In interviews, Lindsay has described the concert as a moment of closure, giving her the chance to return to New York and sing those iconic songs with Betty one more time. In 1999, Broadway star Alice Ripley released an album of duets called Unsuspecting Hearts.

[26:56] Alice Ripley: I made two albums with my co-star, Emily Skinner from Sideshow. And the second one is called Unsuspecting Hearts. And that's a song from Carrie. And that was the first time I ever really heard music from Carrie. Of course we have to sing a duet from Carrie. Of course we have to sing Carrie. Because, you know, I do have a strong streak of wanting to give people what they want as much as I can. And I know people want to hear that music. This was back then in the 90s that we did that album. Alice would go on to star as Margaret in the 2016 Seattle production of Carrie and we'll be hearing from her about that experience in the coming weeks.

[27:47] Holly Morgan: We'll be back after this quick break.

[27:55] David Cerda: I wrote Scary in, jeez, 1998? And it was the first musical I'd ever written. And it was kind of a no-brainer because Scary the Musical is a tribute more to the film Carrie than anything else. David Cerda's Scary the Musical, a drag parody, was so popular it's been staged three times. When we first ran Carrie, it ran 18 months late night in Chicago. It was a huge hit. It got great review in the Chicago Tribune. And we did it again and tried to make it bigger. We had a little more money and we realized it was a great production. But it's fun. It's better low budget. And so then I did another version back sort of closer to the roots of the original production.

[28:03] David Cerda: Any for a gay teen, it really resonated for me. And I went to school exactly at that time in the late 70s. And so it was so spot on the way the girls were in high school. You know, I don't know they were that cruel, but probably if they had access to pig blood, I would have had some thrown on me. You know, drag queens have mined plenty of material from the more over-the-top aspects of the Carrie story. I know there's been other there have been there are scary the musical Carrie parodies by little theatre companies throughout the United States. I don't know if they've done them in the UK. But if you look, there's like a very Carrie Christmas, there's Carrie this Carrie that people love Carrie and like sitcoms always make reference to it.

[29:12] David Cerda: Are we likely to see scary the musical again anytime soon? I got a cease and desist finally when we did Carrie for the third time, which was about five, six years ago. And I think people were interested in it. And I think somebody maybe notified Rodgers and Hammerstein who owned the rights to it about it and asked or something. I don't know.

[29:38] David Cerda: I saw the real off-Broadway revival in 2012. And the structure felt familiar. Once I saw the revival, I realized why they I got the cease and desist. It's almost scene for scene, like the one I wrote 20 years ago. Because it's the film, you know, and it's all the scenes and all the songs are motivated by the same kinds of songs. We have a song about, you know, Eve was weak and just, you know, the song when they're killing the pig, a song about taking Carrie to the prom. It's everything. It's like almost the same except they take it seriously. I just I don't know that a straight adaptation works on the stage. For me, I don't see any way else of doing a parody of Carrie without making it a comedy.

[30:37] Eric Gilliom: Even original cast members have been inspired to retell their stories in new creative ways. Ensemble member Eric Gilliom lives in Hawaii. Before the pandemic, I've written and have been performing and touring a one-man show titled The White Hawaiian. And in the show, I do a tribute to Carrie and I do the pig number, but I do it in a way that's extremely campy. And the audience just can't believe it. You know, this is like one of the biggest Broadway, you know, shows in the history of Broadway. And here's the song from it. And I do the pig song. And people just can't stand it.

[31:21] David Cerda: As years passed, the combination of the Not Since Carrie book, the bootleg recordings and the increasingly frequent references in popular culture led to the writing team receiving hundreds of requests to restage the show from producers and directors all around the world, either as full-blown productions or in concert versions, not least from us. But still stinging from their harrowing experience and the mocking reviews, they were reluctant to put Carrie back into the world untouched. Some directors took matters into their own hands.

[31:50] Geoffrey Murphy: I just thought, wow, we should do Carrie. It's the perfect show for Stage Door because it's all female leads and a female ensemble with, you know, as many guys as you can get throw in the mix. So anyway, I had actually been thinking about doing it for a long time, but there were no rights available.

