Any passing theatre fan will know that Broadway has encountered a fair few flops in its time.

Whether its mediocre music, tense political context or, you know, actors falling off trapezes, there are plenty of reasons why a show can meet its maker – in many cases, ahead of schedule.

But the critics of The Great White Way don't always get it right. Some shows get turfed onto the dust heap, only to come back all shiny and new years later.

Below, we've gone into the very best and worst of those, looking at the Broadway flops that had a second life, and those who definitely never should.

Scroll down for our list of 11 classic Broadway musical deaths and the few that rose again.

1. Carrie (1988)

After the success of Stephen King's novel and Brian De Palma's subsequent film, the story Carrie was transfigured for the stage and opened at New York's Virginia Theatre on 12 May 1988. Conceived by songwriters Michael Gore, Lawrence D. Cohen and Dean Pitchford, the show was envisioned as a modern-day operatic tragedy, mixing serious drama with the classic campy elements of high school in the 80s. Sadly, 'tragedy' became the apt word for the production.

After costing $8m to make, a huge sum in the late 1980s, Carrie closed just three days after opening night with only five performances and 16 previews completed. Why? Well, as The New York Times put it: "As the film director Brian DePalma demonstrated in his screen adaptation, Carrie can make for scary, funny and sexy pulp entertainment – provided the thrills, wit and post-pubescent sensuality are as sharp as that knife. The musical Carrie fails in all these areas."

The tone of Carrie the Musical was the real killer, as audiences were just baffled by the use of bubble-gum pop music alongside scenes of melodramatic violence. The opening song for Act Two, Out for Blood, became particularly notorious, as crazed teenagers ran across stage yelling "Kill the Pig, Pig, Pig" in preparation for the iconic prank performed on Carrie at prom. Despite reports that King himself enjoyed the show, the musical suffered from scathing reviews and alleged boos from audience members.

Did it get an encore?

Strangely, yes. Despite its spectacular death Carrie the musical found a safe afterlife when theatre fans became obsessed with the story of its difficult run. The show earned a cult following and received an Off-Broadway revival in 2012, with the book and score almost entirely redesigned by Cohen, Pitchford, and Gore. The creators removed most of the exaggerated and playful style from the original and focused on transforming it into a psychological-drama. The revival received better reviews than the original production and became available for licensing. Since then it's been popular in school productions and was even the basis of a musical episode of Riverdale in 2018.

2. Lestat (2006)

The early 2000s saw Broadway develop a strange relationship with flop vampire musicals. We had 2002’s Dance of the Vampires (by Jim Steinman), 2004’s Dracula: The Musical (by Frank Wildhorn), and 2006's Lestat all happening in quick succession.

Lestat was based on Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles with music written by Elton John and his long-time collaborator Bernie Taupin. The show opened on March 25, 2006 and was frankly in trouble from the off. To start, it tried to condense several of Rice's books into one show rather than focussing on Interview with the Vampire and altered so much of Lestat's charismatic nature that he came across as dull. Fans were particularly upset at how the dark and intense tone of Rice's work came across as playful and fun thanks to the songs.

In the end, the reviews were brutal. The New York Times called it "a musical sleeping pill" and Washington Post critic Peter Marks said that “Lestat’s contribution to art and equality is demonstrating that a gay vampire with a two-octave range can be just as dull as a straight one.”

Did it get an encore?

No. If anything, this killed off Broadway's relationship with vampire projects for good. Although this may be starting to heal as The Lost Boys premiered in April this year and has received tentatively mixed reviews.

3. Tammy Faye (2024)

Sorry Sir Elton! Another notorious flop written by John was the tale of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, otherwise known as Tammy Faye. Launching on Broadway in November 2024, this show had all the ingredients of success: lyrics by Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters, a book by Dear England playwright James Graham, and a previous sold-out world premiere at London's Almeida Theatre.

However, in the weekend after its opening the musical drew a gross of $374,371 with an overall attendance of 5,732 at 63 percent of capacity. It closed on 8 December after just 24 previews and 29 regular performances.

In an interview after opening night, John hinted that the failure was to do with the current political climate in the US stating: “It’s a fairly political piece of work. And with that you have to press somebody’s buttons. The buttons we pressed last night with the critics weren’t the right ones." He later added: "Tammy Faye came out during the US election and it’s all about how the integration of church and state ruined America, which Ronald Reagan did. It was too political for America. They don’t really get irony.”

For critics however, the failure was mainly down to tone, as the show swung between camp and serious, the New York Post even called it “a disaster of biblical proportions.”

Did it get an encore?

No not yet. Although John's other work The Devil Wears Prada Musical is still riding high on the West End.

4. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966)

Truman Capote's story of the frivolous Holly Golightly and her obsession with Tiffany is undoubtedly an iconic member of the Hollywood film canon, but its musical adaptation is infamous for entirely different reasons. Somehow the most well-known flop and a delicious mystery at the same time, Breakfast at Tiffany's ran on The Great White Way for just four previews, but why?

The show was put together by producer David Merrick in 1966 who was riding high from the success of Hello, Dolly! The producer hired Bob Merrill for the score and well-loved actors Mary Tyler Moore as Holly and Richard Chamberlain as Paul Varjak. Yet despite the impressive list of collaborators, the project never gelled. It underwent constant script changes and received troubling reception in all its out-of-town tryouts.

However, in spite of the rumblings, New Yorkers were desperate to see it, reportedly shelling out a record $2 million for advanced tickets. With the pressure mounting and the show still in pieces, Merrick famously shut it down rather than, in his own words, "subject the drama critics and the public to an excruciatingly boring evening".

Did it get an encore?

Sadly not. Breakfast at Tiffany's was revived as a play in 2013 starring Game of Thrones' Emilia Clarke, yet even this was deemed not good enough for the original and closed after 17 previews and 38 regular performances.

5.

The 2011 Broadway production of Bonnie & Clyde told the story of the Depression-era American outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and their journey to becoming folk heroes. The new musical had songs by Frank Wildhorn and Don Black which the pair described as a "non-traditional score, combining rockabilly, blues and gospel music." However, tepid reviews and low ticket sales meant the show closed after 36 performances.

Did it get an encore?

Yes it certainly did. Frank Wildhorn's score developed a following, and the show found considerably more enthusiasm outside its original Broadway run, particularly in the UK. The The musical held an Off West-End workshop at The Other Palace Theatre in 2017 featuring Jamie Muscato as Clyde Barrow and Evelyn Hoskins as Bonnie Parker. It then went on to have a fully-staged West End debut in 2022 and a restaging in 2023. The show has since gone on to tour and have several international runs.

6. Via Galactica (1972)

Via Galactica was a rock musical about an intergalactic garbage collector in the year 2972 on a spaceship called the Helen of Troy... that says enough doesn't it?

Originally titled Up!, this futuristic musical followed a set of social outcasts living on an asteroid with book and lyrics by Christopher Gore. The show was intended to be the height of cutting edge technology, with trampoline walkways, trapeze's and, as New York Times writer Jennifer George recalls "a backdrop of thousands of Ping-Pong balls strung together."

The show was an unmitigated failure with actors and scenery falling through the trampoline flooring, and the plot so confusing they had to print it in Playbill to help audiences understand. It closed after 15 previews and seven performances and became one of the first Broadway shows to lose $1 million.

Did it get an encore?

No but the show is now considered something of a myth thanks to its reputation for having actors bounce around on neon trampolines.

7. Spiderman: Turn off the Dark (2011)

When you combine the world's most famous superhero, a $75 million budget, The Lion King director Julie Taymor, and music by U2’s Bono and The Edge – what could go wrong? Well, alongside being the most expensive Broadway production in history, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark was also the most dangerous.

In its efforts to become more gravity-defying than Wicked could ever imagine, the show included 40+ aerial stunts, which inevitably led to several injuries in the rehearsal process. One stuntman, Christopher Tierney, fell during a performance, suffering a skull fracture and cracked vertebrae, and Evan Rachel Wood, who was originally cast as Mary Jane Watson, left the project citing 'scheduling difficulties'.

The show was originally slated to open in early 2010 but only officially made it to preview on 28 November. The issues then continued as, in one preview, the dramatic cliffhanger at the end of the first half ground to a halt when Reeve Carney, playing the superhero, was left swinging above the audience. It took stagehands almost a minute to catch him by the feet to drag him down. The production was so fiddly that the preview period ended up lasting for a record-breaking 182 performances, finally opening on 14 January 2011.

Did it get an encore?

Yes! In a comic book twist not even Spidey Senses could predict, the show actually lasted at the Foxwoods Theatre for four years. It never did manage to accrue back its colossal costs, though.

8. Bring Back Birdie (1981)

It's not just Hollywood that brings us bad sequels. Bring Back Birdie is the forgotten follow-up to 1960's Bye Bye Birdie, perhaps deservedly. Written and composed by the same team as the original - Charles Strouse, Lee Adams, and Michael Stewart - the show is set 20 years later and sees married couple Rosie and Albert Peterson try to track down a disappeared Conrad Birdie in order to stage his comeback.

It opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on 5 March 1981, and closed on 7 March after 31 previews and only four official performances. Critics found the production depressing and tasteless and, like all infamous sequels, simply a retread of the original. In his book Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops, Historian Ken Mandelbaum said Bring Back Birdie “may rank as the worst Broadway musical ever to be created by top-level professionals."

Did it get an encore?

Kind of. Despite its poor reviews, Chita Rivera still took home a Tony Nomination for her part and the show's score was revived for a New York concert in 2017.

9. Anyone Can Whistle (1964)

The 1964 production of Anyone Can Whistle was one long jinx, with financial issues, illness and even death when a dancer flew offstage and landed on a saxophone player, who suffered a heart attack – and that was before it even got to Broadway.

The musical was Stephen Sondheim's fifth work with a book by Arthur Laurents and followed the story of an economically depressed town whose corrupt mayor decides to create a fake miracle in order to attract tourists. Despite initially wanting Barbara Streisand to star – who luckily instead chose to appear in Funny Girl – the pair cast the indomitable Angela Lansbury in her stage debut and arrived at the Majestic Theatre on 4 April 1964.

However, an overly-intellectualised script and emphasis on satire left too many people feeling alienated. In Finishing the Hat, Sondheim confessed, “Arthur and I had written the piece as if we were the two smartest kids in the class" and later called the reviews "humiliating" and the audiences "hostile." He also said Lansbury was "So insecure onstage, and unhappy with her performance, that we considered replacing her." All in all, the show closed after a run of twelve previews and nine performances.

Did it get an encore? Yes. Despite a hard-to-love script, Sondheim's score has become beloved among theatre fans and "There Won't Be Trumpets" boomed in cabaret clubs. The songs would go on to be preserved in a staged concert at Carnegie Hall in 1995 and a full Abbey Road recording in 1997, plus the show itself got a full-scale revival in 2022 in London's Southwark Playhouse. Overall the show is now considered one of Sondheim's misunderstood classics.

10. Rocky the Musical (2014)

Sylvester Stallone's beloved boxing flick hit the boards in 2014 with no expense spared. Co-produced by Stallone himself, the roughly $20m production costs included a $4.3m full-size boxing ring, which slid out over the stalls, requiring those in the front rows to move around to bleachers at the back for the last 20 minutes.

Said set design won Rocky a Tony, but sadly no amount of elaborate visuals could account for what The Hollywood Reporter called a "serviceable Xerox of the movie". A thin book and unmemorable songs meant Rocky's sales weren't great, at one point making just half of its weekly $1.2million revenue potential, and so it closed after 188 performances.

Did it get an encore? No and it probably won't when you think about how much Broadway costs have shot up in the past decade.

11. Merrily We Roll Along (1981)

Yes it's true. Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along famously flopped on Broadway in 1981, closing after just 16 performances. The show opened at the Alvin Theatre on November 16, 1981, and closed after audiences and critics blasted its reverse-chronological storytelling and the use of teenagers to play bitter adults.

The musical was put together by Sondheim and long-term collaborator Hal Prince, with a book by George Furth. It tells the story of how three friends' lives and friendship change over the course of 20 years, focusing particularly on Franklin Shepard, a talented composer who steadily abandons his friends to become a Hollywood producer. However it struggled from day one, for budget reasons, Merrily didn't get an out-of-town tryout and so landed on Broadway on 8 October 1981 with no testing. Audiences reportedly walked out the cast were reshuffled when the original leading man James Weissenbach was replaced. This and the replacement of the rehearsal choregrapher meant the opening was delayed twice, yet Sondheim recalled, "that month of fervent hysterical activity was the most fun I've ever had on a single show."

By opening night, the team thought the production was fixed, but the next day revealed an onslaught of dreadful reviews. In his New York Times review, Frank Rich wrote, "As we all should probably have learned by now, to be a Stephen Sondheim fan is to have one's heart broken at regular intervals." The show ended, and Sondheim's working relationship with Prince died with it.

Did it get an encore?

Did it ever! Over the years Merrily We Roll Along quietly sat in its niche, cult status, popping up here and there with changes being made by Sondheim and Furth. However, it was officially brought back to Broadway in 2023 and has become one of the biggest and best-loved revivals of the decade. The Maria Friedman-directed show starred Jonathon Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez as the principal friends and very quickly earned praise for the show's slick feel and incredible performances.

During its first week of previews, the show broke the house record at the Hudson Theatre and played to sold-out audiences, grossing over $1.3 million. The New York Times described the revival as "the first convincing revival" of the show, crediting the success to "Maria Friedman's unsparing direction and a thrillingly fierce central performance by Jonathan Groff."

In the end, the musical won four Tony's including Best Revival, Best Actor for Groff and Best Featured Actor for Radcliffe. The Broadway production is now available as a film to watch on Netflix US, thus proving the world was simply not ready for it in 1981.

For more recommendations check out the Theatre section or listen to our new podcast In the Interval. Plus, our Jesus Christ Superstar review and Beetlejuice review. We also have events like the best kids theatre shows and best West End shows.