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[0:00] Chris Adams: Chapter 2. Make it like Greece! No, that was shit!

[0:04] Holly Morgan: Ha ha ha ha! I loved it!

[0:20] Chris Adams: Where are we?

[0:21] Holly Morgan: Where are we? Yeah.

[0:22] Chris Adams: We're sort of on the outskirts of London.

[0:25] Holly Morgan: We don't need to give the listener the exact location.

[0:30] Chris Adams: So, one of the lovely original cast members, Kenny.

[0:35] Holly Morgan: Lovely Kenny Linden.

[0:36] Chris Adams: Lovely Kenny has set up a sort of reunion with some of his former cast member friends.

[0:43] Holly Morgan: We're so lucky.

[0:44] Chris Adams: Yeah, it's very exciting and we're going to meet them, do a little interview with them in the garden.

[0:49] Holly Morgan: Are you nervous?

[0:50] Chris Adams: I'm a bit nervous actually.

[0:51] Holly Morgan: Yeah.

[0:52] Chris Adams: It's weird because these are obviously the people that we've been talking about and listening to and now we're going to meet them!

[0:58] Holly Morgan: Who are we going to meet? We're going to meet Linzi Hateley.

[1:00] Chris Adams: Lovely Linzi Hateley, Kenny, a couple of Michelle's.

[1:04] Holly Morgan: Yes.

[1:05] Chris Adams: A couple more people joining on Zoom as well.

[1:07] Holly Morgan: Incredible.

[1:08] Chris Adams: I hope they're not too scared of us.

[1:10] Holly Morgan: Oh my god, I would be.

[1:11] Chris Adams: Hello, we're obsessed with the job you did 20 years ago.

[1:15] Holly Morgan: Do you think they're like, who are these people?

[1:18] Chris Adams: Are you going to let us in?

[1:19] Holly Morgan: I hope they let us in.

[1:24] Chris Adams: Welcome back to Out for Blood. I'm Chris.

[1:26] Holly Morgan: And I'm Holly.

[1:27] Chris Adams: And we're dusting off our old VHS of Carrie the Musical, giving it another watch to see if it really deserves its reputation as queen of Broadway flops.

[1:36] Chris Adams: So far, Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore, the award-winning writing team behind Fame, have paired up with Larry Cohen, the screenwriter of the acclaimed Carrie movie, to workshop their early material in New York.

[1:47] Chris Adams: The concept was the talk of the town, but it needed to find an influential producing team to fund a full-scale Broadway show.

[1:54] Chris Adams: But as ever with this tale, nothing went smoothly.

[1:57] Chris Adams: Despite many producers showing enthusiasm at the workshop, Carrie churned through a series of potential investors in its early days, struggling to progress much further.

[2:05] Chris Adams: Here's the lyricist Dean Pitchford to pick up the story.

[2:08] Dean Pitchford: There was an enormous amount of interest and excitement about it. We were very fortunate to get three very powerful producers, a man named Fred Zolo, who has gone on to an estimable career, and then a married couple, Fran and Mary Weisler, who of course are responsible for, among other things, Chicago and Waitress. And very smart, very enthusiastic people.

[2:35] Dean Pitchford: Producers were nervous, though, about staging this unique musical. It was hard to attract investors and raise the necessary funds. This was not classic Broadway fare. It was hard to pinpoint a target audience with enough disposable income to make the show a success. They realized we had very difficult material. This was, you know, and also cast your minds back. This is 1984, 85, 86, 87. The idea of creating theater for a young audience, which is all the rage these days. You know, there's so much that's aimed at a young market, and young performers are up on their stages doing those works. 1984, it was, Broadway was a much older person's game.

[3:27] Dean Pitchford: Broadway in the 80s was also crowded with star names, and many popular shows were either well-known classics or big new mega musicals like Phantom of the Opera or entirely sensible, never destined to be a disastrous film, Cats. The feeling was, nobody would pay big bucks for a show that was a million miles away from traditional Broadway fare. So, except for the part of Margaret, there was no chance to provide marquee value. It was filled with kids. Secondly, it was, it begins with Carrie having her first period in the shower. Oh, my God. And then it ends with her being drenched with blood and killing all of her classmates. So, you know, the only thing comparable was Sweeney Todd, and we kept referencing Sweeney Todd, but that was Stephen Sondheim starring Angela Lansbury, and directed by Harold Prince. So, there was a much, it was much easier to make that leap, although people held their heads when they heard the premise of that show.

[4:30] Dean Pitchford: Buoyed by the popularity of Sweeney Todd, the creative team began to approach potential directors with their show. Several illustrious names met with the team, including Mike Nichols, the multi-Tony and Oscar award-winning director of The Graduate and The Odd Couple, but he ultimately declined to get involved. Bob Fosse turned it down, saying it needed to be darker and more dance-driven. I mean, I would have loved to see a Fosse-Carrie.

[4:53] Holly Morgan: Oh, my God.

[4:54] Chris Adams: Can you imagine?

[4:55] Holly Morgan: Can you imagine? He'd put Gwen Verdon in as Margaret.

[4:57] Chris Adams: This could be your weekly impression slot.

[4:59] Holly Morgan: Oh, good.

[5:01] Chris Adams: They're all going to laugh at you, Bob.

[5:03] Holly Morgan: That's more Marge Simpson, isn't it?

[5:05] Chris Adams: I don't know what that was. Let's not make that a feature.

[5:09] Chris Adams: Eventually, they had an unexpected lead from further afield. Our agent, Sam Cohen, legendary agent at ICM, he had signed as a client, a directing client, Terry Hands from the RSC.

[5:28] Dean Pitchford: And Terry had already brought to Broadway a couple of RSC productions that made him very popular. He did a gorgeous Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway. Terry Hands was the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK. Commonly known as the RSC, the well-regarded theatre company was based in the playwright's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, a small, sleepy town two hours north of London. Terry was a highly respected director of classical and Shakespearean plays. He had co-run the RSC with Trevor Nunn from 1978 until 1986, when he took over as sole artistic director after Trevor moved on to independent projects, including a little feline-based musical, which brought him enormous success on a global scale.

[6:12] Dean Pitchford: Terry had won numerous awards in the 80s, including Olivier's for Henry VI and the aforementioned production of Cyrano de Bergerac. He'd also been nominated for several Tony Awards when his shows moved to Broadway. Looking back, Terry Hands directed more RSC productions during his time than any other artistic director. So this guy is quite a big deal.

[6:32] Holly Morgan: Yeah.

[6:33] Chris Adams: And we talk about Terry a lot in this podcast, as he's often taken a lot of flak for Carrie's disastrous outcome, as you'll see. He had some radical ideas, but it's clear, at the very beginning at least, that he was incredibly passionate about the project. He embraced the challenge. It's safe to say that without Terry's contributions, we probably wouldn't be here now talking about this show. Sadly, Terry passed away in February 2020, so we can only rely on other people's memories of him and his work on the show. That, and of course, interviews that he did about Carrie. The legend of Carrie's spectacular failure would follow Terry until the end. Despite his many successes, his obituary in the New York Times led with the line, While at the Royal Shakespeare Company, he took several shows to Broadway. One didn't go so well. I mean, bloody hell, give him a break.