[32:14] Geoffrey Murphy: Yeah, so Stage Door is a performing arts training center in upstate New York. It's a theater camp. But at least when we were there 20 years ago at this point, it was a very serious theater camp and we were treated like adults and professionals. We were not treated as kids in rehearsals.

[32:39] Kaily Smith Westbrook: So I did Carrie my second to last year there when I was, I guess, 16. I went for nine summers. So I loved it. It holds a very special place in my heart.

[32:57] Geoffrey Murphy: Unable to license the show officially and hoping to stay under the radar of the rights agents, Geoff decided to plow on with his own unofficial production of Carrie. And I got a pirated CD audio, an audio of the whole performance. So my friend John and I, we sat down and we, he, I don't type, he typed up all the dialogue. We had the score and we fiddled around with a couple of things here or there, changed some stuff that we wanted to change. And then we started rehearsal.

[33:27] Geoffrey Murphy: They hoped the writers wouldn't hear about their production featuring the summer camp teens. But a week or so into the process, the camp's administrator appeared at the door. She'd received a worrying phone call.

[33:40] Geoffrey Murphy: So anyway, they had found out. So Carl, who was the owner, Carl called Michael Gore and Larry Cohen and said, look, you know, I will give you however much money to whatever charity you want if you'll let us do the show. And they said yes.

[34:04] Todd Graff: Todd Graff, who had played Tommy in the 1984 workshop of the musical, had spent five years at Stage Door. So I went there for three and I worked there for two. And the, you know, was for me, clearly it was life-changing. It was life-changing as a kid because I was a kid that was in like a lot of stupid trouble. And then this really helped me kind of find my focus and what I wanted to do with my life and etc. And the friends that I made there are still my very close friends. And I'm still very close to the people that run the camp. And then I obviously grew up and wrote and directed a movie about that experience of being there.

[34:51] Todd Graff: So anyway, so when they decided they wanted to do Carrie, you know, it had never been done, except in this notorious Broadway version. And it'd been decades by then, right? But they didn't care. You know, they don't care. So they just did it. They didn't ask permission. There was no one to ask. Michael and Larry, I can't remember if they got wind or I told them, but at any rate, not told them like to get the camp in trouble, but just because I thought it was so hilarious and classic Stage Door Manor. And to their credit, they said, oh my God, we want to see it. Not oh my God, we're going to shut it down and send cease and desist letters. And so they went and watched it. And so the first time they'd ever seen the show since Broadway closing night was at Stage Door Manor. And so with the blessing of the writer and composer, the show went on.

[35:42] Julie Kleiner Davis: How did it feel to be the first person to play Carrie since the doomed original? I could see what it was going to be. And we knew we were going to work with Jeff. And when you get to work with Jeff, you know, the shows are going to be amazing no matter what. And then once I started hearing the music and, you know, as a teenager to be able to do something that I maybe wasn't the total outcast as Carrie. But when you're a theater kid back in that day, you know, and there's no Hamilton for everyone to relate to. It's like I was an outcast and Stage Door was my home. So I really got to sort of explore how I felt in my own school at that age.

[36:19] Julie Kleiner Davis: Not only did the writers hear about the production, they actively made suggestions. And then they actually came to see the show. So and they loved it because they said, this is what the way we always wanted to see it done with real kids, with real teenagers. And they said, where did you get the girl who plays the mother? I said, well, she's, you know, one of the campers. She said, I don't believe it, because, you know, Vivian, the way she was dressed and everything. You'll see this a lot of Stage Door productions that, you know, these teenage girls turn into women on the stage. And she was quite convincing as a 40-year-old, 35, 40-year-old woman.

[37:05] Vivian Cleary: And they loved it. And they loved what we did with it. And they couldn't believe it. And this is the way we always wanted to see it done. So I think, I think that they thought about it. Well, it's a bunch of, it's a bunch of kids, real teenagers doing it and, you know, clued into what Stage Door was, and gave us the go ahead. And they both came to see the show. And they were very, very positive.

[37:39] Kaily Smith Westbrook: What was it like for these musical loving teenagers to meet a real-life Broadway legend? But I was covered in blood when I saw him. And I remember just being freaked out and excited. So when Michael Gore, I will tell you, I have a great memory of him. I have even this picture of him where you can kind of see it all where he's hugging me. And there's almost like he's just a beaming face. And I remember him saying how excited he was to see this with kids, because it's so transparent that what kids bring in that light to, to this feeling of being an outcast and what that is and exploring that. So I know and I remember him saying, Oh, I'm gonna now we're gonna do it again. And I'm so excited. I'm gonna put this back on. And he was thrilled with the production Jeff put on.

[38:20] Kaily Smith Westbrook: For Kaylee, it was a memorable performance for other reasons. I think I'm pretty sure that was the night that I had, which I think is on YouTube, which is the night that I like blacked out on stage and forgot my lines and like jumped half a song. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was. It was a traumatic moment for my 16-year-old self. It had never happened before. And I'm pretty sure it was when they were there.

[38:43] Vivian Cleary: Viv's meeting with composer Michael Gore was rather nerve-wracking. I didn't see him until I was making my entrance. And I'm singing, let Jesus in, open your heart. I'm going through and I have these prop pamphlets to hand out to people in the audience. And I'm handing it out. I'm proselytizing come to Jesus, and I turn around as I'm singing and I hand one and I realize I'm looking directly at Michael Gore and he's smiling at me and we're both holding on to both sides of this pamphlet. And I freeze and I'm inside I'm going but I I'm sure I kept it together because he didn't start laughing at me. But I do remember I held on to that pamphlet a little too long. And we were just kind of like, and I kept going.

But for the rest of the time, my head felt fuzzy. Like the rest of my trip to the stage. I'm just like, because I'm just like this 17-year-old loser musical freak. And I'm, I almost touched Michael Gore, we touched the same piece of paper at the same time. It was a defining experience.

[39:47] Kaily Smith Westbrook: And they were so gracious when they met us backstage. They were just so incredibly gracious and wonderful to these bunch of kids who like, you know, that vibrating energy of like, there was, you know, 25 kids going, you know, waiting for them to speak to us. And I'm sure that must have been a lot. But they were just so wonderful. And they took time with each of us to say like, Oh, you were great. You did so what I love the energy. So to a bunch of overly nervous teenagers that was incredibly kind.

[40:18] Kaily Smith Westbrook: In the great Carrie tradition, somebody filmed the show and later it ended up on YouTube. The first full bootleg recording of the show since Stratford, I guess when videos started popping up, it was like, Oh, that's so funny. Who would have posted that? Like, I didn't I didn't think much of it. It's not like now where I think you do a show and immediately someone goes and posts it online and you can see clips and stuff. So I mean, I thought I think I thought it was fun when like, all of a sudden clips were, you know, out there. So to this day, people still say to me, Carrie White eats shit, because that was my line. And I'm the one that said that.

[40:49] Kaily Smith Westbrook: Even when working professionally years later, their little summer camp production would follow them. I've actually been approached in audition waiting rooms, usually like the first 10 years after we did our show, I was in, I was in the waiting room of an audition for I think the Britney Spears musical that never ended up happening. And now it's happening. And this chorus boy, he had to have been 19 or 20, heard me talking to somebody and warming up and he goes, Were you in Carrie the musical at Stage Door Manor? And that's the first time I found out there was the pirate video going around.

[41:21] Kaily Smith Westbrook: I can say that I was going to Broadway auditions, I was cast in a Broadway tour. And none of it mattered. Because as soon as they saw Carrie the musical on my resume, that was everything. So yeah, and I got emails from people. I remember somebody telling me again, I'm so old, but you know, the YouTube phenomenon wasn't so the rage yet. And so somebody saying, I think you're on this thing called YouTube right now with this video. And I was so confused. And then as a kid, I remember getting on and people were commenting on my performance. And I was getting really upset about it. If there were negative comments. I'm like, wait a minute, I didn't know it was gonna get I didn't know it was gonna be put on here.

[42:04] Geoffrey McCann: That show really did, years and years and years of castings, people would bring that up. I would say until the revival came out, it was my claim to fame. It didn't matter what else I did, who else I worked with, huge stars, that was the thing. You did Carrie the Musical on Stage Door Manor. Julie, didn't you go to an audition and someone said that you were lying on your resume, that you weren't in Carrie the Musical, and you were lying about it, and they were quite nasty to you? Do you remember that?

[42:38] Julie Kleiner Davis: I do remember that. In New York, I did. I forgot about that one. I did, and I remember calling you, and they didn't believe me. They said that I lied, that no one's ever done it. I said, no, no, it's done at Stage Door. I promise I did it, and I didn't get hired because I think they thought I was a big fat liar.

[42:57] Geoffrey McCann: The two unlicensed performances were mounted a year later at Emerson College in Massachusetts. A friend told Geoffrey McCann, another Geoffrey, about Carrie's short life on Broadway. He gave me the bootleg on cassette and said, this is going to blow your mind, and of course it did. Basically, from 16 to when I did the production, I was, what, 19, 20. There was no way you weren't going to get me to do that show. I just had to.

[43:24] Geoffrey McCann: He remembers a complicated mission to acquire a copy of the script. I traded my original Broadway poster for the score. He came to my boyfriend at the time's apartment with this score, and we did a drug deal for that score. Then I remember getting it and running to campus, being like, I have it, I have it.

[43:47] Geoffrey McCann: The Emerson production incorporated portions of both the Stratford and Broadway versions, as well as scenes from the movie. Geoffrey decided to rearrange the show to make it clearer from his perspective. He replaced Don't Waste the Moon with a scene in a diner that had been cut from the movie, in which Chris spells out her evil revenge to Billy. Sue's song, It Hurts to Be Strong, was cut and replaced with White Star from the Stratford run.

[44:10] Geoffrey McCann: I went back to Larry Cohen's original movie script and knew, okay, cool, this doesn't quite work. It comes between two really heavy scenes, important scenes, so let's try to find something that works better. And then that's why I added that scene with them in the diner, because I thought that was just such a cool scene too, because it's not in the movie. It was like a gift.

[44:35] Geoffrey McCann: Was he concerned about staging the show without permission and making changes? I wasn't worried. I mean, maybe it was just youthful arrogance, but being part of college, it was done through Emerson. So if there was any sort of legal ramifications, obviously we were covered by the educational clause. We weren't making money off of it. If anything, I spent my life savings to make it. Like, you know, the dresses, I still remember they cost like $75 each and we had to buy at least two, because we were doing two shows. So it was like that kind of stuff that I was just so hellbent on getting it up and running with all the, you know, hiccups that come along with any production.

[45:57] Geoffrey McCann: Like in the Stage Door Manor production, he believes that having teenagers and young adults work on the show brought it fresh energy. Therefore it became sort of my mantra to get through the show and iron out the teen scenes to sort of fix the problem that was, or not even the problem, the question raised by these two worlds in one show. I think as a result, as being a 19-year-old boy making this heavy show, the teen scenes in my version far outshine the mother-daughter scenes, which is a bummer, but like it's just what happened, because obviously that's where my attention was. Getting the kids to be, you know, over the top, getting that sort of firecracker energy and having it really be about something.

[46:57] Geoffrey McCann: Working a part-time job at a local theatre, he also received some tips from a familiar character in our tale. Working as a child handler on Seussical, which was in Boston, which is how I got to talk to Betty Buckley. Betty was amazing. I met Betty at a gala. She stopped dead to talk about it. I wasn't expecting that. I told her I was doing it and she was so gracious. She talked to me for about 20 minutes, all about Margaret, about Margaret's backstory, about why she is the way she is. Very dark, heavy stuff for, you know, a gala. God knows what the people thought watching us in a corner, talking and crying. But like, she was great. She signed my copy of Not Since Carrie that night. I have a picture of us together, which was like the culmination of everything.

[47:43] Geoffrey McCann: He came unnervingly close to being rumbled by the writers, one of whom was at the same gala event. I mean, there was even like a Ferris Bueller scene where I was at some party one night after rehearsals and Dean Pitchford was there. And I was just like, oh, if he only knew what I was up to.

[47:58] Geoffrey McCann: Years later, his production also ended up on YouTube. I didn't know anyone was filming it. Like, that wouldn't have been my jam. And I wasn't happy with the orchestrations just because they only had like two days to learn the score. And so to the best of their ability and with what we were paying, we probably spent $200 on the production. So they were getting paid, you know, nothing. So it's not representative of what I would like people to see of my version of it. I think the opening number plays good. I'm happy with that. That's pretty much it. I can't look at it like I can't be objective about it. It makes me cringe. I look at it and I'm just like, oh, I wish that was different. I wish that was different. So, you know, the end production was something. It wasn't my idealized version, but it was like it happened.

[48:53] Geoffrey McCann: Another early unlicensed production took place in 2001 at a high school in Holland. They even recorded their show and released an unofficial cast album. Of course, Global Carrie fans jumped on the chance to hear new recordings of their beloved songs, even if they were in Dutch. Back in America, the request to mount an official production kept arriving in the writers' inboxes.

[49:15] Geoffrey McCann: You know, and as my collaborators and I would talk about when we would every once in a while we'd speak about maybe we could go back to it. Maybe we should revisit it. People were asking all the time for the score so they could do it at Carnegie Hall and do a concert of it and all that. But there was so much that we did not want in the show. We had watched it go off the rails and we couldn't call it back.

[49:38] Geoffrey McCann: They started to understand that despite the failure of the original production, something was keeping Carrie alive in the imaginations of fans around the world. And each time a fan discovered Ken Mandelbaum's book or another bootleg recording, the demand for a reassessment of Carrie swelled. Robbie, busy managing the unofficial Carrie fan site, remembers the level of interest reaching critical mass.

[49:57] Robbie Rozelle: And for years, because of the Carrie website, it would be an email every day. How do I get the rights to this? I want to do Carrie. Where should I go? Can I get a script from you? Can I get this? Can I get that? And obviously, like, I had no connection to the show other than having just created sort of a one-stop shop for all things Carrie so people could find out about it. It was just a lovely group of people who were very passionate about this show. I think it really sort of created a community and brought people together.

[50:49] Robbie Rozelle: As YouTube became mainstream, it was no longer a slog to track down the many videos of Carrie in Stratford and New York, and the show went from being the punchline of a joke with an underground cult following to being popular with a new generation of musical theatre fans. The agents who managed the performance rights for non-professional productions continued to report high demand for the show from high schools and community theatre groups.

[51:11] Geoffrey McCann: By the mid-2000s, rumours began to swirl that lyricist Dean Pitchford and his writing partners Michael Gore and Larry Cohen had reassembled to give the show another look. And in order to get it back to someplace where we would want to license it, we would need to roll up our sleeves and do an enormous amount of work. And we needed a catalyst to pull us together. And in 2010, I think, nine or ten, we got that catalyst when the Broadway director Stafford Arima asked to meet with me over breakfast in Los Angeles.

[51:51] Geoffrey McCann: Could it really be true that after all these years, Carrie was about to come back from the dead? Next time on Out For Blood.

[52:06] Dean Pitchford: We found somebody to whom the show mattered as much as it mattered to us. You know, there was a sense that perhaps the authors just wanted to put the piece in a kind of vault and let it live on in its mystery. And I guess it's YouTube clips. But then there was something about it that kind of kept gnawing at me.

[52:25] Dean Pitchford: And then I got this audition like soon after for Carrie the musical. And I was like, Carrie the musical? That sounds like a crazy idea. How does that, how can the details of the music change to, so you're not seeing a revival back in the time that everyone saw it when it first came out, but you're seeing it through modern eyes and hearing it with modern ears.

[52:50] Dean Pitchford: We sat in a circle on the floor and Stafford basically just kind of laid out the plan and how he wanted to, how he saw this, how he envisioned this. And when he said he didn't want to drop a flood ever on the stage.

[53:11] Dean Pitchford: And a new generation of theatre makers share their experience of staging Carrie. The Off-Broadway production, what it did is it allowed the authors to revisit the material. I come from the brand of theatre that more is more. And I thought that that's what this, I thought that that's what this needed.

[53:27] Dean Pitchford: We had it set up so that every room that you walked into was like a different setting within, out of the book or out of the film. So you walk into a room and it's the locker room and there's tampons all over the floor and you see like Carrie White Eat Shit like written on the walls. And then you walk into another room and you're at, you know, you're surrounded by all the pigs. You're at the farm, you know, and dead pigs, dead pigs, dead pig.

[53:56] Dean Pitchford: And there's a spooky sense of deja vu as Carrie returns to its British birthplace. Yeah, I was really nervous that night, actually. And they all stayed and they had a chat with everybody at the end. They were just crying and just so, you know, they loved it.

[54:06] Dean Pitchford: Oh, for me, honestly, it is probably the highlight of my career so far. It was a dream. It really was. It's just, it's just such a great role. And so who knows what the future has in store for this little girl named Carrietta White. And but to be a part of its journey is incredibly humbling.

[54:34] Holly Morgan: Out For Blood is a proud member of the Broadway Podcast Network. For more information about us and the podcast, please visit us online at bpn.fm slash Out For Blood.

[54:49] Chris Adams: If you enjoyed Out For Blood, please leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you download it from. And don't forget to subscribe.

[54:56] Holly Morgan: And if you're a friend of Carrie, come and join us at Out For Blood podcast on Instagram and Facebook and Out For Blood pod on Twitter. And please keep sending us your feedback. We love it. Like Chris Hargensen loves being a complete bitch. Out For Blood was hosted and produced by me, Holly Morgan.

[55:08] Chris Adams: And me, Chris Adams.

[55:10] Holly Morgan: Sound engineering and editing by Tom Moores. Paddy Jervis is our audio consultant. Original music by Odin Orn-Hilmarsson. And artwork by Rebecca Pitt.

[55:18] Holly Morgan: Thanks this week to Dean Pitchford, Linzi Hateley, Sally Ann Triplett, Eric Gilliom, Jeremy Sturt, Joe Iconis, Alice Ripley, Stephen Dolginoff, Julie Cohen, Laura Dean, Annie Golden, Todd Graff, Craig Hepworth, Robbie Rozelle, David Cerda, Jeffrey Murphy, Julie Kleiner Davis, Vivienne Cleary, Kaily Smith Westbrook, Stagedoor Manor and Jeffrey McCann.

[55:37] Chris Adams: I think that's pretty much everyone who's ever been involved in Carrie the Musical.

[55:42] Holly Morgan: Joe Iconis is the multi-award winning creator of the Broadway show Be More Chill. Visit him at mrjoeiconis.com.

[55:48] Holly Morgan: Details of original cast member Eric Gilliom's one man show featuring that kill the pig tribute can be found at ericgilliom.com.

[55:55] Chris Adams: Craig Hepworth, that Robin Hood of the Carrie bootleg world, runs the theatre company Vertigo Productions. Details at vertigotheatreproductions.co.uk.

[56:04] Holly Morgan: Thanks also to Todd Graff, who went on to write and direct the excellent cult classic movie Camp, based on his experiences at Stagedoor Manor. And to Robbie Rozelle, whose albums including the brilliant Songs From Inside My Locker can be heard at robbierozelle.com.

[56:19] Chris Adams: And of course, have a listen to the one and only S'Carrie the Musical at handbagproductions.org. I think that's everyone. Handy links are in the show notes in your app.

[56:28] Holly Morgan: See you next week.