This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:04] Brendon Henderson: Well, when did you see Diamond Alion for the last time, Miss Robish?

[0:10] Miss Robish: About 11 p.m. on the day of his acquittal in Orphan.

[0:15] Brendon Henderson: How did you learn that he had been murdered?

[0:18] Miss Robish: When I awakened, my loose voice cried, Jack Lane.

[0:24] Brendon Henderson: Well, what happened then?

[0:26] Miss Robish: I fainted, and I nearly fell out of the bedroom window.

[0:36] Brendon Henderson: How many bullets can one man take before he truly believes he's invincible? When he survives blow after blow. And how many shots until that man is finally taken down? The life of a prohibition era gangster wasn't one without its trials. Always looking over their shoulder, never knowing who to trust. One day they'd be laughing it up with a guy as they slammed a deli owner's head into the counter, and the next, they'd be shot from the backseat of a car. Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. But from the dangers came the spoils. Overnight, gangsters like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano became celebrities known for their charismatic personalities and lavish lifestyles. But no one gangster indulged more in the riches and status that came with the job than Legs Diamond.

Over 50 years after his demise, and unlike Capone or Luciano, Diamond's name and legacy would be forgotten. That is until his life story was chosen to be the focus of a project that would surely benefit the dramatic narrative of one of the most dangerous and lethal criminals of the time. A glamour-filled musical. This is the story of the changing landscape of Broadway in the late 1980s. Of a show that was in constant flux, and of a popular cabaret singer who wanted to become a Broadway star, only for the vehicle that was intended to be his launching pad, become his anchor. This is the story of what went wrong with Legs Diamond.

[2:56] Brendon Henderson: He had been shot. Again. To say that he had become a polarizing figure would be an understatement. Jack Diamond's life and crime began modestly, with simple petty crime and jewelry store robberies. It was once he got out of prison in 1921 that his life would drastically change. Through a connection with the gangster Lucky Luciano, Jack would get a job for a forward-thinking businessman named Arnold Rothstein. Otherwise known as the man who fixed the 1919 World Series. Fixed it, fixed it. How'd he manage that? Saw the opportunity, I suppose. A year earlier, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution had gone into effect, making it against the law to manufacture, sell, and transport alcohol. While there was much opposition to the law, the widely held perception was that prohibition would be a great thing for the country.

The number of abusive spouses would drop, the productivity of the American workforce would rise, and in all, America would become a more peaceful place to live. That wouldn't be the case. With the big brewing companies out of the picture, it posed an incredible opportunity for the violent forces of organized crime, especially Arnold Rothstein. Diamond was brought on board to serve as security to ensure that business deals went down without any problems. Seeing how lucrative the underworld crime industry was, Diamond picked up a side job freelancing as a hitman, and soon began his own bootlegging operation with his younger brother Eddie. The brothers found themselves making more money than they knew what to do with, thanks to their strong armed guerrilla techniques of attacking trucks that were being used to secretly transport booze to various speakeasies in the New York area.

After hijacking a shipment that was connected to a mafia syndicate ran by Dutch Schultz and Luciano, Diamond would instantly paint himself as the clay pigeon of the underworld. If bullets were magnets, then Diamond was the kitchen fridge. In 1924, he was shot while stopped at an intersection along Fifth Avenue, driving himself to a hospital to get the shotgun pellets removed from his head. In 1925, he would be hit twice after finishing collection rounds in Lower Manhattan. In 1930, three men would force their way into his hotel room and gun him down. Still in his pajamas, he would take two shots of whiskey and drag himself to a nearby hospital. By 1931, after so many failed attempts to whack Diamond, Dutch Schultz would exclaim, "Can't anybody shoot this guy so he won't bounce back?"

He seemed to be unkillable, and it's believed that his ability to escape certain death situations is what earned him the moniker of Legs. By December, Diamond had become a celebrity on the East Coast. None of the newspapers would refer to his crimes, but would instead simply refer to him as a wealthy gentleman on the town. He was flamboyant, stylish, and possessed the cocky confidence that could only come from a man who had survived so many attempts on his life. But behind the gentleman Jack persona was a ruthless, cold-hearted brute. He committed some truly heinous crimes, including shooting three patrons at his Hotsi Tatsu club and tying a man to a tree before setting him on fire. Still, nobody could touch him.

Not even the police. On December 18th, 1931, Legs was acquitted of kidnapping a driver to interrogate him about his alcohol shipments. After celebrating with his mistress, former Ziegfeld Folly Kiki Roberts, an intoxicated Diamond would stumble his way back to his rooming house and pass out on his bed. Around 5:30 on that crisp December morning, two men entered Diamond's house and shot him in the head three times. Since Diamond had crossed so many people in his life, the murder was never solved due to the high number of suspects.

[7:25] Brendon Henderson: Thirty years after his death, and thriving off of a revival of gangster films, thanks to the TV series The Untouchables, Legs' story would be brought to the big screen by Warner Brothers and filmmaker Bud Bedaker in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond. He was initially nervous about directing the film because he didn't think that audiences would want to see the mass killings and bursts of machine gun fire that had become the norm for gangster flicks. He decided that if he was going to make it, he needed to make a comedy about Legs and his wife Alice. That's not to say that it would be a laugh-a-minute romp, but rather would adopt a comic tone set in a serious framework. While the film wasn't afraid to take its liberties, it chronicled the story of a small-time crook rising to the highest levels of success in the crime world, only to have his extreme sense of hubris become his downfall.

He was able to paint a portrait of a man who was charming on the surface, but was hiding a heartless, unsympathetic monster underneath that could emerge at any moment. The film was generally overlooked upon its release and was never regarded as more than just a B movie gangster flick. That is until singer-songwriter Peter Allen got an idea. By the early 1980s, Allen had accomplished what many performers could only dream of. He had become a renowned songwriter for his introspective style, writing for singers like Olivia Newton John, and winning the Academy Award for Arthur's theme, which he had composed with Christopher Cross and Bert Baccarak in 1981. That same year, he performed the hit song I Go to Rio at Radio City Music Hall, where he wrote a camel and became the first male dancer to dance with the Rockettes.

But in his mind, he still hadn't cemented his legacy. He had become tired of working in the cabaret scene in Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos for people who had too much money. For the longest time, he dreamt of writing and performing in his own show on Broadway. But he couldn't find a subject or character interesting enough. That all changed while he was working on a television show in Los Angeles, where he learned that Lily Tomlin was going to be playing a woman gangster in a new movie based off the 1960s film, The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond. Allen remembered loving the film as a child. Talking to his partner, Charles Sapon, Allen told him that the idea of adapting the 1960s film would be a great idea for a musical, especially considering that there hadn't been a show set in the 1920s for a long time.

In 1984, to better learn the history of the notorious New York City gangster, Allen and Sapon would leave New York and fly to Australia to spend a month locked away in a public library researching. After coming up with a rough draft for the story and five songs, the pair was ready to fly back to the States, where they figured they'd be able to stage the show in a couple of months. But unsurprisingly, Broadway had other plans.

[10:58] Brendon Henderson: While Peter and Charles were incredibly enthusiastic about the show, when they started shopping it around, many of the producers didn't share their sentiments. While they liked the songs, they were more concerned with the book and if 44-year-old Allen could convincingly play a cold-blooded ruthless killer. Both Allen and Diamond were flamboyant in their presentation. However, this was for two different reasons. As theater blogger Joel Fenster put it, Allen's flamboyance came from his showbiz roots. Diamonds came from essentially being a cocky jackass. The years would continue to pass, and interest in the project continued to be stagnant. Still doing his concert tours, Allen would incorporate different songs from the score and introduce them as songs from his forthcoming musical.

The more times he said it though, the more the audience started to yell back, "You said that last year." Diamond's chances of being staged were looking pretty bleak, and it seemed that Allen would be stuck performing in Atlantic City as a diversion from the gambling tables. But then in 1988, producers Arthur Rubin, Marvin A. Cross, and Jimmy Niederlander decided to give the show a shot. When the workshop started, Allen and Sapon had written a script that was a fairly close adaptation of the 1960s film. While the producers thought that the characters and plot points were strong, they were worried about the show's dark second act. The British mega musical style began to have an influence on many shows staged during that time, and with shows like Les Misérables and Phantom, the second acts would usually deal with more dramatic conflict, resulting in them being more somber. The producers hated this and wanted to give the audience some good old-fashioned fun by making the second act considerably lighter.

[12:52] Brendon Henderson: It was decided that Legs Diamond would bring on Tony Award winning librettist and future Edna in Hairspray, Harvey Fierstein, to replace Sapon as the new bookwriter. While the main focus of the 1960s film was on the ruthless acts that Diamond perpetrated to rise to the top of the crime world, Fierstein was adamant that he didn't want to write a script that revolved around a murderer. The solution to this problem was to completely change the character's motivations. While Legs' ability to escape dangerous situations was part of how he got his nickname, another reason was due to his impressive dance skills. So instead of trying to gloss over the facts, they would instead create a completely fictionalized retelling of his life, where instead of wanting to become the king of the underworld, his goal would be to become the king of Broadway.

They would replace narcotic smuggling with footlights in an attempt to create an art deco Guys and Dolls. This change wouldn't only help them to avoid a Brechtian style second act, but would also help Allen's performance of Legs become more believable. Allen was known for his kind heart and campy style, meaning that it would have been hard to see him as someone who would yell at a drunkard, "I'm Jack Diamond, and I run this place. If you don't calm down, I'll blow your f***ing head off," only to fire three shots in the guy anyway. Director Robert Alan Ackerman knew that there was no way Peter Allen could convincingly play a bad guy. So, they decided to infuse him with a Buster Keaton underdog quality.

The foreboding noir aesthetic of the 1960s film was abandoned for a brighter, jazzier environment that brimmed with song, dance, and spectacle. Due to this new concept, set designer David Mitchell would spend the remainder of the summer of 1988 producing 40 new set designs, sacrificing the mysterious and sinister black art designs, which would have used 3D technology to send bullets flying across the stage.

[15:07] Brendon Henderson: The workshops only lasted six weeks, and soon the show would gear up for its out-of-town tryout period where they could flesh out different elements of the show without the scrutiny and public attention of working on it in the heart of the city where they were opening.

[15:23] Brendon Henderson: The initial plan was to have a three-month trial run in the Great White North before moving into the Great White Way. But then they realized a major problem.

[15:35] Brendon Henderson: The show was too big to pack up. Between the 36 cast members, David Mitchell's giant sets, and Jules Fisher's elaborate lighting and projection designs, to stage the show in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada would have cost as much as staging it in New York.

[15:52] Brendon Henderson: This meant that Legs Diamond had no choice. They had to move into the theater that would house the show on Broadway. And any protection from the hitmen of the New York City press was now sleeping with the fishes.

[17:12] Brendon Henderson: The Mark Hellinger Theater, I was breathless. But the theater owner told me I'm opening a new show, Legs Diamond. And he said, we expect a 10-year run.

[17:12] Brendon Henderson: Merrily We Roll Along had tried it in 1981, and Merlin the Musical attempted it in the same theater in 1983. Both to disastrous results. Having experienced that nightmare firsthand, Steven Sondheim couldn't believe that Peter Allen was attempting it, and could only offer him this harrowing advice.

[17:12] Brendon Henderson: Because they're all going to say you've got to get out of this immediately. No matter what, everyone's gonna say that. Carrying this optimistic prophecy in his pocket, Peter Allen and Legs Diamond would move into the Mark Hellinger Theater on September 8th, 1988.

[17:22] Brendon Henderson: The current cast of players would include Randall Edwards as Kiki Roberts, Brenda Braxton as Madge, the Queen of Cabaret, Julie Wilson as Flo, Joe Silver as Arnold Rothstein, Christine Andreas as Legs' wife Alice, and Bob Stillman making his Broadway debut as his younger brother Eddie.

[17:43] Brendon Henderson: Typically, in the process of a show, all the major changes to the overall concept take place during the workshop period, as it's less expensive to make changes when you aren't dealing with tangible set pieces, a huge ensemble of actors, or a massive closet of costumes.

[17:59] Brendon Henderson: Of course, it's possible and even encouraged to make changes in the tryout phase, but it just becomes a lot more labor intensive and pricey. During the rehearsal phase of Legs, the show's status as being one that was in constant flux began to take shape.

[18:14] Brendon Henderson: And on top of all the expenses in changing the production, they were now incurring the steep cost of renting the Mark Hellinger Theater. And so, a little more than one month after rehearsals began, Legs Diamond would open its doors to the public for its preview stage.

[18:33] Brendon Henderson: And now, the behind the scenes troubleshooting would be brought front and center for all to see. During the 1988 to 89 Broadway season, the Great White Way was dominated by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cameron Mackintosh, and Trevor Nunn.

[18:51] Brendon Henderson: This meant that Legs held a unique spot by being one of only six new book American musicals to debut that year. On top of the problem of having dark second acts, producers also hated the heavy handed use of spectacle among these mega musical shows through their set design, lighting, and costumes.

[19:13] Brendon Henderson: The creative team wanted Legs to be a show that would give audiences a break from these pompous, bloated productions. They would achieve this by creating a modest show, which included only 30 moving sets, a cast of 36 people, 19 wigs and costume people, a computerized lighting system equipped with more than 500 lighting cues, 38 stage hands, scores of tradesmen, and 300 costumes.

[19:44] Brendon Henderson: Ah, minimalism at its finest. The set was a technological feat in that it never stopped moving. The way that David Mitchell and Jules Fisher saw it, sophisticated audiences came to the theater expecting to be bombarded with constantly changing visual effects.

[20:03] Brendon Henderson: They didn't have time to wait while the curtain dropped and stagehands manually adjusted the sets. As expected, this resulted in many complications, which meant that the show was a week late going into previews.

[20:16] Brendon Henderson: That delay would cost the production nearly 1 million dollars. By the time previews finally started, the show was still a long way from where it needed to be, and a lot of the creative team knew it.

[20:30] Brendon Henderson: The first preview could have been something taken right out of a Mel Brooks movie, with Harvey Fierstein and Robert Alan Ackerman mirroring Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom standing at the back of the theater counting people as they walked out of Springtime for Hitler.

[20:45] Brendon Henderson: It was a disaster. Set pieces crashed together, trapping actors between fabricated trains and nightclubs. By the time all was said and done, the show had run over more than three hours, ending at 11:15 p.m.

[21:02] Brendon Henderson: Nederlander and the other producers were not impressed. Neither was director Robert Alan Ackerman. This was his third show on Broadway, and his first musical, with previous productions being a play called Bent, starring a young Richard Gere, and Slab Boys, which documented a group of young working-class Scots.

[21:25] Brendon Henderson: But he knew he had to do something to try to give the show some legs to stand on. When looking at the long runtime, they decided it was coming from Legs' entourage of love interests.

[21:38] Brendon Henderson: The real Legs Diamond was a notorious womanizer, with his main gun moll being showgirl Kiki Roberts. She was rarely not by his side. Legs was lighting a guy on fire, Kiki was, well, she waited in the car for that one, but she was still with him.

[22:04] Brendon Henderson: His wife was aware of his philandering, and yet she was still extremely dedicated to him. The relationship between man and wife in the 1960s film helps add a sense of humanity to Legs Diamond, showing a man who desperately wanted to be loved, despite being completely unlovable.

[22:23] Brendon Henderson: The only two characters who could make Legs a relatable human were Alice and his brother Eddie. This is why they were big parts of the musical. But a week after the preview, the decision was made that Alice was too distracting and was slowing down the show.

[22:40] Brendon Henderson: So they cut her out. Instead, they would focus on Flo, a madame of a New York City brothel, a Hotsy Totsy club entertainer named Madge, and his mistress, Kiki Roberts.

[22:55] Brendon Henderson: Another problem discussed was that of Peter Allen having difficulty connecting with the audience. Allen was a club performer, used to smaller venues and being able to win over audiences with his Peter Allen persona.

[23:09] Brendon Henderson: This was his first show in a leading role on Broadway, and one of the hardest things for him to do was to be another character. In an attempt to better himself, he met with an acting teacher and said, Tell me what I need to do.

[23:24] Brendon Henderson: The teacher responded by saying, first of all, your name's above the title on the marquee, and people have paid 50 bucks to see you. So you can do whatever you want. If they wanted to see acting, they'd go see Robert De Niro.

[23:38] Brendon Henderson: Somehow, despite this world-class acting advice, Allen's lack of theatrical know-how was apparent when interacting with others on stage. The hope was that by directing his attention away from Alice and towards the audience, it would more directly involve the crowd in Legs' dilemma and help Allen interact with them the same way he had during his concert tours.

[24:00] Brendon Henderson: While the emotional connection with Legs' wife was gone, at least they still had a humanizing character in his younger brother. Since the two essentially grew up without a father, Jack was extremely caring and protective of him.

[24:41] Brendon Henderson: Ackerman had been so amazed at the difference that came from cutting Alice that he decided to get rid of Eddie as well, to give Legs more opportunities to address the audience and to squeeze in more dance numbers.

[24:54] Brendon Henderson: Not only did these cuts rob the story of the opportunity to show the audience a perception of the character from outside sources, but it also created a huge headache for the designers, creatives, and cost the production more money.

[25:09] Brendon Henderson: Cutting the characters meant that they had to get rid of their costumes, set pieces, songs, and most importantly, their contributions to the plot. Peter Allen was being stretched thin by having to perform eight shows a week at night and then rewrite the show during the day.

[25:28] Brendon Henderson: There was no way that they could create a completely restructured book. So instead, they just spread Alice and Eddie's material to other characters, no matter how irrelevant it was.

[25:39] Brendon Henderson: After nearly two months of previews, Legs Diamond's opening date of December 13th, 1988 was fast approaching, and all eyes were on it. Just not for the right reasons.

[26:06] Brendon Henderson: Much like Legs Diamond himself, the show had unintentionally branded themselves as the clay pigeon of the theater world by placing an incredibly rough version of the show in the heart of the city. The word of mouth around town had become poisonous from the moment that choreographer Michael Sean was replaced by Alan Johnson, and he took the show to court, saying that he had been fired because he had tested positive for AIDS.

[26:34] Brendon Henderson: As the tumultuous journey of previews continued, the perception of Legs Diamond being a doomed show kept growing. At this point, the show's running time had been cut by an hour, two of the most important characters had been erased, set pieces, often costing $30,000 a piece were completely discarded, and the show had completely changed its vibe from a dark, serious noir musical to a show-stopping, jazz hands heavy Broadway extravaganza equipped with Tommy Guns dance numbers and all.

[27:09] Brendon Henderson: And yet, despite all of these alterations, the most intense change was still to come. Making major adjustments during rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts is a headache, but still is to be expected.

[27:33] Brendon Henderson: Completely redesigning a major section of a show 11 days away from when it's set to be frozen and no more physical changes can take place is suicide. So guess what happened?

[27:46] Brendon Henderson: Despite restructuring the production to have Legs address the audience for basically the entire duration of the show, they were still running into the problem of Peter Allen not getting entrance applause when he came on stage.

[27:59] Brendon Henderson: In essence, he was the star of the show, but nobody cared. This had been a constant problem since previews had started. Before a Thursday night preview in November, a single sheet of yellow legal paper floated its way from the hands of Peter Allen to the stage manager.

[28:17] Brendon Henderson: And almost instantly, alarm bells began to sound. On the piece of paper were lyrics to a brand new opening number. The entire company went on high alert.

[28:30] Brendon Henderson: The next day, the creative team met in a three-hour session developing the song musically. From there, it went to the orchestrator for determining instrumentation, where it was then handed off to 12 copyists who spent 192 hours writing out the new orchestral parts by hand.

[28:48] Brendon Henderson: This alone cost $5,000. Around the same time, choreographer Alan Johnson frantically designed a new dance routine and would then teach the dance to the 24 ensemble members over a series of five-hour dance sessions that spanned three days.

[29:06] Brendon Henderson: All of this was done during the day so that the team could still perform previews during the night. In the midst of all this panic, the dedication of the cast was on full display when one night, an actor named Norman Kawahi stayed in the theater until the wee hours of the morning, trying to nail the lyrics.

[29:25] Brendon Henderson: As he wrapped up for the night, he went backstage where to his surprise, he found Peter Allen. In one modest sentence, Allen simply said, I can't go home until you do. It served as an important reminder that even though the show was being torn to shreds by the public, at the heart of it was still a human being trying desperately to help his show survive.

[29:52] Brendon Henderson: Miraculously, one week and one day after the yellow piece of paper transferred hands, the brand new opening number was ready for a trial run.

[30:03] Brendon Henderson: On top of the new music, lyrics, and dances, there also came the addition of a monumental 20-foot sign that would descend from the heavens, spelling out the totally fictitious musical history of Legs Diamond.

[30:18] Brendon Henderson: Clocking in at 5 minutes and 4 seconds, the new opening number cost roughly $15,000 to create and resulted in the opening being pushed back to December 26th.

[30:30] Brendon Henderson: After the first rehearsal that day, it would be performed for the first time in that night's preview.

[30:37] Brendon Henderson: This was it. This had to be the one component that would guarantee to get Peter Allen his star level entrance applause.

[30:47] Brendon Henderson: The lights came up, and the music of the new number, When I Get My Name and Lights, began to ring through the Mark Hellinger Theater.

[30:57] Brendon Henderson: The breathtaking sign descended with an awe-inspiring presence. The dancers performed their heart out, and Peter Allen triumphantly took to the stage as Legs Diamond.

[31:09] Brendon Henderson: And then Crickets.

[31:30] Brendon Henderson: Legs Diamond had become. In a testament to this fact, director Robert Allen Ackerman got a phone call from his own mother asking if the show was still going to open after all the rumors she'd been hearing around town.

[31:44] Brendon Henderson: Still, being one of the only new book musicals to open that year, and because people wanted to see the massacre that would have made Sonny Corleone jealous, the show was able to amass 10 million dollars in advance ticket sales.

[31:57] Brendon Henderson: The show was originally capitalized at roughly 4.2 million dollars. But after their 72 preview run, the budget had increased to 5.1 million.

[32:08] Brendon Henderson: Despite the increase, investors weren't asked to contribute a single cent, and the $350,000 reserve fund was never used.

[32:17] Brendon Henderson: The reason being that the extra $1 million came personally from Jimmy Niederlander. He had that much faith in the show that he wanted to keep it running until it upgraded itself to one that was at least somewhat decent.

[32:32] Brendon Henderson: On opening night, a defeated Peter Allen sat in his dressing room, visibly nervous about presenting Legs to the world.

[32:41] Brendon Henderson: Sontime's prophecy had come true. The show that was intended to be Peter Allen's big break towards Broadway stardom had become tarnished by gossip and controversy.

[32:53] Brendon Henderson: Reaching the fifth stage of grief, Peter Allen accepted the fate of the show, saying, you know, I expected this. I figured this would happen.

[33:06] Brendon Henderson: After the curtain dropped, the critics tore the show to shreds, with one reviewer calling it the skimpiest story this side of Starlight Express.

[33:17] Brendon Henderson: The major consensus was that Allen's attempt to play the rough bootlegger went completely against his type. Suspension of disbelief is to be expected in theater, but there's only so far that that can go before it becomes distracting.

[33:33] Brendon Henderson: In the most damaging review, the New York Times' Frank Rich didn't even feel like calling it the worst production of 1988, but instead just felt that it was boring.

[33:45] Brendon Henderson: But Peter Allen still tried to keep his head up, enthusiastically shouting, It's showtime anytime someone passed his dressing room.

[33:55] Brendon Henderson: And yet somehow, in Pure Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark Style, the negative reviews mixed with Allen's loyal public seemed to be a blessing for the show.

[34:07] Brendon Henderson: And that same week, it was able to sell a box office record of 455,000.

[34:15] Brendon Henderson: In one line during the second act, after surviving an assassination attempt, Legs would stand over his own coffin and say, Only the critics can kill me.

[34:25] Brendon Henderson: But one night, fueled by artistic passion, Allen changed the line to, not even the critics can kill me, to which the audience gave him a massive ovation.

[34:37] Brendon Henderson: This became a huge selling point for the show. For a moment in time, it was able to garner a devoted following and became the underdog show that thrived on thumbing its nose at the critics and the Broadway elite.

[34:57] Brendon Henderson: If you hate me, put your knockers away. But soon, the initial curiosity revolving around the show began to diminish, and the advanced ticket sales began to run dry.

[35:12] Brendon Henderson: It seemed that Legs Diamond would suffer the same fate as numerous other shows that opened in one of the worst Broadway seasons in history.

[35:26] Brendon Henderson: Commercially, the 1988 to 89 Broadway season set new box office records by bringing in a 4% increase from the previous year.

[35:36] Brendon Henderson: The problem is that increase came from four hit musicals. The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Starlight Express, and Les Miz, all of which had originally opened on the West End and were holdovers from previous seasons.

[35:53] Brendon Henderson: Much like when the British invasion took place in the form of popular music, American productions were having a rough go of trying to gain their footing.

[36:01] Brendon Henderson: In the 1979 to 1980 season, 20 new musicals opened. In 1988 to 89, there were only seven.

[36:57] Brendon Henderson: Though the production had survived numerous attacks by the public and the press, it would meet its fate on February 19th, 1989, when it closed after eight weeks and 64 performances.

[37:12] Brendon Henderson: This meant that the previews for Legs Diamond had run longer than the actual show. Following the negative perception for the show, the Niederlander organization decided that the Mark Hellinger Theater was cursed and arranged to lease the property to the Times Square Church for five years after the production had folded.

[37:32] Brendon Henderson: This five-year lease would ultimately lead to the Niederlanders just selling them the property. And to this day, despite numerous high dollar offers from people like Cameron McIntosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the space has not seen a theatrical production since Legs Diamond.

[37:50] Brendon Henderson: Following the show's closure, Broadway would continue its foray into the world of the mega musical, with productions becoming bigger and flashier.

[37:59] Brendon Henderson: As a result, Legs would become a victim of time and vanish from the minds of the theater world.

[38:06] Brendon Henderson: The only copy of the final script was locked away, and many of the orchestrations that the copyists had spent hours transcribing disappeared without a trace.

[38:18] Brendon Henderson: Michael Betts of Musical Theatre was granted access to the final book, and despite the missing orchestrations, he and his team were able to reconstruct over two dozen songs just by listening to the original cast recording.

[38:33] Brendon Henderson: For one night only, they strove to give Legs the production that could have made it a hit.

[38:41] Brendon Henderson: In 2017, two reunion concerts took place at 54 Below in Manhattan, with Bob Stillman and Christine Andreas finally getting to perform as Eddie and Alice.

[38:53] Brendon Henderson: While the reunion was exciting, it was also accompanied by a sense of somber melancholy. At the time, 19 members of the original team had passed away.

[39:05] Brendon Henderson: This included Peter Allen. He passed away only four years after the closing of Legs due to complications from AIDS that had also claimed the life of his partner, Gregory Connell.

[39:18] Brendon Henderson: But in a way, Allen's Broadway story didn't end there. His own life would be turned into a jukebox musical called The Boy from Oz.

[39:27] Brendon Henderson: It would receive massive commercial and critical acclaim, being nominated at the 2004 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Performance by a Featured Actress, and would walk away with one win for Best Performance by a Lead Actor for Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen.

[39:58] Brendon Henderson: So what is Legs Diamond's legacy? The most frustrating thing is that it had moments which demonstrated how good the show could have been.

[40:08] Brendon Henderson: The score created by Allen was elegant, beautiful, and inspired in many areas. But pretty music isn't enough to create a celebrated piece of theater.

[40:19] Brendon Henderson: As Matilda proved, all the pieces, from the script to the music to the performances, need to complement and build off each other to create a well-balanced mosaic.

[40:29] Brendon Henderson: There was also the problem of the production being incredibly rushed. It's why in the world of Broadway, shows like Matilda and Beetlejuice stood a better chance when they premiered.

[40:40] Brendon Henderson: Matilda took five years to stage. Beetlejuice took more than eight. Now, granted, the idea for Legs Diamond had been ruminating in Alan's head for four years.

[40:51] Brendon Henderson: But the actual production, with producers, directors, and a new book writer, didn't start rolling until 1988. Meaning that essentially, the show was put up in less than one year.

[41:04] Brendon Henderson: The show was so rushed in its journey to the Great White Way that it never stood a chance. The biggest mistake, however, came from not doing an out-of-town tryout.

[41:15] Brendon Henderson: The pressure of making a show work with that short amount of time is already immense. But the gossip in New York City is insidious.

[41:23] Brendon Henderson: And adding that to the process only amplified the pressure tenfold, especially for Peter Allen. The show is his baby. And every day he would have to hear how ugly it was from people he didn't even know.

[41:37] Brendon Henderson: If the show had been able to get that space where the team could have been focused on making the story work rather than trying to figure out how to make the New York crowd stop chastising them, who knows what Legs Diamond could have been.

[42:01] Brendon Henderson: The production became so focused on trying to get crowds to like them that they stopped thinking about the consequences any of the changes would have on the story.

[42:10] Brendon Henderson: It seems that instead of audience investment, they instead sought audience validation, making the through line even more bare and sacrificing moments that could have created genuine connection.

[42:22] Brendon Henderson: Now, is it a bad thing to try to get audiences to applaud? Of course not. But it shouldn't be the main goal.

[42:29] Brendon Henderson: Add on top of this that the preferences of Broadway crowds during this time was evolving. Because Allen figured that audiences missed traditional shows like Oklahoma.

[42:44] Brendon Henderson: If the box office seats for this year were any indication, this couldn't have been further from the truth. The mega musical formula was here to stay.

[42:54] Brendon Henderson: But they miscalculated and viewed it as a passing trend, only to find themselves go the same way as the phone book and the cassette player.

[43:04] Brendon Henderson: If anything, 1988 to 1989 on Broadway revealed the lack of producing know-how in a landscape that was drastically changing.

[43:27] Brendon Henderson: And that's because Legs Diamond wasn't the biggest flop on Broadway that year. Not even close.

[43:54] Brendon Henderson: Well, this has the unexpected combination of the people from Fame and the Royal Shakespeare Company. A combo of funk and high gloss stage effects.

[44:02] Brendon Henderson: It has pyrotechnics, illusions, high tech, and high volume. Fame film composer Michael Gore has written some standard sounding pop music for this work.

[44:12] Brendon Henderson: Special thanks to our amazing stagedoor patrons. Defunctland, Autumn, Brent Black, Nazi Zabat, Nate Gardner, Ethan, Julian Dean, LAZTM Productions, Tommy Kindle, Abigail Verzella, John Fogg, Mark S. The Kid Tested Mother Approved Podcast, JC, Chase Eugene McCantz, Catherine Esperanza, Brianna Michelle Meyer, Shaf Rillis Productions, Melissa Marquette, Haley Longo, Aiden Lamb, Justin Laurie, The Dra Kring, Sammy Kernecki, and Musicals with Cheese.