History TroubledProduction / Theatre

** Injunction or no, the Broadway production opened in February 1965 to lethal reviews, and the producers were forced to close after only one performance having effectively exhausted their funds. At $650,000, it was the biggest financial flop to date.

** [[Creator/DonFrancks Don Francks]], playing the title role in what was to be his New York stage debut, felt disheartened by the attempted softening of his character. Meanwhile, the role of Hop Kelly's mother, played by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Logan Ella Logan]] in what was to be a Broadway comeback, was a particular sticking point with audiences and the producers. They had attempted to nudge her out by widdling down the part to the bare minimum, hoping she would quit for reasons of pride (and, having quit as opposed to being fired, not have to pay her severance). Logan didn't take the bait, and, until she was finally written out for good, she was outspoken about her disapproval of the whole enterprise.

** David Susskind, primarily a film and television producer, backed by a team of other theatrical newbies, took up ''Kelly'' having met with Charlap and Lawrence's approval. (They were apparently attracted to the fact that its prickliness has scared off other producers.) Pre-Broadway tryouts were set for Philadelphia and Boston in fall and winter 1964.

** [[Creator/DonFrancks Don Francks]], playing the title role in what was to be his New York stage debut, felt disheartened by the attempted softening of his character. Meanwhile, the role of Hop Kelly's mother, played by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Logan Ella Logan]] in what was to be a Broadway comeback, was a particular sticking point with audiences and the producers, and they had attempted to nudge her out by widdling down the part to the bare minimum, hoping she would quit for reasons of pride (and, having quit as opposed to being fired, not have to pay her severance). Logan didn't take the bait, and, until she was finally written out for good, she was outspoken about her disapproval of the whole enterprise.

** From Philadelphia on, audiences weren't warm to ''Kelly'', and the producers began to suspect the musical wasn't Brechtian so much as it was simply uninvolving and unsympathetic. Reneging on their initial enthusiasm, they began pressing Charlap and Lawrence to bring ''Kelly'' more in line with traditional musical comedy fare (i.e. the "crummy love story" Lawrence feared). Not only did the writers resist, by the time of the Boston run, they also filed an injunction in New York Supreme Court that would have prevented ''Kelly'' from opening unless it was as they had originally written it before changes were made. Meanwhile, desperate, the producers brought in [[Creator/MelBrooks Mel Brooks]] and Leonard Stern (both a few years off from writing [[Series/GetSmart Get Smart]]) to doctor the book. One by one, the songs were cut with little to replace them. ("The score is like a dead animal," said Charlap's hand-picked music director.)

** David Susskind, primarily a film and television producer, with a team of other theatrical newbies, took up ''Kelly'' having met with Charlap and Lawrence's approval. (They were apparently attracted to the fact that its prickliness has scared off other producers.) Pre-Broadway tryouts were set for Philadelphia and Boston in fall and winter 1964.

** From Philadelphia on, audiences weren't warm to ''Kelly'', and the producers began to suspect the musical wasn't Brechtian so much as it was simply uninvolving and unsympathetic. They began pressing Charlap and Lawrence to bring ''Kelly'' more in line with traditional musical comedy fare (i.e. the "crummy love story" Lawrence feared). Not only did the writers resist, by the time of the Boston run, they also filed an injunction in New York Supreme Court that would have prevented ''Kelly'' from opening unless it was as they had originally written it before changes were made. Meanwhile, desperate, the producers brought in [[Creator/MelBrooks Mel Brooks]] and Leonard Stern (both a few years off from writing [[Series/GetSmart Get Smart]]) to doctor the book. One by one, the songs were cut with little to replace them. ("The score is like a dead animal," said Charlap's hand-picked music director.)

** David Susskind, primarily a film and television producer, with a team of other theatrical producing newbies, took up ''Kelly'' having met with Charlap and Lawrence's approval. (They were apparently attracted to the fact that its prickliness has scared off other producers.) Pre-Broadway tryouts were set for Philadelphia and Boston in fall and winter 1964.

** David Susskind, primarily a film and television producer, with a team of other theatrical producing newbies, took up ''Kelly'' having met with Charlap and Lawrence's approval. (They were apparently attracted to the fact that its prickliness has scared off other producers.) Pre-Broadway tryouts were set for Philadelphia and Boston before coming in to New York.

** Injunction or no, the Broadway reviews were lethal, and the producers were forced to close after only one performance having effectively exhausted their funds. At $650,000, it was the biggest financial flop to date.

** ''Kelly'' was written by Mark "Moose" Charlap (then best known for ''Theatre/PeterPan1954'') and Eddie Lawrence (then best known as a comic actor). It was loosely inspired by the exploits of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Brodie_(bridge_jumper) Steve Brodie]], the first man to (supposedly) jump from the Brooklyn Bridge and live, and heavily influenced by the prickly theatricality of [[Creator/BertoltBrecht Bertolt Brecht]]. Written in "nine days and nine nights of fierce inspiration", they then shopped it around to producers only to find that anyone interested wanted to make "unacceptable" changes. (Said Lawrence, "[Producers] wanted to change the [lead Brodie-like character, Hop Kelly] into some kind of knight in shining armor, like a crummy love story.")

** David Susskind, primarily a film and television producer, with a team of other thetrical producing newbies, took up ''Kelly'' having met with Charlap and Lawrence's approval. Pre-Broadway tryouts were set for Philadelphia and Boston before coming in to New York.

** ''Kelly'' was written by Mark "Moose" Charlap (then best known for ''Theatre/PeterPan1954'') and Eddie Lawrence (then best known as a comic actor). It was loosely inspired by the exploits of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Brodie_(bridge_jumper) Steve Brodie]], the first man to (supposedly) jump from the Brooklyn Bridge and live, and heavily influenced by the prickly theatricality of [[Creator/BertoltBrecht Bertolt Brecht]]. Written in "nine days and nine nights of fierce inspiration", they then shopped it around to producers only to find that anyone interested wanted to make "unacceptable" changes. (Said Lawrence, "[Producers] wanted to change the [lead character, Hop Kelly] into some kind of knight in shining armor, like a crummy love story.")

** David Susskind, primarily a film and television producer, took up ''Kelly'' having met with Charlap and Lawrence's approval. Herbert Ross, a choreographer (and frequent show doctor) nabbed his first directing job. Pre-Broadway tryouts were set for Philadelphia and Boston before coming in to New York.

** From Philadelphia on, audiences weren't warm to ''Kelly'', and the producers began to suspect the musical wasn't Brechtian so much as it was simply uninvolving and unsympathetic. They began pressing Charlap and Lawrence to bring ''Kelly'' more in line with traditional musical comedy fare (i.e. the "crummy love story" Lawrence feared). Not only did the writers resist, by the time of the Boston run, they also filed an injunction in New York Supreme Court that would have prevented ''Kelly'' from opening unless it was as they had written. Meanwhile, desperate, the producers brought in [[Creator/MelBrooks Mel Brooks]] and Leonard Stern (both a few years off from writing [[Series/GetSmart Get Smart]]) to doctor the book. One by one, the songs were cut with little to replace them. ("The score is like a dead animal," said Sandy Matlovsky, Charlap's hand-picked music director.)
** Injunction or no, the Broadway reviews were lethal, and the producers were forced to close after only one performance, having effectively exhausted their funds. At $650,000, it was the biggest financial flop to date.

** ''Kelly'' was written by Mark "Moose" Charlap (then best known for ''Theatre/PeterPan1954'') and Eddie Lawrence (then best known as a comic actor). It was loosely inspired by the exploits of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Brodie_(bridge_jumper) Steve Brodie]], the first man to (supposedly) jump from the Brooklyn Bridge and live, and heavily influenced by the prickly theatricality of [[Creator/BertoltBrecht Bertolt Brecht]]. Written in "nine days and nine nights of fierce inspiration", they then shopped it around to producers only to find that anyone interested wanted to make "unacceptable" changes.

** From Philadelphia on, audiences weren't warm to ''Kelly'', and the producers began to suspect the musical wasn't Brechtian so much as it was simply uninvolving and unsympathetic. They began pressing Charlap and Lawrence to bring ''Kelly'' more in line with traditional musical comedy fare. Not only did the writers resist, by the time of the Boston run, they also filed an injunction in New York Supreme Court that would have prevented ''Kelly'' from opening unless it was as they had written. Meanwhile, desperate, the producers brought in [[Creator/MelBrooks Mel Brooks]] and Leonard Stern (both a few years off from writing [[Series/GetSmart Get Smart]]) to doctor the book. One by one, the songs were cut with little to replace them. ("The score is like a dead animal," said Sandy Matlovsky, Charlap's hand-picked music director.)

** From Philadelphia on, audiences weren't warm to ''Kelly'', and the producers began to suspect the musical wasn't Brechtian so much as it was simply uninvolving and unsympathetic. They began pressing Charlap and Lawrence to bring ''Kelly'' more in line with traditional musical comedy fare. Not only did the writers resist, by the time of the Boston run, they also filed an injunction in New York Supreme Court that would have prevented ''Kelly'' from opening unless it was as they had written. Meanwhile, desperate, the producers brought in [[Creator/MelBrooks Mel Brooks]] and Leonard Stern (both a few years off from writing [[Series/GetSmart Get Smart]]) to doctor the book.

** David Susskind, a film and television producer, took up ''Kelly'' having met with Charlap and Lawrence's approval. Herbert Ross, a choreographer (and frequent show doctor) nabbed his first directing job. Pre-Broadway tryouts were set for Philadelphia and Boston before coming in to New York.

* ''Senator Joe'', a "popera" based on the life and times of [[UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy Joseph McCarthy]], limped onto Broadway in 1989 after two poorly publicized and attended out-of-town preview productions; it played all of [[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/senator-joe-1063 three previews]] before closing indefinitely due to money problems. Intended as a comeback for producer Adela Holzer after she had served a stint in prison for fraud, the collapse of ''Senator Joe'' instead teed up her next stay behind bars. This [[https://www.vulture.com/article/senator-joe-broadway-musical-joseph-mccarthy-failed.html feature]] from ''Vulture'' has the whole scoop.

* ''Senator Joe'', a "popera" based on the life and times of [[UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy Joseph McCarthy]] limped onto Broadway in 1989 after two poorly publicized and attended out-of-town preview productions; it played all of [[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/senator-joe-1063 three previews]] before closing indefinitely due to money problems. Intended as a comeback for producer Adela Holzer after she had served a stint in prison for fraud, the collapse of ''Senator Joe'' instead teed up her next stay behind bars. This [[https://www.vulture.com/article/senator-joe-broadway-musical-joseph-mccarthy-failed.html feature]] from ''Vulture'' has the whole scoop.

* ''Senator Joe'', a "popera" based on the life and times of [[UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy Joseph McCarthy]] limped onto Broadway in 1989 after two poorly publicized and attended out-of-town preview productions; it played all of [[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/senator-joe-1063 three previews]] before closing indefinitely due to money problems. Intended as a comeback for producer Adela Holzer after she served a stint in prison for fraud, the collapse of ''Senator Joe'' instead teed up her next stay behind bars. This [[https://www.vulture.com/article/senator-joe-broadway-musical-joseph-mccarthy-failed.html feature]] from ''Vulture'' has the whole scoop.

* ''Senator Joe'', a "popera" based on the life and times of [[UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy Joseph McCarthy]] limped onto Broadway in 1989 after two poorly publicized and attended out-of-town preview productions; it played all of [[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/senator-joe-1063 three previews]] before closing indefinitely due to money problems. Intended as a comeback for producer Adela Holzer after she served a stint in prison for fraud, the collapse of ''Senator Joe'' instead teed up her stay behind bars. This [[https://www.vulture.com/article/senator-joe-broadway-musical-joseph-mccarthy-failed.html feature]] from ''Vulture'' has the whole scoop.

* ''Senator Joe'', a "popera" based on the life and times of [[UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy Joseph McCarthy]] limped onto Broadway in 1989 after two poorly publicized and attended out-of-town preview productions; it played all of two previews before closing indefinitely due to money problems. Intended as a comeback for producer Adela Holzer after she served a stint in prison for fraud, the collapse of ''Senator Joe'' instead teed up her next prison stay. This [[https://www.vulture.com/article/senator-joe-broadway-musical-joseph-mccarthy-failed.html feature]] from ''Vulture'' has the whole scoop.

* ''Senator Joe'', a "popera" based on the life and times of Joseph McCarthy limped onto Broadway in 1989 after two poorly publicized and attended out-of-town preview productions; it played all of two previews before closing indefinitely due to money problems. Intended as a comeback for producer Adela Holzer after she served a stint in prison for fraud, the collapse of ''Senator Joe'' instead teed up her next prison stay. [[https://www.vulture.com/article/senator-joe-broadway-musical-joseph-mccarthy-failed.html ''Vulture'']] has the whole scoop.

* Contrary to popular perception, ''Series/SteptoeAndSon'' co-stars Creator/WilfridBrambell and Harry H. Corbett had a cordial working relationship for most of the series' run (apart from an argument over top billing in the first series; the BBC compromised by swapping their billing every episode), even if they were never close friends. However, what tensions there were between them boiled over during the disastrous ''Steptoe & Son Down Under'' stage tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1977-78.

