Show guide
Carrie: The Musical
Carrie: The Musical is a notorious stage adaptation of the classic horror story about a bullied teenage girl with terrifying telekinetic powers.
- Broadway premiere
- 1988
- Music by
- Michael Gore
- Genre
- Drama
- Setting
- 1970s
Carrie: The Musical: quick answers
What is Carrie: The Musical about?
- Carrie: The Musical follows Carrie White, a bullied, sheltered teenager with telekinetic powers and a fanatically religious mother, whose invitation to the senior prom ends in a cruel prank and a devastating act of revenge.
When did Carrie: The Musical open on Broadway?
- Carrie: The Musical opened on Broadway on May 12, 1988, at the Virginia Theatre and closed on May 15 after 16 previews and just 5 performances, one of Broadway's most famous flops. It has never returned to Broadway; a revised version played Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in 2012.
What kind of musical is Carrie: The Musical?
- Carrie is a horror drama with an original pop and rock score by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, adapted from Stephen King's 1974 novel by Lawrence D. Cohen, who also wrote the screenplay for the 1976 film.
Where and when is Carrie: The Musical set?
- Carrie is set in and around an American high school and the White family's home in the days leading up to the senior prom; Stephen King's novel places the story in the town of Chamberlain, Maine.
Has Carrie: The Musical played in London's West End?
- Carrie has never had a West End run. It premiered with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in February 1988, and London saw it in a May 2015 production at the Southwark Playhouse.
Is there a Carrie: The Musical movie?
- The musical adapts Stephen King's novel and borrows from Brian De Palma's 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie. The novel was also filmed as a 2002 TV movie with Angela Bettis and in 2013 with Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore.
The story of Carrie
Set in an American high school in the 1970s, the musical follows a sheltered, socially isolated teenage girl raised by a domineering, religiously extreme mother, and traces her torment at the hands of her classmates as her hidden telekinetic abilities begin to surface. The story builds toward prom night, where years of cruelty and repression collide in a devastating climax.
At its core it is a drama about isolation, bullying, and the damage caused by both peer cruelty and a suffocating home life, using its supernatural premise to heighten very real adolescent pain.
The music and the makers
Michael Gore composed the score, adapting material from a beloved novel into sung drama that leans into the character's inner turmoil. The songs move between the raw emotional world of the title character and her mother, and the more ordinary teenage concerns of her classmates, creating a contrast that fuels the story's tension.
As a drama drawn from a novel, the show uses music to give voice to feelings its central character can rarely express aloud, building the sense of pressure that defines her arc.
Carrie on Broadway
Carrie: The Musical had a famously brief and troubled original Broadway run in 1988, closing quickly and becoming one of the most talked about flops in Broadway history. Its rocky debut only added to its mystique over the years.
Despite that rough start, the show has developed a genuine cult following, with a later off Broadway revision earning more favorable notice and cementing its reputation as a fascinating, ambitious curiosity: a horror musical willing to take real emotional risks even when the original production could not quite land them.
Carrie: The Musical: frequently asked questions
When did Carrie: The Musical open on Broadway?
Carrie: The Musical had its original Broadway run in 1988.
Who wrote the music for Carrie?
Michael Gore composed the score for Carrie: The Musical.
Is Carrie based on a book?
Yes, the musical is adapted from a novel and follows a bullied teenage girl with telekinetic powers.
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