As musical theatre fans, we all know that not every promising show makes it to Broadway. Some musicals, despite having intriguing concepts, talented creators and even developmental productions, never quite manage to reach the Main Stem. This week’s Saturday List dives into five such musicals – shows that had the potential to be Broadway hits but ultimately fell short. Join us as we explore the stories behind these ambitious productions and what kept them from making their Broadway bows.

5. Josephine

Josephine Baker was a sensation in the music halls of Paris, an American entertainer who, during World War II, secretly served her adopted country in the French Resistance. Some people might say that her heroic work during the war, which was rooted in her love for France and her opposition to fascism, brought her the self-worth she so vainly sought in fame, money and arms of royalty – she allegedly had a liaison with Crown Prince Gustav VI of Sweden. The real-life events inspired Josephine, which featured a book by Ellen Weston and Mark Hampton, music by Steve Dorff and lyrics by John Bettis. Producer Ken Waissman hoped to have the show on Broadway in a production directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely, with Canadian pop star Deborah Cox – who was Broadway’s last Aida in the Disney Theatricals production of the same name – in the title role. An initial production of the musical was mounted at Florida’s Asolo Theatre in 2006, where it was praised for its strong production values, including excellent costumes, sets, and choreography, as well as for Deborah Cox’s performance. On the other hand, the musical’s book was criticised for being superficial and not delving deeply enough into Baker’s complex life. A lack of emotional depth and character development sunk the show and it closed, its hope of a Broadway run shut down.

4. 1916 – The Musical

There’s a lot less information about 1916 – The Musical, a show based on the Easter Rising in Ireland that made a splash at the 2010 edition of West End Live and hoped to open in Dublin the following year before heading further afield. It’s true that not every show that opens on the eastern shores of the Atlantic aims for a Broadway run and who’s to know if 1916 – The Musical had those sorts of ambitions. What we know for sure, is that the man who came up with the idea, Sean Ferris, had high hopes for his baby. He had nurtured the idea for more than fifteen years and worked actively on it for almost a third of that time, stating:

My mother grew up Derry and we have family in Galway and Cork. I started to do some research and realised that the story of the Rising would translate wonderfully to stage and that there was an amazing historical tale to tell – effectively a struggle of a nation, 900 years of oppression and in terms of emotion – getting all that on stage. As I read into the history of Thomas Clarke, Pádraig Pearse and the others, they absolutely fascinated me.

The idea was to use the backdrop of the Easter Rising – a pivotal event in Irish history that occurred in April 1916, when Irish republicans launched an insurrection against British rule with the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic – to tell an epic love story. Harry, a naïve English soldier sent to Ireland would meet Bridie, whose younger brother, Ciarán, was a staunch member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and their story would see them interacting with historical characters in a show that aimed to have the same scope as something like Les Misérables. Aiming to appeal to an international audience, the score was to have had a philharmonic pallete, mixing a raw Irish contemporary sound with elements of authentic folk music. After the announcement that it would premiere in 2011, a further announcement revealed 2012 as a new target date and hopes were high for an international television broadcast. In 2012, it seemed things were on track, with open auditions being held – X Factor-style – for the show. But after that – radio silence. We’ll never know the ins and outs of what happened, I suppose, but 1916 – The Musical represents a fair number of unproduced musicals, I expect – big dreams that just couldn’t find their way into reality.

3. Harps and Angels

Harps and Angels was the name of Randy Newman’s twelfth studio album as well as the proposed title for a jukebox musical based on the beloved musician’s hits. News of this production surely delighted Newman’s fans and it made its bow in a production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Under the direction of Jerry Zaks, with musical staging by Warren Carlyle, the show was conceived by Jack Viertel to be a complex, witty, bittersweet and satirical commentary on hat it is like to be born, grow up, fall in love, and live and die in America – a tall order! Some of the Newman songs that were featured include “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” “Sail Away,” “Marie,” “Louisiana 1927,” “Feels Like Home,” “I Love L.A.” and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” The production drew mixed notices. The cast’s performances were praised, but the show’s structure and pacing – especially in the less dynamic second act – were criticised. While there were suggestions that a condensed version might be more effective in making the show the compelling, honest and humorous production it was intended to be, the production wasn’t tweaked for a Broadway transfer and pretty much disappeared from the public’s consciousness.

2. Pure Country

Hands up if you remember the 1992 film Pure Country! Anyone? Oh, all right. Well, I’m sure even fewer of you remember that an adaptation of the film was meant to premiere as a Broadway musical first in the 2008-2009 seasons and after those plans fell a part, two seasons later. With a book by Peter Masterson (of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas fame) and Rex McGee (who wrote the film), music by Steve Dorff and lyrics by John Bettis, Pure Country would have brought the story of country music superstar Rusty (Dusty in the original film) to the Main Stem. As in the original, the high-stakes pressures that come part and parcel with a career in the music industry take their toll on Rusty, who abandons his overblown concert tour in favour of finding himself and, as the press release phrased it, the love he left behind. Two songs from the film’s hit soundtrack, “Heartland” and “I Cross My Heart,” would have appeared alongside an otherwise original score composed for the show. At the time, Pure Country had an official website indicating Masterson would direct the show. Seán Curran (who had been responsible for James Joyce’s The Dead was initially slated to choreograph the show, but he was replaced by Warren Carlyle, who had recently directed and choreographed a revival of Finian’s Rainbow. Will Chase, Carlin Glynn, Cady Huffman, James Moye and Danny Rutigliano had appeared in developmental readings and workshops of the show, but by the 2010-2011 season, Joe Nichols had been announced to play Rusty, while Lorrie Morgan would have taken the part of his manager, Lula. The one-liner concocted to sell producers and audiences on the musical – ‘Pure Country is about the price of fame and one man’s journey home.’ – didn’t have anyone screaming “Yee-ha” and the show never opened on Broadway. In a twist of events, this wasn’t the end of the road doe Pure Country, which would have resurfaced a decade later at Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars in a season that also featured Spring Awakening and A Chorus Line, having had an earlier run in 2017 in Dallas. Alas, it was scheduled to open in April 2020, which meant it was tragically sidelined due to the COVID-19 pandemic – and that, as they say, was that. Sometimes, an uphill climb is just too steep to summit.

1. Operation: Mindcrime

Imagine the tagline:

In the wake of Rock of Ages, RENT meets Jesus Christ Superstar to see the creation of… Operation: Mindcrime!

In 2009, Adam Pascal spearheaded a project to bring Operation: Mindcrime, the 1988 concept album by metal group Queensrÿche to stage. Recognised as a significant work in the heavy metal genre, the album uses song skilfully to dramatise the story of Nikki, a drug addict who becomes involved in a political revolutionary as an assassin, following her personal personal disillusionment with the government. Pascal envisioned a show similar in size to the one in which which he originated the role of HIV-positive wannabe rocker Roger. Operation: Mindcrime had another similarity to RENT, at least before it settled into the casting that would come to define it and help shape the background of its characters. According to Pascal:

These characters can be any age, any ethnicity, they can have any backstory you want to give them.

The timing of Pascal’s announcement coincided with the success of Rock of Ages, which received a Tony nomination for Best Musical in that season, so if there was ever a right for this project to move forward, that was it. I remember hoping that Pascal would take further inspiration from Next to Normal, which like RENT, has a rock-based score but which distills things like narrative clarity more successfully into the production. Pascal set a timeline of a year to pull together a reading of the show and we all waited… and waited… and we never heard about it again.

Final Thoughts

The journey from first concept to a final Broadway show is a challenging one, fraught with obstacles and uncertainties. The musicals we’ve highlighted today – Josephine, Harps and Angels, 1916 – The Musical, Pure Country and Operation: Mindcrime – each had unique stories and significant potential. Yet, for various reasons, they never made it to the Broadway stage. These productions remind us that even the most compelling ideas and talented theatre-makers sometimes encounter insurmountable hurdles. Still, even the stories behind the stories continue to captivate us, proving that one of the greatest things about the world of musical theatre is that it’s full of surprises, both on and off the stage.