Carrie: The Musical

Stephen King’s blockbuster 1974 debut novel Carrie sold over a million copies in its first year of publication. The classic 1976 film adaptation, directed by Brian De Palma, became a critical and box office smash, and earned two Academy Award nominations – for Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie as Margaret White. First presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the original musical adaptation of Carrie premiered in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England for a limited run in February 1988. Transferring to Broadway, it opened at the Virginia Theater on 12 May 1988 starring Betty Buckley, Linzi Hateley, Sally Ann Triplett, Paul Gyngell, Gene Anthony Ray, Charlotte d’Amboise and Darlene Love. Fiercely polarizing audiences and proving wildly divisive with critics, the show famously closed after only 16 previews and 5 performances.

Though the production did not run long enough to generate a Broadway cast recording, bootlegged audio and video tapes from the production started to appear online. They attracted so much interest and demand that the authors decided to revisit the piece 24 years later.

On 1 March 2012, their revamped version of Carrie: The Musical opened off-Broadway, presented by MCC at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, starring Marin Mazzie and Molly Ranson. Featuring an updated script and new songs in a smaller-scaled production, the show received multiple award nominations, and was named Best Off-Broadway Musical by the Off-Broadway Alliance. A live performance was filmed by the New York Public Library’s Theatre on Film and Tape Archives, and Sh-K-Boom Records released the Premiere Cast Recording.

With a stronger and more resonant focus on high school bullying and social isolation, this resurrected version went on to successful productions across North America and in locations around the world, including London, Manila, Spain, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.

On 18 April 2018, the hit CW high school television series Riverdale featured a special musical episode centered around Carrie: The Musical. It was a huge hit with critics and viewers alike, and YouTube videos of its songs now exceed 20 million hits.