[7:21] Dean Pitchford: Drawing on his background as a classical director, Terry was intrigued by the possibilities of staging Stephen King's story as a sort of modern myth. Despite being a modern tale, he saw classical resonances in a story in which the underdog acquires mystical powers and takes vengeance against her enemies after having her dreams snatched away. So Terry pitched this approach to the writers. Given his lack of experience with musicals, they were sceptical at first, but eventually he won them over. As well as the artistic possibilities of the Carrie story, there was also a commercial draw for Terry. It was the 80s, after all, and money made the world go round.

[7:56] Dean Pitchford: It may sound unusual for the Royal Shakespeare Company to be getting involved in the staging of horror novels, but at the time, the RSC was struggling financially. This was a tempestuous time for the arts in Britain. Under Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, the Golden Age of subsidised theatre was under threat as she encouraged a move towards corporate sponsorship. Throughout her premiership, Thatcher consistently tried to turn the Arts Council into a means of government control rather than an independent body. Diminished public funding, combined with the disastrous 1986 London season of plays, had left the RSC £1.2 million, that's about $2 million, in debt. It was forced to lay off a quarter of the full-time salaried actors and reduce the number of productions being staged by a third.

[8:40] Dean Pitchford: In an attempt to improve this state of affairs, the company had, for some years, been pioneering a new model of musical theatre production in which the publicly funded organisation would pair up with a commercial producer, adapting popular literature for the stage. These shows would rehearse and perform a limited run at one of the RSC's own theatres. They would then transfer to the West End or Broadway, where there was much more income to be made on open-ended runs. The producer would essentially risk their investment on the show being a hit with the hope of taking a large slice of the profits. And notably, this had worked well in 1985, when the RSC teamed up with Cameron Macintosh to adapt Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables.

Rather than staging it in their Stratford home, the show played for a limited run at the RSC's London base, the Barbican Centre. And despite a shaky start, Les Mis went on to make millions for the RSC and even more for Cameron Macintosh. As a side note, it also kept its creative team busy for decades, as replica productions opened all around the world.

[9:39] Dean Pitchford: Jeremy Sturt was the deputy stage manager and show caller on Carrie. He had an absolute itch to... Because he was not involved in Les Miserables at all, so he was super jealous in many ways, as you can imagine, and he wanted to actually put on and do something which was completely... Both could encapsulate that, but also be another market. So hence his desire to do it. Theatre critic Mark Shenton agrees that this desire to have his own big-money smash hit was another reason why Terry Hands was so keen to direct Carrie. The RSC had had a smash hit with Les Miserables. Trevor Nunn and Terry Hands were joint artistic directors of the RSC. It's not just those two, but every British theatre director at the time, and since, as well.

Everybody's always wanted their cash cow, the show that gives them a pension for the rest of their lives. I mean, every single director wants that, because once you've had one of those shows, you don't need to Never Work Again, or need Never Worry About Work Again.

[10:45] Dean Pitchford: But what was interesting is this was all part of an era when British musicals were triumphing on Broadway. There was very few Broadway musicals worth paying attention to. Broadway was actually not in a good state. They were relying on shows coming from the UK. So it was a very fertile landscape for British producers to inhabit. Spoiler alert, Carrie did not turn out to be the golden pension pot Terry had hoped for. At a party in New York, the Weisslers met Terry and expressed their enthusiasm for the project. They were excited by the award-winning expertise he would bring to the table, and intrigued about how he would approach the high school scenes, having seen shows with similar settings grow in popularity in recent years. They encouraged him to use these school-based musicals as a reference point. Make it like Greece, they said.

[11:33] Dean Pitchford: Oh no. Terry was struck with inspiration. With a wealth of experience directing classical plays, he realised the similarities between Stephen King's story and the structure of a Greek tragedy. Greece, the country, not the musical. More Athleja than Athenian.

[11:51] Holly Morgan: Nice.

[11:52] Chris Adams: It was an easy mistake to make. But a few weeks later, when the Weisslers and Fred Zollo flew to London to look at some early concept sketches for the set and costumes, they suddenly lost some of their enthusiasm. Terry, along with costume designer Alexander Reid and set designer Ralph Koltai, had not brought along samples of, I don't know, American high school fashion, or even sketches of high school gyms or locker rooms. No, no, they'd brought a confusing presentation full of stark white avant-garde sets that looked like Greek temples and pencil drawings of students dressed in what appeared to be togas.

[12:27] Dean Pitchford: He made it like Greece.

[12:29] Chris Adams: He did.

[12:30] Dean Pitchford: The Weisslers and Fred Zollo were less than impressed. Money and resources were already being used up and time had passed. They hadn't realised how much work it would take to get past Terry's lack of musical theatre experience. And frustrated, they withdrew their support for the project. It took time to find another producer and without any funding coming in, work stalled. Already the writers were growing nervous about their choice of director and his unconventional approach. By a stroke of luck, Terry Hands met a wealthy German producer, Friedrich Kurtz, and persuaded him to come on board and co-fund the show with the RSC. Friedrich, known as Fritz,

[13:06] Chris Adams: Fritz had expertise and experience transferring big and flashy, successful musical theatre shows. He'd previously worked with Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber to transfer mega-hits like Cats and Starlight Express from London to Germany. Unlike Carrie, the German production of Starlight Express is still running to this day. It has its own purpose-built theatre, you know. I demand a Carrie theatre. So with the enthusiastic backing of Fritz Kurtz, Terry prepared to pitch the project to the RSC's governing board. As the head of the RSC, Terry had to justify his work on this show to his board. And so he couldn't just go off and do a one-off production in New York. He was going to do it as a co-production with Fritz Kurtz and the Royal Shakespeare Company, with the idea that the RSC would stand to benefit in the same way that it did from Nicholas Nickleby or the same way that the Public Theatre in New York has done from A Chorus Line and Hamilton. And that was his part of the negotiation.

[14:42] Holly Morgan: The board was hesitant. It was a complicated set-up and the content was controversial. The British press was also typically snobby about the plan to stage a musical adaptation of a horror novel on the sacred RSC stage. The notion of using public funds to develop a show set to make millions for private investors also rankled. The New Statesman magazine, on learning of the company's plan to co-fund a commercial try-out of the show, called the company, quote, a bedizoned whore from Thatcher's Britain. It has gone to the streets to make money.

[15:14] Chris Adams: So I looked up bedizoned. What does it mean? Dressed up or decorated gaudily. Sort of like a Christmas tree? Or me! Fritz told the press, the RSC is on a shoestring and they're being criticised for doing commercial ventures. They're vital for the RSC's survival. The criticisms make no sense when Thatcher is cutting subsidies. But the media pointed out that while the RSC would still make some money from these projects, the commercial investors would earn substantially more. Terry also brushed aside the notion that this was simply a very out-of-town try-out for a Broadway show. This is my home, he told the Washington Post. I regard Stratford as our main engagement. And then we're going on tour. Our first stop happens to be Broadway. He had big plans for Carrie.

[16:35] Holly Morgan: He did. Responding to allegations of dumbing down, Terry pulled some classical references out of the bag. He compared the show to the classic myths of Cassandra and Oedipus, sprinkled with elements of the Cinderella fairy tale and a dash of the Samson Bible story. He said other high school students in Carrie's class could be seen as a modern version of the Greek chorus. It's interesting to see that as early as this announcement, you get the sense that the critics are really out for blood. It's like they sort of wanted the show to be a failure in order to justify their arguments. Terry put on a brave face, but he must have been worried about what he'd taken on.

[17:17] Holly Morgan: If Imelda can play Dorothy at 32, do I still have the chance to play Carrie? I mean, the theatre encourages us to use our imagination, but I think you may be more of a Miss Gardner now. Maybe a Margaret White, even.

[17:32] Chris Adams: I don't deserve this. Bonus fact though, Imelda's husband, Jim Carter, plays the Lion!

[17:35] Chris Adams: Terry found a slot for Carrie in February 1988. At the beginning of the year, the RSC's main stage would be empty while their in-house company rehearsed elsewhere for the summer season of Shakespeare. The previous two years, Terry had filled the same slot with crowd pleasers that drew a wider, more mainstream audience. An adaptation of the Dickens novel, Nicholas Nickleby, had been popular, as had a production of Cole Porter's musical comedy, Kiss Me, Kate. Both had sold well and transferred to London or New York to enjoy lucrative future lives. Carrie would nicely round off a season of American-themed plays, which included They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Great White Hope and a Christmas production of The Wizard of Oz, starring a 32-year-old Imelda Staunton as Dorothy.

[17:37] Holly Morgan: That is a great detail. The butler from Downton, what range! With Fritz Kurtz on board, committing to fund the afterlife of the show post-Stratford, the RSC was ultimately protected from financial risk. If the show was a success, there was a good chance the company's share of the profits would help wipe out its debt. And presumably, Fritz hoped that Carrie would be a financial success so he could sweep it over to Germany and make a fortune himself, just as he'd done with other big British shows.

[18:04] Chris Adams: But reputational risk was another matter. The company was wary of a high-profile flop in its first original musical since Les Mis, which itself had had a bit of a shaky start. However, the board gave the go-ahead for production to begin, and Fritz found a ragtag collection of investors.

[18:20] Holly Morgan: You make it sound like the cast is of the cast of Oliver or something.

[18:23] Chris Adams: In my head, that's exactly what it's like.

[18:25] Holly Morgan: I think it was a bit more professional than that. Fritz tried to find a London theatre to commit to a transfer, but there was now little interest thanks to the initial sour reaction from the press. He turned to New York, and eventually secured a commitment from a Broadway theatre owner to take on the show. But crucially though, Fritz had never produced a show or even worked on one from its very earliest stages. He was used to paying for replica productions, and had no experience of the ins and outs of manoeuvring a new musical from page to stage.

[19:06] Chris Adams: But by late 1987, despite a shaky start, all the pieces were in play. Again, nothing was easy. You know, we've got a director in England, we've got my two collaborators in New York, and I'm in Los Angeles. And so, meetings, script meetings and work was like putting the rockets on the road. You know, trying to work out the logistics of those meetings was very complicated. And then on top of that, the money, the real big money producer, came in from Germany. So we had time zones and jet lag and all sorts of things working against us. But we ploughed ahead and started to do the work. And that took us until 1988.

[19:46] Holly Morgan: There is still one piece missing from our jigsaw though. Every musical, however much it's based on a paranormal mass murder, needs dancing.

[19:54] Chris Adams: Possess! Yes, that!

[19:56] Holly Morgan: Was that Liza Minnelli?

[19:57] Chris Adams: Yes, I'm contractually obliged to insert one impression into every project I'm involved in.

[20:01] Holly Morgan: You already did Gwen Verdon though, earlier.

[20:03] Chris Adams: Yeah, they might not actually be a contract. Anyway, to try and provide some balance with Terry's approach, Dean and Michael pulled out their fame rolodex and gave none other than their friend Debbie Allen a call. Now, I think it's fair to say that if Terry Hands was a quintessentially British director, Debbie Allen was a fundamentally American choreographer. And that dynamic certainly played out in the rehearsal room, as we'll discover soon enough.

[20:26] Holly Morgan: Look, it's fair to say there have been some great British-American duos. Megan and Harry. Rose and Jack in Titanic. Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson.

[20:34] Chris Adams: Someone's been watching The Crown.

[20:36] Holly Morgan: Oh my God, missed opportunity. They could have had late 80s Diana and Charles go and seek Harry in Stratford on a date. Can you imagine? All right. Gosh, the timing works. Anyway, Debbie was thrilled to be involved.

[20:51] Chris Adams: I think we need to talk about what a legend Debbie Allen is. She is 70. She's an actress, singer, songwriter, dancer, choreographer, director and producer. She's been nominated for 20 Emmy Awards, won three, been nominated for two Tonys, has a Golden Globe and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the 80s, she was known around the world for starring in and choreographing the TV adaptation of Fame. Her small role in the movie as the teacher Lydia Grant was expanded for the TV show, and she was in it right up until 1987. She then starred in Bob Fosse's revival of Sweet Charity on Broadway. So she was a big name right across the entertainment industry.

[21:30] Holly Morgan: She's also the director of Netflix's recent Dolly Parton-led holiday special Christmas on the Square, the greatest piece of art ever committed to film.

[21:39] Chris Adams: You said it now on a podcast, so it is official.

[21:41] Holly Morgan: It's a real thing. Anyway, in the original souvenir brochure for Carrie, Debbie likens her relationship with Terry Hands to, quote, that of Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle. She says, I'm learning a lot and I think he is too.

[21:55] Chris Adams: How do we describe Allen's choreography in Carrie? We're going to delve into it in much more detail when we break down the show in later episodes, but Debbie describes her process thus.

[22:05] Debbie Allen: By the time I came to London to work on Carrie, I had already worked on the choreography for about five weeks, establishing my own dance vocabulary in terms of what I felt about the show. By the time we started rehearsals in London, I had established the basic style of dance for the show.

[22:18] Chris Adams: So what she's kind of saying is she's turning up with a style and technique before the rehearsals even started.

[22:23] Holly Morgan: Yeah, very that. I mean, the writers wanted MTV and that is very much what Debbie delivered.

[22:30] Chris Adams: Yeah. It sounds like Terry and Debbie essentially agreed to split up the show so they could prepare for it on their own side of the Atlantic. It sounds like Terry was making the most of his experience directing classics by applying this mythical Greek tragedy vision to the scenes in Carrie, stripping the text down to its core. Meanwhile, Debbie had already set her mind to choreographing the high school scenes in the intensive aerobic style for which she'd been so lauded in Fame.

[22:55] Holly Morgan: I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

[22:57] Chris Adams: It's an interesting cocktail. Despite the ominously different styles they'd chosen, with the director and choreographer on board, it meant that the team could start casting the show. Mirroring the Anglo-American mix of Terry and Debbie's partnership, Terry negotiated with Equity, the actors' union, to form a cast that was half American, half British, split exactly down the middle. The first time in musical theatre history this had ever been attempted. Auditions were held in London and New York.

[23:25] Holly Morgan: Let's meet our cast.

[23:26] Linzi Hateley: Shall I go? Thank you. Hello, my name's Linzi Hateley and in 1988 I played the part of Carrie.

[23:35] Linzi Hateley: Yeah, well I was at a theatre school, Italia Conti, and I'd just gone into the student course. I was 16 and there's an agency attached to the school and I'd been a junior there for a few years and I never got put up for anything. You know, I was just one of those sort of... There were some really cute looking kids that got work all the time and I just wasn't that, you know, I was kind of a gawky, sort of chubby teenager, but I sang very well, you know.

[24:10] Chris Adams: Linzi was 16 but her voice was already making quite an impact at drama school.

[24:14] Linzi Hateley: And they said, you're going along to the London Palladium and you need to get yourself some dance gear and a song to sing and so I didn't really know exactly at that point that I was going for Carrie. I just knew I was going for Carrie the Musical. And I went along with my leg warmers and the whole outfit, probably even a headband knowing me and my big 80s hair and I remember very, very clearly standing on the London Palladium stage and thinking, my God, if I... You know, I've died and gone to heaven just actually before I've done anything. And I learnt a routine with all these phenomenal dancers and they were all quite a bit taller and a lot thinner than me, but I just went with it. I just thought, well, you know, maybe they're looking for all different shapes and sizes. And we learnt a routine to Michael Jackson's Bad. And they blasted it through the sound system and it sounded amazing, that... I can almost remember the routine.

[25:26] Chris Adams: For the teenager from the Midlands, the audition alone was magical.

[25:31] Linzi Hateley: I really did think, well, even if I don't go any further, this is a dream. And I remember, again, like everyone else, you know, we grew up with Fame and to sort of have Debbie Allen in front of you is a bit surreal. And so I did this routine and then I was asked to go and sing, which I think I went to a different room to sing, but I may be wrong. And I chose to sing On My Own from Les Mis, because I'd just recently heard Les Mis, it had only just opened. And me Auntie Violet said, oh, Lindsay, there's a part in Les Mis that you'd be lovely at. Oh, Eponine, honestly, I could see you doing that one.

[26:08] Chris Adams: Auntie Violet.

[26:09] Linzi Hateley: I love her. What a hero. Lindsay was called back the next day.

[26:13] Linzi Hateley: The full creative team was there. They asked her to make a few tweaks. I remember hearing her and thinking, oh my God, she's just amazing and seemed to be so confident. She might not have been, but she came across so confident and so, you know, feisty. I took my makeup off, went back in, sang on my own again, and there was a noticeable excitement within them. I didn't know what that meant, but then they said, right, can we teach you a bit of a song? They played, "Doesn't anybody ever get it right, Carrie?" As soon as I heard that, I was just like, this is amazing. This is absolutely amazing. For me, I instantly connected with it. I just thought, I know what this feels right. I learnt quickly in those days.

I can't read music, still can't, but I think I've got a good ear. I learnt it very, very quickly. They said, right, now do it again and really mean it. I just blasted it at the park as much as I possibly could. There was a sense of something felt good there. That was it. I went home and I thought, well, that was mad. Lindsay had a sleepless night. Then I went into college the next day and I didn't hear anything all day. I just thought, well, maybe that's it. It was just an amazing moment. Then in the afternoon, it was actually, ironically, it was my 17th birthday. I was called up to the agency and I walked all the way up to these flights of stairs. I thought, I hope it's not bad news because it's my birthday.

I walked in and I was given this card. I opened it and it was a birthday card and it said, happy birthday, Carrie. Isn't that incredible? I remember she was telling this story because Lindsay's such a lovely, honest, humble lady. I was like, oh, I hope she gets the part. 17 is just so young for someone to take on this kind of epic lead role in such a disturbing story. We wondered what her parents thought. I think they were concerned. At the end of the day, it was a strange subject matter for your child to go from being at school to suddenly playing the title role in a Stephen King thing, which is of a strange, dark, abusive. They were concerned. To be fair to Terry, and Terry gets such a raw deal in all this.

I try and champion him a little bit because actually, he was quite supportive of me. When I first got the role, he made a point of taking me and my parents out and explained what he thought the process would be and that he would guarantee that I wouldn't have to expose myself. When you look at the film and Sissy Spacek and all that, it's full on. As things will go, 17-year-old Lindsay perhaps wasn't as protected as first promised. There was a degree of we can promise you that at any point if Lindsay's uncomfortable with stuff, we will try and protect her. I don't actually think I was, but that wasn't necessarily through him not trying to. It's just the circumstances then became unprotected, really.

[30:42] Sally Ann Triplett: As Lindsay mentioned, I was at the same audition. In her mid-twenties, I'd already had quite a bit of professional stage experience. I landed the role of nice girl Sue Snell. Sue Snell was, if you know the film, this is the Amy Irving part. She's the good girl in the piece. At the time that I heard about the audition for Carrie, I was in Follies at Shaftesbury. I was in the ensemble, though I understudied a part. I heard about this show, I didn't have an agent. I didn't have an agent for about 15 years when I first started out. I used to find all my own work and just managed to just always keep working. I thought, well, the show's been running, Follies has been running for six months. I'm going to just try my luck.

So I took myself off to the Palladium. We had to go to the Palladium. Debbie Allen was there. I don't remember what I sang, but I definitely remember doing an improvisational dance routine for her. She just put on some music and I just had to dance around the room. Then I guess I just got offered the job. Then I had to work out how I was going to get out of Follies.

[32:05] Sally Ann Triplett: She's talking here about the West End premiere of Sondheim's Follies, which had opened in July that year. I was midway through my contract. Unlike Broadway, if you're in a show in the West End, you're there for the year, and you're not let go at all. That's not a thing that we do in the West End. It still isn't, really. So I got to work, and Mike Ocran, the wonderful director of Follies, he happened to be in the building that night. I cornered him on the stairs. I remember it so vividly. It was going down to the basement of the theater. I just told him the story of what happened, and he just said, well, we have to make this happen for you. He was the most brilliant man. And he said, we have to make this happen, and we have to release you. So I got released. My really good friend, Julie Armstrong, entered the show of Follies, and I went off and I did Carrie. The creative team flew to New York, where they ran the same auditions for the American performers.

[33:16] Charlotte d'Amboise: I think I danced first, and it was Debbie Allen, who's just insane, choreography, just insane, like kicking and turning. You had to have technique to get past anything, and that was really my forte. I knew that, give me the most technique, and I'm going to nail it. So that was great, and I got all the way to the end. And then I sang, and then I read, and then I think I had to come back for a callback, and I was doing the show. Was I doing song and dance at the time? I think I might have been. It was only a stroke of luck from on high that meant I nabbed the role of Chris, the meanest girl in town. Anyway, this girl named Marilyn Stewart, stunning, gorgeous. And Terry Hands, who was the director, was mad for her, and he wanted her and was wooing her, and rightly so.

