Musical Misfires

Musical Misfires: Three Decades of Broadway Musical Heartbreak looks at 151 musicals

that did not run long enough to be considered hits. Such shows were once called flops but that is no longer an appropriate description. Some of these were superb pieces of musical theatre that, for one reason or another, couldn't find an audience, did not please the critics, couldn't pay the high weekly bills, or just were not right for the time and place in which they opened. Oft-overlooked gems like The Scottsboro Boys, Grey Gardens, Sweet Smell of Success, Xanadu, If/Then, Caroline, or Change, Bright Star, Steel Pier, The Last Ship, and Tuck Everlasting are explored alongside such famous musicals as American Idiot, Victor/Victoria, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Sister Act, All Shook Up, Be More Chill, Shrek the Musical, Seussical, and Young Frankenstein that never reached hit status on Broadway. Juke box musicals, cutting-edge musicals, movie adaptations, teenage musicals, biographical...