* The 1917 ballet ''Parade'' (not to be confused with [[Theatre/{{Parade}} the musical tragedy about the death of Leo Frank]]) was the product of the surrealist DreamTeam of Creator/JeanCocteau, Music/ErikSatie, and Creator/PabloPicasso, who of course turned out a highly ambitious and experimental piece involving BreakingTheFourthWall, gigantic and highly restrictive costumes, and use of ordinary objects as musical instruments. Unfortunately, this was all a bit beyond what the general public was prepared for at the time (the word "surrealism" was actually created to describe it, and the style wouldn't catch on in the art world for another three years), and it received a highly polarized reaction, with half the audience giving wild applause, which was the only thing stopping the other half from throwing a ''Rite of Spring'' level riot (see the trope's music page), and they still loudly booed throughout the whole thing. Afterwards, Satie was enraged by a negative review by composer and critic Jean Poueigh and sent him a postcard calling him a "cul sans musique," an ass without music. Poueigh sued him over it and he spent eight days in jail, and during the trial Cocteau was beaten by the police for repeatedly yelling "cul."

** In her autobiography, ''It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time'', Sue Lloyd, who played heroine Hanna Wilde, someone in authority realised that the production was so technically challenging that the theatre's staffing levels were inadequate to cope with it, resulting in the management having to augment the team by drafting in additional stagehands from Birmingham's other main theatre, the Alexandra.

** One scene required Hannah to knock a man out with a bottle. The plastic bottle Lloyd was holding slipped out of her hand and went bouncing across the stage, forcing her to improvise, something that the cast would frequently find themselves doing.
** The script required Gerda to use the power of invisibility in order to destroy the world's spy agencies from within. This proved to be more difficult to achieve than anticipated and was the root of many of the play's problems. In her memoir ''Vamp Until Ready'', O'Mara outlined some of the difficulties caused by the special props and sets, including a wall section with two wide rubber strips through which she had to force herself in order to disappear from view in a scene where she becomes invisible. She recalled that the scene proved so difficult to achieve that she would sometimes rebound from the rubber strips into Simon Oates (playing John Steed), who was backing her up against what appeared to be a wall. A number of press reviews mentioned the theater lighting being momentarily cut to allow O'Mara to vanish seemingly into thin air in "now you see me, now you don't" moment.

** Another of the special props was a mummy case containing a secret back door through which O'Mara could exit unseen by the audience in a scene where Madame Gerda uses invisibilty in order to escape Steed, who plunges his umbrella sword through the sarcoughagus. One night, a stagehand forgot to unlock the secret backdoor, leaving O'Mara trapped inside the sarcoughagus, as Oates prepared to lunge with his sword. She resorted to shaking the prop form side to side to draw attention to the fact that something was wrong.
** A prop sofa became notorious for malfunctioning during performances due to the incorporation of a mechanism designed to create the illusion of characters becoming invisible. This allowed the prop to open up so that the castmembers concerned could pass through it and then wait out of sight behind it until an opportunity arose for them to leave the stage unseen. According to Lloyd, Jeremy Lloyd became trapped in the sofa with only his head and shoulders sticking out. Unable to contain herself, she burst out laughing, causing the audience to do so and the curtain to fall. During the unexpected interlude, he was freed by some stagehands. It turned out that the lever the performers had to use in order to activate the mechanism whenever they wanted their character to vanish didn't always return to its original position. Hence when someone else sat on the sofa later on, they found themselves ejected out of the back without warning, leaving the other actors to improvise their way out of the situation.

-->The story of the original London production has too many twists for even the hoariest backstage farce, and helps explain the fortuitous alchemy that made this thing work. The cast rehearses without any real script. The set is literally a pile of garbage. The characters have names such as Carbucketty and Bustopher Jones, something out of a toddler’s stuffed-animal pageant. The composer has to take a second mortgage on his house.

* The Metropolitan Opera’s 2017-18 production of ''Theatre/{{Tosca}}'', directed by Sir David [=McVicar=], was particularly troubled, even by the standards of other troubled ''Tosca'' productions, with all three leads replaced, and the conductor himself being replaced three times by the time it premiered. When the production was first announced, the starry premiere cast consisted of Kristine Opolais in the title role, Jonas Kaufmann as Cavaradossi, and Sir Bryn Terfel as Scarpia, with the performance to be conducted by Andris Nelsons, Opolais' then-husband. The company created a world-class production to replace 2009's godawful Regietheatre styling by ''auteur'' Luc Bondy which had disgusted audiences with its Brutalist sets and crude sexual antics[[note]]including having Scarpia hump the statue of Mary in the church and having the Act II curtain rise on him getting a blow job from a topless prostitute. Among other things.[[/note]] who was literally ''booed'' when he came out for curtain calls at the premiere. So the new sets, costumes, art direction, stage management etc. were faithful to the historical period and looked wonderful, but from there, the troubles started: