15 Of The Wildest Musicals That I Cannot Believe Actually Made It Onstage

    I'll never be the same after learning there's a musical about a horny Slenderman.

    Hannah Marder
    by Hannah Marder

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Hi, I'm Hannah, and I'm a huge musical theater fan!

    me at Moulin Rouge
    Hannah Marder / Via instagram.com

    I can get into pretty much any musical, but I would say my favorite of all time is probably Rent. Although I saw Moulin Rouge! on opening night, and it definitely gives Rent a run for its money!

    I would've thought I'd heard of them all, but since quarantine one of my hobbies has become discovering somewhat obscure musicals (especially based on movies or books) like Jekyll & Hyde and Titanic.

    David Hasselhoff as Hyde
    Musicalchannel / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    It started when my friend and I began sharing stories about weird shows we'd been in or seen when we were younger that we'd half convinced ourselves were fever dreams.

    Most of them are just interesting in a fun, but there have been a few my friend and I have discovered that are...well, frankly, bizarre.

    Text where my friend asks if there's a Human Centipede Musical and then finds it
    Hannah Marder / BuzzFeed

    In case you're curious about the horrors I discovered, read on to learn about the most bizarre musicals I've ever had the misfortune of stumbling upon.

    1. A Slenderman Musical

    foggy forest with the text "A Slender Man Musical, Paul Shapera"
    Paul Shapera

    You can listen to the album on Spotify, but there aren't a lot of official sources on if it's ever actually been performed. However, you can get most of the plot from the music. The musical stars a guy on the run from Slenderman and a lesbian ghost who he allows to possess him to help bring Slenderman down...except turns out Slenderman's horny, and beating him involves jerking him off. You can read the synopsis here, but fair warning, you may never be the same.

    2. Human Centipede: The Musical!

    People onstage with their heads tied to others' butts
    CentipedeMusical / Tumblr / Via youtube.com

    The comedy troupe Chocolate Cake City from Emerson College created and filmed the musical, which you can find on YouTube. It's a very self-aware low-concept parody of the film, and the rock music is pretty upbeat and funny.

    3. Me and My Dick

    boy on his bed talking to a man with pants that made his legs look like balls
    Team StarKid / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    You may know StarKid from having put on the viral A Very Potter Musical and its sequels (which are excellent). Well, Joey Richter (who played Ron in the A Very Potter Musical series) stars in this musical about yep, you guessed it, a boy and his penis (played by Joe Walker, who played Voldemort and Umbridge in A Very Potter Musical and its sequel). It features songs such as "Nothin' Like a Dick" and "Flight of the Pussies."

    4. Silence! The Musical

    Clarice talking to Hannibal behind the glass
    Minneapolis Musical Theatre / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    This Silence of the Lambs parody follows a pretty similar plot to the movie with some pretty spot-on impressions of the characters and a Greek chorus literally made up of lambs (well, people playing lambs). The musical features songs like "I'd Fuck Me" and "Put the Fucking Lotion in the Basket." You can watch clips from it here.

    5. Evil Dead the Musical

    zombies dancing
    Ian / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    The musical, which is based on the Evil Dead franchise and features songs like “All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons” and “What the F**k was That?,” played off-Broadway and has since been performed around the world to actually pretty good reviews. There is also something called a "splatter zone" that refers to the first few rows, who get splattered with fake blood during the show. It's actually got some upcoming dates if you want to check it out.

    6. Raggedy Ann

    Raggedy Ann talking to a little girl
    archive.org

    The show actually played on Broadway for three days before shutting down due to negative reviews and backlash from parents about the dark subject matter. The show told the story of a dying young girl with a Raggedy Ann doll who awakens to find her dolls have come alive. They go on a mission to see a doctor in New York to save her life, and what ensues is basically a fever dream with themes of death, suicide, sex, and even genocide...as if a life-size Raggedy Ann doll wasn't nightmare fuel enough.

    7. The Dolls of New Albion

    poster with an eye with gears and a clock on it
    Paul Shapera

    This steampunk opera is about people putting the souls of dead loved ones in mannequins/dolls and the subsequent riots as people begin to fear and kill the dolls. (What is it with musicals and bringing dolls to life??) You can watch the musical here.

    8. Bring Back Birdie

    poster for Bring Back Birdie
    Lee Guber, Shelly Gross, Slade Brown and Jim Milford

    The musical, a sequel to hit musical Bye Bye Birdie, was a complete flop. It focused on Birdie's comeback at the Grammy Awards, though it had so many other directions and plotlines that The New York Times said it had "run off in so many cryptic directions that you may think each member of the cast has been handed a different lousy script." It closed after four performances.

    9. Scarrie

    the girls throwing tampons at Carrie
    David Cerda / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    You probably haven't even heard of the short-lived musical based on the 1976 horror classic Carrie, so you almost definitely haven't heard of Scarrie, the parody of it created by Hell in a Handbag Productions. The musical parodies specific songs from the musical and follows the plotline almost exactly, except Carrie is played by a guy. It actually was pretty favorably reviewed.

    10. Moose Murders

    man in a wheelchair and a man dressed as a moose
    Steven McCasland / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    If you've been a Broadway fan for a long time, you might've heard of this one, only because it was infamously perhaps the worst show on Broadway. A murder mystery set in a lodge in the Adirondacks, the show was reportedly bizarre and of poor taste, with a New York Times critic comparing seeing the show to surviving the Titanic. Notably, the show featured a drug addict who wanted to sleep with his mother, a daughter who tap danced at inappropriate times, and a mummified quadriplegic kicking a man in a moose costume in the groin.

    11. Let My People Come

    Woman pretending to give a hand job to a large fake penis
    daryl perrier / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    This super-sexual show from the 1970s involving nudity and simulated orgies included songs such as "Fellatio 101," and "The Cunnilingus Champion of Company C." It ran in previews on and off Broadway, but never actually opened. There is apparently not much of a story, and a good deal of audience interaction (at least in the revival, which ran in 2013).

    12. Via Galactica

    poster for Via Galactica, with a silhouette of two people kissing with planets inside them
    George W. George and Barnard S. Straus

    This 1972 musical, which featured a set made up of trampolines and a background of thousands of ping pong balls, only ran for seven performances. The storyline, in which non-conformists living on an asteroid who kidnap a garbageman to seduce him/introduce his genes into their gene pool, was called "inane" by the Columbia Spectator. That and the number of technical mishaps (including actors falling through the trampoline floors, actors getting stuck in spaceships, and the microphones accidentally transmitting police radios) meant it went on to pretty terrible reviews.

    13. Love Never Dies

    the Phantom trying to touch Christine's face
    The Shows Must Go On! / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    You may have heard of this one, but only as the butt of a joke. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote it as a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, but it was critically panned. The musical features Meg and her mother working at a New York carnival for the Phantom, Raoul as an alcoholic, and Christine with a child that's actually the Phantom's. Also, it ends with Meg shooting and killing Christine. If you're interested in ruining Phantom, check out the musical here.

    14. The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public

    showgirls posing
    aurora spiderwoman / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    Ah yes, another sequel to a hit musical I've literally never heard of — that's because it only ran for 12 days. In the musical, Miss Mona works with the IRS (???) to run a Las Vegas brothel as a right wing politician tries to stop her. Variety called it "the crummiest junk to litter the district since Ain't Broadway Grand," and The New York Times said that instead of capturing Las Vegas, "the overall effect is that of an international airport lounge on uppers." It featured Cher and Elvis impersonators and a number about phone sex where the sex workers sat spread-eagled inside mobile acrylic cubes "praising the virtues of telephone sex sounds."

    15. And finally, Rockabye Hamlet

    Playbill for Rockabye Hamlet, with a drawing of lots of people singing and dancing
    Lester Osterman Productions

    I can't decide if the idea to make a rock musical based on a Shakespeare play was bonkers or inspired. The play is set like a concert, and includes Ophelia strangling herself with a microphone cord. It ran on Broadway for only four days and seven performances.