Not Since Carrie

The “essential and hilarious” book that highlights almost 200 musicals and examines how they became Broadway’s biggest fails (The New Yorker).

Ken Mandelbaum offers the behind-the-scenes story of the development of almost two hundred musical flops that played Broadway between 1950 and 1990, along with a reevaluative and often revisionist study of their quality.

Here they all are, from such legendary catastrophes as Carrie, Kelly, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Legs Diamond, to flops that starred Lucille Ball and Bette Davis, to the failures of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, Alan Jay Lerner, Gower Champion, and many others.

Not Since Carrie makes a case for the strengths of certain unsuccessful works, points out some that might be worthy of revival, and allows the reader to relive some of Broadway’s most infamous moments. A reexamination of neglected, forgotten, and often catastrophic musicals, Not Since Carrie will remain the definitive volume on a colorful and vital segment of “lost” theatre history.

“Highly readable . . . As befits the subject, Not Since Carrie is full of entertaining backstage reportage . . . The illustrations are also fun and wittily chosen, whether embarrassing production photos or sadly hopeful posters and advertising.” —Frank Rich, The New York Times/WQXR

“Breathtaking research and pointed, but not cruel, wit.” —David Patrick Stearns, USA Today

“Of all the theater books I’ve come across lately, none has entertained me more than Ken Mandelbaum’s Not Since Carrie, a lively, illustrated account of forty years of Broadway musical flops.” —Doug Watt, New York Daily News