So Bad It's Good/Theatre

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of So Bad It's Good in Theatre include:

  • The Musical adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie has acquired this reputation. Its commercial failure on Broadway became so notorious that it was the inspiration for the book Not Since Carrie, a chronicle of Broadway musical flops of the latter half of the twentieth century. (King himself reportedly liked it, though.)
    • Within the show itself, the pinnacle of accidental hilarity has to be "Don't Waste the Moon", a retread of the old "girls want relationships, boys want sex" chestnut with awesomely lame lyrics like "We would go bowling if you really cared / But you don't! ("I do!") You don't!"
  • Show Within a Show example: "Pyramus and Thisbe" in A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's so badly written and wretchedly performed that it's hilarious. The Duke and his guests order it performed just for the Snark Bait.
  • Robert Coates was such an infamously bad actor people would flock to see him just to see how bad he was.
  • From the Dream Team of Bono, The Edge and Julie Taymor comes the legendarily Troubled Production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark!