Today being February 22, it makes for the 33rd anniversary of the one and only performance of the Moose Murders, said to be the most notorious flop that Broadway has ever seen, which opened and was shut down on the same night, February 22, 1983.
The Moose Murders was a slapstick murder mystery that featured plot elements such as:
* Attempted incest between son and mother
* A coffin, corpse, and a taxidermied moose head on stage for most of the play
* A mummified paraplegic who gets up from his wheelchair to kick a man dressed as a moose in the crotch
A New York Times theater critic who was present at that one and only performance wrote:
“The season’s most stupefying flop — a show so preposterous that it made minor celebrities out of everyone who witnessed it, whether from on stage or in the audience.”
I’m telling you this because, as two time Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman once put it, nobody knows anything.
Goldman was talking about Hollywood, but same applies to Broadway and elsewhere.
A bunch of people, typically trained pros and maybe even talented, putting their maybe-talented heads together… putting in a lot of effort… putting their reputations and emotional well-being on the line… only to produce a complete and embarrassing flop, one that will hopefully soon be forgotten, or worse, that will be remembered for years to come and held up as an example of BAD.
And now, a chance to witness your own Moose Murders?
As I announced in my email yesterday, I will be running a “behind the scenes” auction — auctioning off the offers, sales numbers, DM sales conversations, insights, and private conclusions, present and future, from auctions I will run in the coming weeks and months with partners and for myself.
An auction about auctions? Too meta?
I floated the idea in an email a few days ago to see if there is interest. There seems to be.
But the Moose Murders had 13 preview performances before that fateful February 22 1983 opening.
The writer, the director, and the actors still had no real idea this is gonna be a disaster. Like Goldman said, nobody knows anything, not until the stakes get real.
So let’s see what will happen with my “behind the scenes” auction.
Maybe it will go off well.
In this case, it might be a fun show and maybe you learn something and even get your hands on some private and behind-the-scenes data and insights.
Or maybe it will turn into the Moose Murders of auctions.
In other words, maybe this is your chance to witness a stupefying flop in real time, and become a bit of minor celebrity, and have a story you can tell your Internet Marketing grandchildren for years to come.
My “behind the scenes” auction will have its one and only performance this Tuesday, February 24.
The curtain goes up at 7pm CET/1 pm EST/10am EST.
If you’d like to grab your seat in time for the spectacle and possibly legendary flop: