It was recently announced that the iconic ’80s vampire movie The Lost Boys would be the latest film to get a musical adaptation on Broadway. Sometimes the whole movie-to-musical transfer has yielded big hits, like Hairspray and Beetlejuice. Books too, like Wicked, have been big hits on stage. But for some reason, when it comes to vampires, be it movie-based or book-based, it seems the undead have always failed when it comes to musicals. (At least, that’s the case in America.)
In fact, the 2000s had three notorious (and expensive) failures when it came to bringing vampires to the stage. Ever since those three flops, no one has dared to bring vampires back to Broadway. Before The Lost Boys takes the first big crack at attempting a vampire musical in nearly two decades, we present the history of three vampiric productions that might serve as a cautionary tale.
Dance of the Vampires (2002-2003)
The first notorious vampire musical flop didn’t start out as a failure. It was quite the opposite in fact. This production, a musical adaptation of Roman Polanski’s 1967 horror comedy The Fearless Vampire Killers, named Tanz der Vampire, was a big hit in Austria starting in 1997. It later met with similar success when it went to Germany and Japan. However, when it came to its Broadway debut, producers decided a major overhaul was required to appeal to American audiences. Jim Steinman, the composer known for his bombastic pop hits for Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler, came in to redo the score. Who better to adapt a vampire musical than the guy who wrote Bat Out of Hell? The book for Dance of the Vampires was rewritten to feature bawdy humor. This was mostly because the producers considered the jokes from the original as “too regional.” That was perhaps the first mistake of many.
To bolster this already iffy reinvention, the producers hired musical superstar Michael Crawford as the show’s lead, Graf von Krolock. Crawford was perhaps the biggest Broadway star of the moment thanks to originating the titular role in Phantom of the Opera. Ultimately, Dance of the Vampires became something totally different from its European version and critics brutally savaged it. Steinman ultimately distanced himself from the whole thing by opening night, publicly calling the final product “A shit pile.” In 2003, Dance of the Vampires closed after a mere 56 shows, losing 12 million dollars. It went down in history as one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time. But it wouldn’t be the last time in the early ‘00s that Broadway would attempt to do singing and dancing bloodsuckers. A certain Transylvanian Count was on the way to the stage.
Dracula: The Musical (2004-2005)
The king daddy of all vampires himself, Dracula, would be the second big vampire Broadway musical to fail spectacularly on the Great White Way. And Dracula: The Musical (yes, that was its very generic title) should have been much more successful, based on brand name alone. After all, it was the non-musical version of Bram Stoker’s novel on Broadway that was the basis for the Universal Studios version, and that set the template for all time. Frank Wildhorn, whose Jekyll and Hyde was a hit on Broadway for four years, wrote the music. If that 19th-century Gothic novel could work as a musical, why not Dracula? Dracula: The Musical opened to huge numbers and packed houses at the La Jolla Playhouse in California in late 2001. It all seemed primed for the big time.
Sadly, when Dracula finally hit Broadway in 2004, with Tom Hewitt as the Count, reviews were negative across the board. The show promptly closed in early 2005. However, much like Tanz der Vampires, it had a much longer shelf life outside of North America. Dracula: The Musical started touring all over the world almost immediately. It has since played in a major city across the globe almost every year since it closed on Broadway. Famous flops on Broadway like Carrie: The Musical have found a new life in local productions, so it seems like Dracula may someday meet the same fate. As we all know, Dracula always rises from the grave in some form. He might even rise out of his coffin on Broadway again. Yesterday’s trash is sometimes today’s treasure.
Lestat (2006)
If Dracula couldn’t work on stage belting out songs, could a more contemporary (and sexy) vampire do what he couldn’t? That was the hope with Lestat, the last big vampire musical to make an attempt at Broadway success. Producing this one was none other than pop/rock god Elton John, together with his writing partner Bernie Taupin. He and Taupin had produced a metric ton of pop hits together, and Elton had two back-to-back successes on Broadway with The Lion King and Aida. How could Lestat go wrong, especially with the massive cult following Anne Rice’s novels had? Well, go wrong it truly did. And it’s a shame, as an adaptation of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles was something Elton John was working on in some form since the ‘80s.
Lestat came out only a few years after the flops of Dance of the Vampires and Dracula, and had a target on its back from almost the start as a result. The show was ambitious to say the least, combining the first two books in Rice’s series—Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat—into one continuous story. It also featured amazing production design from Sandman artist Dave McKean. Maybe the first mistake was removing the modern framing device of the novels with Lestat as a modern-day rock star. Why take the one obvious musical portion of the books out? Maybe because the 2002 movie Queen of the Damned dropped the ball on that aspect so badly. Without that framing device, the show ends on a down and depressing note for the lead character. It makes the whole thing just not very fun.
Lestat, which starred a blonde-wigged Hugh Panaro in the lead role, did previews in San Francisco’s Curran Theatre. It shattered box office records for previous SF out-of-town tryouts, outselling both Wicked and even Cats. The hope was that like Wicked, the show could work out its early kinks in SF before Broadway success. Sadly, that did not happen for Lestat. It met with horrible reviews when it finally opened on Broadway in early 2006, and closed after a mere 39 performances. A cast album was recorded and never released, despite getting a Tony nomination for Carolee Carmello in her role as Lestat’s mother, Gabrielle. With the failure of Lestat on Broadway after Dracula and Dance of the Vampires, Broadway steered clear of the undead for the next several decades.
Will Lost Boys Save the Vampire Musical?
Will The Lost Boys finally turn things around for vampires on Broadway? Who knows, but it seems unlikely. You can’t say vampires flopping in musical theaters is because American audiences don’t love vampires. Just look at the box office receipts for recent movies like Nosferatu. And the melodramatic love story of Twilight (and even True Blood) seems perfect for musical theater. Not to mention, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Once More With Feeling” is still one of the greatest TV musical episodes of all time. One would think that one especially would translate. But somehow, putting all these immortal bloodsuckers on stage is just one step too far for your average tourist going to see a matinee show on Broadway. Here’s hoping that The Lost Boys cracks the code, and breaks the vampire musical curse.
The post Will THE LOST BOYS Break the Curse of Flop Vampire Musicals? appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Fady Askharoun Samy Askharoun
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