She actually was much more right for the part than I was, truthfully, honestly, and I don't say that often, but she was totally right for the part and would have been brilliant. Anyway, she got the part, which I wasn't surprised, and I was devastated. And then the next day, probably the next day, I remember she called me up and she said, you know what? I read the script. I'm a born again Christian. I can't curse. I can't curse. I can't say those words. And I was like, yes. No problem cursing me. No problem. Great, great, great, great, great. So it was my part. And then I was like leaving for London, you know, in like a week. I mean, it was crazy.

[35:00] Linzi Hateley: I mean, is there that much swearing in the show?

[35:02] Sally Ann Triplett: Well, there's the iconic line from Nasty Chris herself.

[35:04] Linzi Hateley: Do you know what Shelley calls her? Shelley calls her scary wife.

[35:06] Sally Ann Triplett: Chris, please.

[35:07] Linzi Hateley: I just call her stupid bitch.

[35:08] Sally Ann Triplett: That's enough! I remember that line from the bootleg video. It just made us laugh and laugh. It's my favourite. We've quoted it a few times over the years. The hard drive that we've saved all our interviews on is called stupid bitch. And we were very excited to ask Charlotte if she remembered that classic line.

[35:27] Charlotte d'Amboise: You know what? No, I don't remember any of my lines.

[35:29] Linzi Hateley: OK, who's next?

[35:31] Sally Ann Triplett: Margaret White, super religious mother of Carrie. Played incredibly in the movie by Piper Laurie. Now, the writing team had had a name in mind from the start. Betty Buckley. Betty was a Broadway stalwart. She'd been called the voice of Broadway by New York Magazine. But she also had a very special Carrie connection. Betty had played the role of the gym teacher in the movie. Plus, Dean Pitchford had performed with her in the musical Pippin several years earlier, and the two had remained close friends.

[36:03] Dean Pitchford: From the beginning, I told Michael and Larry that I wrote what I wrote in what my contributions to Carrie were always with Betty's voice in my ear. And I think that a lot of what we gave, especially in act one, a lot of what we gave to Margaret to sing was dependent on hearing that enormous voice peeling the paint off the walls in the ear. Betty obviously knew the Carrie story inside out, and was sceptical about how well it would translate to the stage. But she trusted her friend. And Betty came and auditioned for...

[36:42] Dean Pitchford: She was gracious enough to come and audition for our director and our producers, and they wanted her. Betty met with Terry, but things did not get off to a flying start. Terry, being not so familiar with who's who on Broadway, interrogated her about her acting experience, making her feel uncomfortable. This Broadway star did not believe she had to justify her marquee value to a man from England that she'd never met. She told him to speak to Trevor Nunn if he needed a character reference. Betty had worked with Trevor on the Broadway premiere of Cats, winning a Tony for the role of Grizabella. All a bit awkward. Her meeting with Terry left a bitter taste. I think contract negotiations broke down. Things went south in the... I've seen this happen before on other projects of mine. There's only so much wringing of the hands and shedding of the tears before you pick up your toys and you move on.

[37:47] Dean Pitchford: And so, listen, what we did, though, was we replaced one Broadway legend with another Broadway legend. It's not a bad trade.

[37:54] Dean Pitchford: Not a bad trade. That other Broadway legend was Barbara Cook. 20 years older than Betty, Barbara Cook had come to prominence on Broadway in the 1950s, leading a string of hit shows and winning a Tony for The Music Man in 1957. By the late 80s, she had all but retired, apart from the occasional cabaret or solo show. But Barbara was wooed out of retirement by Terry to do Carrie. Sadly, she is no longer with us. Barbara passed away in 2017. But we were lucky enough to speak with her close friend, Georgia Otterson.

[38:26] Georgia Otterson: Barbara Cook and I were dear, very close friends. Like many, I first met her as a performer. And of course, she just tugged at my heart because I think she had this incredible emotional... It wasn't just the voice, the instrument. It's this ability to connect emotionally in a big way. She was invited to meet... Oh, it might have been... I'm trying to remember. It might have been the creators of the show. And she thought, well, I don't know. But they asked her to meet with Terry Hans. And so in New York, she met with him. And she thought he was just it. And I think she... Because many of her friends were going, Carrie...

[39:19] Georgia Otterson: Georgia accompanied her on the trip to England.

[39:39] Mark Shenton: So when Barbara accepted, decided to do Carrie, I was working but I was also ailing of a broken romantic heart. And she's like, come with me, come with me. And actually I was hired, I was hired as her assistant. And of course I was her driver, her pal.

[40:04] Mark Shenton: Of course, Barbara Cook was this legend already then. She'd been a Broadway legend in the 50s, into the early 60s, long before my time, I hasten to add. And this was her big return to the theatrical stage. She hadn't been on Broadway since the mid-60s. And so it was a really big deal.

[40:23] Mark Shenton: Mark Shenton was getting his foothold as a journalist in the mid-80s. He was a keen theatre-goer, so was delighted to be sent to interview Barbara. He thinks that having her attached to the project lent it some credibility.

[40:35] Mark Shenton: She was absolutely fascinating. And of course, you know, a lot was riding on the show for her because it was this brand new musical. She was going back to Broadway where she hadn't appeared for many years. The fascinating thing, I mean, everybody was really paying attention to it because first of all, it seemed a bizarre idea anyway, a Stephen King novel like that. Why would you do a musical of it?

[40:54] Mark Shenton: You know, it seemed bizarre, but it also had serious artistic legs because first of all, Barbara Cook is an amazing talent. And everybody would have assumed, as I did, that there must be something going for it if she's put her name to it.

[41:10] Mark Shenton: So Barbara's on board, but that's not the last time we'll hear about Betty Buckley.

[41:14] Unknown speaker: Not at all.

[41:15] Mark Shenton: More from our cast after this short break.

[41:24] Mark Shenton: So the role of Carrie's sympathetic gym teacher, Miss Gardner, went to the legendary singer Darlene Love.

[41:30] Mark Shenton: Darlene had had a great career as a vocalist on some of the biggest hits of the 50s and 60s as part of the girl group The Crystals, then as a solo artist, including the Phil Spector-produced all-time Christmas classic, Christmas Baby Please Come Home.

[41:43] Mark Shenton: She's ranked 84th on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Singers.

[41:47] Unknown speaker: That's even higher than you!

[41:48] Unknown speaker: I know!

[41:49] Mark Shenton: In the 1980s, living in New York, Darlene had set her sights on Broadway.

[41:53] Mark Shenton: She'd recently appeared in the jukebox musical Leader of the Pack.

[41:56] Mark Shenton: Alongside Annie Golden, who we heard from in the last episode.

[41:59] Mark Shenton: Darlene comes across as the kind of person who doesn't dwell on the past.

[42:04] Mark Shenton: Reflecting on her Broadway experience in her autobiography, she writes, "I did get in one more show, Carrie, about which I'll say only this. I got to go to London and take Debbie Allen's dance class, which worked me into the best shape of my life."

[42:17] Mark Shenton: There were sore muscles that had been asleep for 40 years.

[42:20] Mark Shenton: Theatre scholars know that the show itself was one of the unmitigated disasters in Broadway history.

[42:25] Unknown speaker: At least it closed on the first night, and we could all laugh about it before too long.

[42:30] Unknown speaker: Ice cold.

[42:32] Unknown speaker: Wow, yeah. I mean, it wasn't quite the first night, but close enough.

[42:36] Unknown speaker: Pedant.

[42:38] Mark Shenton: Darlene also talks about the bond she formed with cast member Rose Jackson, who was the understudy for Carrie.

[42:44] Mark Shenton: Darlene was astonished by Rose's dancing and the pair hit it off right away.

[42:48] Mark Shenton: And they've stayed friends ever since. Rose is still Darlene's choreographer.

[42:52] Mark Shenton: We also spoke to several members of the Carrie ensemble.

[42:55] Michelle Giverney: I'm Michelle Giverney and I was part of the original cast of Carrie.

[43:00] Joey McNeely: Hi, I'm Joey McNeely.

[43:04] Susie Thomas: Hi, my name is Susie Thomas, also known as Squeeze, and I was in the original cast of Carrie.

[43:10] Kenny Linden: Hello, I'm Kenny Linden and I played Kenny in Carrie because we were all given our own names.

[43:16] Michelle Hodgson: Hello, my name is Michelle Hodgson and I played the part of Shelley because Kenny is absolutely right.

[43:23] Michelle Hodgson: We played, we created, invented the role. So we were told that should the show run, people would be auditioning for the part of Michelle, Kenny and Shelley and the others.

[43:37] Michelle Hodgson: Sadly, it didn't run.

[43:41] Unknown speaker: It's the end of that one.

[43:45] Unknown speaker: This is one of my favourite things about the show.

[43:48] Unknown speaker: It's amazing. If you look in the playbill, all the ensemble play characters with their own names.

[43:53] Unknown speaker: So Kenny played Kenny, Eric played Eric, but they hit a bit of a stumbling block with this right away.

[43:59] Unknown speaker: Too many Michelles!

[44:01] Unknown speaker: And funnily enough, a bit of trivia for you, three Michelles.

[44:07] Unknown speaker: And I have been called Shelley ever since because of Carrie.

[44:10] Unknown speaker: So she was always Giverney. There's Michelle Nelson, who's in South Africa, and Michelle Hodgson and Debbie couldn't cope with it, could she?

[44:17] Unknown speaker: You're all going to change and someone's got to be something else.

[44:20] Unknown speaker: So she became Giverney, I became Shelley and Michelle kept the name Michelle and have been Michelle Shelley ever since.

[44:25] Unknown speaker: It's Debbie Allen's fault.

[44:27] Unknown speaker: I didn't like that because I wanted on my CV to look like I'd played something. So I thought Kenny Linden playing Kenny just looks stupid. It looks like I made it up myself.

[44:35] Unknown speaker: So I never put that on.

[44:39] Unknown speaker: Oh my God!

[44:44] Unknown speaker: I think I've got three in the loft. I found a load of brochures.

[44:50] Unknown speaker: Are we listed as Kenny Linden as Kenny?

[44:52] Unknown speaker: Time has not...

[44:54] Unknown speaker: But there you go. There's a kind of... I don't know if it was a marker of what was to come.

[44:59] Unknown speaker: They didn't really have names for the characters.

[45:01] Unknown speaker: No.

[45:02] Unknown speaker: They had...

[45:03] Unknown speaker: Couldn't even be bothered to think up names for us.

[45:05] Unknown speaker: And her mother, Margaret, and, you know, Miss Gardner, but everyone else was just like, well, what do you want to be called? Okay, let's just call you that.

[45:12] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[45:13] Unknown speaker: Kind of gives you a little clue as to...

[45:15] Unknown speaker: What's coming.

[45:16] Unknown speaker: Some other thing that's coming.

[45:18] Unknown speaker: I want to play Shelley in Carrie.

[45:20] Unknown speaker: Do you know what Shelley called her?

[45:21] Unknown speaker: Very iconic.

[45:22] Unknown speaker: So throughout the next few episodes, as well as Lindsay, Sally-Anne, and Charlotte, you'll be hearing from ensemble members Shelley Hodgson, Michelle Mann, Michelle Duvernay, Kenny Linden, Suzanne Thomas, also known as Squeeze, Eric Gilliam, and Joey McNeely.

[45:36] Unknown speaker: But it was just brilliant, wasn't it, to reunite them and hear these incredible stories, the memories of being in the show, and we have tried to cram in as many as we possibly can.

[45:44] Unknown speaker: So first up, let's hear their audition stories.

[45:47] Michelle Duvernay: I was doing class at Pineapple Dance Studios, and a really good friend of mine said, there's an audition at the, I think it was the Palladium?

[45:57] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[45:58] Michelle Duvernay: At the Palladium, why don't you come? And I said, I haven't gone through the agent, didn't know anything about it. And he said, just come. The worst that can happen is that you get thrown out. And I thought, you know what, okay. Came out of class, went in and managed to get through the door.

[46:16] Michelle Duvernay: Did the audition, got a recall, and then another one. And then, of course, Debbie Allen was involved, and she's someone that I used to watch Fame, and I wanted to be her, and entered competitions to be one of the kids from all of that stuff. So, yeah, I thought, oh my God, this is huge. Actually, I can't believe it. And loved the audition, loved the whole process.

[46:42] Michelle Duvernay: I don't remember being particularly scared. She did ask me, or they did ask me, to choose another song. I remember also not hearing for a while. So, on the grapevine, you know, you go to class and, oh, so-and-so's going to Broadway. Oh, my, I haven't heard anything. So, I took a panto.

[47:05] Michelle Duvernay: So, went off just thinking, oh, you haven't got it. For our non-British friends, panto is a sort of annual Christmas tradition that takes place in pretty much every town around the country, apart from this year, obviously. It's a kind of festive kids' variety show loosely based on fairy tales. It's absolutely bonkers, but they often provide huge numbers of jobs to singers and dancers on short-term contracts. There are often two or three shows a day, and they can be very hard work.

[47:33] Michelle Duvernay: I took myself into panto somewhere in Nottingham, in a bed sit, on my own, hating life. One day of rehearsals, my agent called the producer and said, can we speak to Michelle? Michelle, you need to get out of there. I'm going to get you out of there. You're going on Broadway. I was...

[47:51] Michelle Duvernay: SHE SCREAMS

[47:52] Michelle Duvernay: I couldn't believe... Left, went home. It was a bit of a change. I remember the one with Debbie Allen, because obviously it's Debbie Allen. I remember hearing her say, she muttered to her assistant something about not wanting anyone who was out of breath. So I didn't breathe for a whole audition. I was doing my best, and she came over to me at one point and she said, what kind of street dancing do you do? And I said, oh, I don't dance in the street. I hadn't a clue what she was talking about, and she should have known there and then that we were not a perfect match. But I somehow got through that, and then I'd sung for them, and then they said, come back with a pop song.

[48:29] Michelle Duvernay: So, of course, I chose number three in the charts, I think it was, Cliff Richard, some people, did that little number. And I had as my backup, Never Going To Give You Up, because that also was top of the pops. So I was ready for it. The cutting edge of 80s pop. And all of the creative team were there behind this desk. So there was Michael Gore, Dean Pitchford, Terry Hands, Larry Cohen, and Debbie, and back then it was John Owen Edwards being the MD. And they gave me a piece of music, and I was like, all right, I can't just sing this. I can't sing like this. So they played the tune, and I was like, I still can't do it. I'm all over the place. I was so nervous. I was shaking like my driving test. It was horrible. And they took me out, and they stroked me for a while, and said, come back in and try again. And it was the Tommy number from the prom.

[49:23] Michelle Duvernay: And I still couldn't do it. I was just terrible, really terrible. I was just a shivering wreck. And then after that, I didn't hear anything. And then I got a phone call saying, can you come down and take some Carrie auditions for us? Kenny had impressed the team more than he realized, and he was asked to help audition more dancers in London.

[49:41] Kenny Linden: I went, what? And they went, yeah, take the audition. So I said, are you going to pay me? And they went, yes. And I went, all right, then. So I went down, and I think I got 50 quid and my train fare. And I taught all these boys auditioning for Tommy Ross. And I taught them the same routine that we'd done in the audition, what I can remember of it. And at one point, I did a kick and fell over because it was a slippery floor. And that's always embarrassing. I've done that so many times in life. It's not good. And then they employed somebody for Tommy, Paul Gingell, who was marvellous. And I ended up understudying him, which was nice. But I think I was just too gibbery a wreck to ever be in show business, really. And then after that, I said, have I actually got the job? And they said, oh, yeah, you're in it. And I was like, all right, thanks.

[50:30] Unknown speaker: Sadly, Paul Gingell, who landed the role of Tommy Ross, Sue's boyfriend, who winds up taking Carrie to the prom, is no longer with us. He passed away in 2010.

[50:39] Unknown speaker: If Kenny's audition process sounds taxing, Shelley Hodgson recalls another embarrassing audition moment.

[50:46] Shelley Hodgson: The only recollection I have is...

[50:55] Shelley Hodgson: I sang Papa Don't Preach. And I forgot the words. And it was, Papa don't preach, I'm in trouble, dee, Papa don't preach, I'm in trouble, dee. And that's all I kept singing. I couldn't remember another flipping line. I'm in trouble, dee. And I think Debbie said something and then went, hmm, you seem to be in trouble quite a bit there, honey. And I was like, I don't know what's wrong with me. My mind's gone blank. I do apologise, blah, blah, blah. Giving it all loads and realising you just say the same thing. That's my lasting memory of that audition, which was basically me singing Papa, I'm in trouble.

[51:34] Shelley Hodgson: I'm in... Oh my God, get me out of here. This is insane. I know this song.

[51:39] Eric Gilliam: Eric Gilliam auditioned in LA after getting a call from Debbie Allen just as rehearsals were about to start. It was unconventional. Debbie had flown back to LA, and so the audition was at her house.

[51:45] Eric Gilliam: So I showed up at Debbie's house. And right away, I was, you know, I was terrified because it was not the auditioning atmosphere I was expecting. I thought I was going to go to one of the dance studios or whatever. But all of a sudden, I'm in her house. She said, we need another guy. And I said, and so when they cast me, I didn't realise at the time, she's like, well, how soon? You know, I said, how soon is this gig starting? She goes, you're leaving Wednesday. I said, wait, what? It's Wednesday? Because this was a Saturday.

[52:26] Michelle Nelson: Several of the ensemble dancers were appearing together in another show. Suzanne recalls, "I was doing Chess. I was the original cast of Chess. Kath Coffey, who was in our show, she was also in Chess. Maddie Loftin was in Chess. Michelle Nelson was in Chess. There's a whole bunch of us. So, you know, like, everyone goes to the same auditions. Oh, guys, have you heard? Have you heard? And then a whole load of us got Carrie. So that's how I got into doing the show. I think the Chess cast was Michael Bennett cast us, you know, Chorus Line. So, of course, it was probably a lot of the best dancers in London wanted to do that show. So I like to think that's why, you know, Debbie came and wanted to find the best dancers.

What would happen to that year? We'll be in the same show. Joey McNeely had just come out of a short-lived show on Broadway called Rosa. And it lasted like three weeks on Broadway and it closed like overnight. It was like and I was shocked. I was like, oh, my God, I need a job. And all of a sudden the Carrie audition appeared and I showed up and got the gig. You know, I was like, just happy to work. And it was interesting. A lot of the Broadway dancers, some of the best Broadway dancers, Scott Wise, Charlotte D'Amboise, myself, Marianne Lamb, we all like got to Carrie too. So I think it was just the timing of, you know, that period of the late 80s where, you know, the best dancers always go from show to show to show. And Carrie had such a huge reputation at the moment. It was like Carrie the Musical. We have to be in that. You know, it was like something we must do."

[54:18] Joey McNeely: What was it like being thrust into rehearsals with cast members from the other side of the world? Well, right away, the biggest difference I noticed was just how much more chill the British cast members were, because like I remember like the first day of rehearsal, because I came into the situation a little later because everybody had already been cast and you guys were already in rehearsal. And the very first, that very first rehearsal for me, I'll never forget when we took a break. I don't know if it was a lunch break, we were done with rehearsal that day. All you Brits went to the pub. Amazing. Brits do like a drink. I mean, why let an intense day of aerobic dance rehearsals get in the way of a trip to the pub?

And like, and it was like, yeah, we're gonna have a pint. And I'm like, wait, we're gonna what we're gonna drink. We're like, yeah, we're gonna drink, we'll have a pint, you know. And so on that first day, I think I got drunk that day after my first rehearsal. And I was amazed. So you guys were much more chill to me than, you know, I think. And I don't know, I always kind of felt like there was this weird expectation that that kind of came from Debbie, as far as like, like, we had to, the Americans just had to be we're constantly having to deliver, like, it's like this, you know. So I felt like it was a wonderful balance and a great blend in the end."

[55:45] Michelle Nelson: The dancers were paired up for many of the routines. Generally, they were all mixed, like it was a Brit with an American, and sometimes it'd be American with American or a Brit with a Brit. For instance, Charlotte D'Amboise and Jean Anthony Ray were the American bad couple. So they were together and the Brits with a good couple, Sally Ann Triplett, you know, and her partner. Some pairs were closer than others.

[56:06] Joey McNeely: Well, we got along great. Susie and I got along great. Sherry and I dated. Dance partners, you know, we got there, we just hit it off. We had a great time together. There was certainly a party atmosphere amongst the young cast. And then of course, you guys are all in London, so you all want to party. And then when we go to New York, we all want to go, we're in New York. Oh, my God. You know, I mean, it was just like, and we're all so young that you could play as hard as you worked. The antics continued backstage. One day, ensemble member Rose Jackson started a water fight. I think she started it. So just chuck some water over someone. And before you know it, the whole cast are running around.

I mean, this is the Royal Shakespeare Company, right? This has never happened before. You know, they're all reading sonnets in the corner. And then there's all these kids, half-butt naked out of the shower. I can't remember, Scott Wise was just like the smallest towel around his waist, probably you too, Joey. And we're just having this massive water fight at the end. You know, it's just mad. So if the club wasn't open, we made our own club, you know, I think. Because we all just found just a common thread. And when we went to Stratford, I remember just going out to that dodgy disco below the hotel. Do you guys remember that, Michelle and Eric? We went down to this dodgy disco below the hotel and we just go in and throw shapes.

I mean, it was Jean Anthony Ray, it was Leroy from Fame. I mean, hello, people. They were just sat there with their warm pints looking at us and we're throwing these shapes. You know, the fact that Jean Anthony Ray was jumping around in Stratford-on-Avon down the streets of, you know, Shakespeare land. They're talking about Jean Anthony Ray, who played Billy Nolan, the dim boyfriend of Charlotte's role, Chris. He was quite a celebrity at the time, having played Leroy in both the Fame movie and TV series. Another Fame link. Yep. And at the time, remember, Fame was massive, not just in America, but here in the UK too and across Europe. Think Glee at its most popular. The motion picture of Fame did very nicely in this country.

But really what put Fame on the map was five seasons of the television show. And that really cemented its place in American culture. And it was popular. It was quite popular in the States. And the kids from Fame was a popular thing here. Not like in England and in Europe. In England and Europe, they were like the Spice Girls. It was crazy what kind of crowds turned out for. And every time they would finish the season of Fame, they'd put the kids from Fame out on tour and send them all over Europe and rake in the money and then come back and shoot another season of that. And so I say that as a setup because we not only had the choreographer of Fame, Debbie Allen, choreographing for us, we had the star, one of the stars of the motion picture and the television show and the kids from Fame tours, Jean-Anthony Ray was starring in the show. I love the idea of him turning up in this sleepy British town. The reaction to him and Debbie must have been absolutely intense."

[59:12] Charlotte D'Amboise: I do remember him being very famous. I mean, like, you know, he was always, whenever we'd go to restaurants, you know, he was recognizable always. I do remember that. And he wasn't happy about that. He was uncomfortable with Fame. I mean, he didn't like it and he wasn't always, you know, he didn't like it. But he got a lot of attention. He did. Just because people recognized him. People really recognized him. Sweet, sweet guy. So talented. Sadly, Jean-Anthony Ray passed away in 2003. And I look at footage and he's just so masculine and powerful and like, raw, like just raw. You know what I mean? It's so sexy. It's just crazy sexy and raw. And that's how he was. I mean, he lived on the edge. He really lived on the edge and he was very close with Debbie Allen. They were very close. I mean, he was like, you know, she loved him to death and he was a sweet soul. Sweet soul. God rest his soul.

[1:00:32] Dean Pitchford: So our cast is assembled. Split 50-50 British and American. A groundbreaking experiment, but not a simple one in terms of logistics and money. Half the cast, exactly half the cast would be British and exactly half the cast would be American. And it sounds like, like I said, a Solomonic solution, but what ends up happening when you do that is that at any given time in your process, half of your company is out of town. And because half of your company is out of town, there are daily expenses, their transportation expenses, per diems to pay. And it's a very, it had never been done before. It was very pioneering. They thought maybe this will be the way that things will get done going forward into the future.

It ended up being all the many, many hurdles that I described. Me from the West Coast, my partners in New York, Terry in London, Fritz in Berlin, was complicated by the fact that now we had 30 people, 15 of whom at least were living out of suitcases. And then we moved them all to New York and the other 15 were living out of suitcases. It was, uh, and, and I, you know, I would visit rehearsals and I would look around the room and think how grateful I was that these kids, for the most part, they were the kids, were upending their lives to do our show. It was, it was an enormous gift from them to us.

[1:02:09] Holly Morgan: Okay. I think it's time for a recap.

[1:02:12] Chris Adams: Good idea.

[1:02:13] Holly Morgan: Yeah.

[1:02:13] Chris Adams: So Carrie has an ambitious director with plenty of Shakespeare plays and classical knowledge, but no experience of staging large scale commercial musical theatre. It's got a big name choreographer with a very firm plan of action. It has a producer, well off and well connected, but with absolutely no experience of building a multi-million dollar show from scratch. And it has a theatre, maybe not the most likely one, but Carrie was all set to premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in the quaint English town of Stratford-upon-Avon. February, 1988. That date was now set in stone. And after that, they'd open on Broadway in May, just in time for the Tony Award nominations. And we've got our cast, half American, half British, thrust together in a town with lots of pubs. What could possibly go wrong?

[1:02:57] Holly Morgan: Next time on Out For Blood.

[1:02:59] Chris Adams: Americans work completely differently to British people, that they give you 150% from the first half an hour. They were throwing shapes, chucking themselves around, high-fiving, giving it a whole nine yards. And we're looking at each other as if to say, you've got to be joking. And so what we had was a show that was created by two different people in two different spaces, and then brought together and welded down the middle. I wonder how much it actually sat down together and gone, right, what are we trying to achieve as a whole thing? It was torn in so many directions. No wonder I ate a lot of ice cream. You know, once we got in the theatre, I think to myself, what the fuck is going on here? Like, this did not, it didn't feel like there's something, something is terribly wrong. But, you know, Barbara did not want to go back to New York in the show, and the set got stuck. So Barbara Cook was mid-stage with the kind of set hovering above her.

[1:04:01] Linzi Hateley: Yeah, well, it was a nightmare. I mean, I remember the first time at Stratford thinking this show is bonkers. It really is bonkers.

[1:04:07] Chris Adams: Out for Blood is a proud member of the Broadway Podcast Network. For more information about us and the podcast, please visit us online at bpn.fm/outforblood. And if you've enjoyed Out for Blood so far, please leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you downloaded us from. And don't forget to click subscribe. If you're a fan of Carrie, we've been posting a ton of behind the scenes photos, videos and more on our socials. So find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, videos and more on our socials. So find us at Out for Blood Podcast on Instagram and Facebook, and Out for Blood Pod on Twitter.

[1:04:40] Chris Adams: Out for Blood was hosted and produced by me, Chris Adams.

[1:04:43] Holly Morgan: And me, Holly Morgan.

[1:04:44] Chris Adams: Sound engineering and editing by Tom Moores. Paddy Jervis is our audio consultant. Original music by Odin Ornhill-Martin. And artwork by Rebecca Pitt. Thanks this week to Dean Pitchford, Linzi Hateley, Sally Ann Triplett, Charlotte D'Amboise, Georgia Otterson, Michelle Du Vernay, Shelley Hodgson, Suzanne Thomas, Joey McNeely, Kenny Linden, Eric Gilliom, Michelle Nelson Manne, Jeremy Sturt, Wendi Peters, and Mark Shenton.

[1:05:09] Holly Morgan: That's a lot of names. Mark's excellent theatre blog can be found at shentonstage.com. You can find a link to that plus other great stuff in our show notes on your podcast app. See you next week.

[1:05:20] Chris Adams: Oh Tom?

[1:05:21] Tom Moores: Yeah.

[1:05:22] Chris Adams: There's something I want you to do for me.

[1:05:24] Tom Moores: What?

[1:05:24] Chris Adams: My daddy can buy me all the things that you want.