So, I'm sure a lot of us have heard of In My Life, the show written, composed, and directed by Oscar-winning jingle writer Joseph Brooks, which has often been cited as the most bizarre Broadway Musical ever made. To quote Playbill's summary of the show:
"A love story between a young woman journalist who has obsessive-compulsive disorder and singer-songwriter with Tourette syndrome, its characters also included a slovenly, jingle-loving God who wears a baseball hat, and a transvestite angel who has a dance number with a skeleton. The finale featured a giant lemon."
Here's the deal: This sounds like the most amazing train wreck ever. I've seen so-bad-it's-good movies, but I've never heard of a so-bad-it's-good stage musical, at least not of this caliber. You can't just dangle an auteur-piece with mental illness-laden romance and a musical number involving giant citrus fruits in front of me and not expect me to find this show.
The issue is, I can't find anything about this show, save for two promotional pictures on an article about the opening. There's no cast recording, no promo footage, no bootlegs, nothing I can find about this show. Anyone have any ideas about where to find some of it?
I can't be deprived of a garbage pile as glorious as In My Life.
I have the CD single, too. They were handing them out the night I saw DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS. No, I don’t know why. I don’t think I ever listened to it.
Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters. ~ Wicked
Everything in life is only for now. ~ Avenue Q
There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as my last. ~ Rent
I saw it too! I will never forget the dancing skeletons, the gigantic lemon, or the dead girl riding around on a scooter. I seem to remember the filing cabinet set (in heaven?) being pretty impressive.
Saw it from the front row during thanksgiving weekend. Must have been only 300 people in the audience at best.
I think by the time I saw it, after hearing reports of it being the most ridiculously campy train wreck ever, I just found it to be bizarrely and boringly bad. Sure it had plenty of ridiculous campy moments (the giant lemon, the random Italian aria, the dancing skeleton number - which most of the audience sincerely laughed and clapped with - the character with Tourette’s, etc...), but when it wasn’t campy, it was just plain old mind bogglingly BAD.
I remember David Turner looking down at us at the curtain call with a face of “why aren’t you clapping and cheering loudly?!?” He did the best he could with a ridiculously over the top, campy stereotype and managed to garner a few honest laughs.
I recall parts of the audience genuinely enjoying it and not understanding particularly why. I spoke with Jessica Boevers after the show as someone in the group I was with knew her. There was a bit of a look of pity on her face. They all knew they were in something utterly ridiculous and bad (and they admitted as such) but it was still a job and they gave their all. I admired that.
-There's the muddle in the middle. There's the puddle where the poodle did the piddle."