Endless Thread - Episodes We Love: Listener beware… it’s ‘Goosebumps The Musical’

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

“Goosebumps” book fans and musical theater fans, unite! In this episode, Amory and producer Quincy introduce you to “Goosebumps The Musical” and find out what it might take to get it to Broadway (hint: you can help!). This episode originally aired on December 23, 2022.

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Merotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Hello, Anne-Marie. Is that the? I don't know.

What's the? I need a musical theater-themed one here. Yeah, that was pretty good. Hello, Ben. Oh, that was very like a mall and the night visitors. That's very operatic. Yeah, that was like in the key of Z. I don't know what that was.

Well, you know, something sounding slightly off in your musical production is spooky in its own way. You know? Yeah. Yeah, we'll go with that. Yeah. And with that, we have one of my favorite episodes that we made last year that is just perfect for spooky season. And I think this is going to be the episode that truly takes some people by. surprise. It's the thing

that you didn't know you needed in your life, that once it's there, everything's a little bit better. But be warned, this episode of Endless Dread might give you some

goosebumps. I'm standing outside the Majestic Theater at 44th and 7th. This is where the Broadway musical, Phantom of the Opera, is performed, Last month's endless thread producer Megan Cattell was on Broadway. New York City, baby.

She went with tap shoes and a dream, a.k.a. an audio kit and a question. I'm going to talk to some people to see if any of them would be interested, if anyone has heard of it. Megan was there to ask people waiting in line outside of various Broadway theaters if they had heard of another show that isn't on Broadway yet. Have any of you heard of Goosebumps a Musical? No.

No. I am not. The musical? Yeah, I didn't know there was one. Goosebumps The Musical? I didn't know there was one either. Big same. Until producer Quincy Walters... Hello, everyone.

Showed up to one of our story idea meetings with tap shoes and a dream. Okay, he actually came with a curious social media discovery. I think this is one of the few jobs where it actually pays to get lost in the internet. So I was watching my friend's Instagram stories a few months ago and was shown an advertisement for a poster for Goosebumps the Musical. Like a fan poster? Like you would hang on your bedroom wall? Exactly like that.

And not a poster for Goosebumps, but for Goosebumps the Musical. Yep. Which at the time you had never heard of, and I definitely have also not heard of. Right. Weird. Yeah, the musical part also confused a lot of the theater patrons Megan spoke to in The Big Apple. Have you all heard of Goose bumps? No, I know about the books.

Ben, were you a Goosebumps Booksboy? I was definitely a books boy, but I was more of a scary stories to tell in the dark books boy. Also very good. Well, I was definitely a Goosebump's. gal by way of my older sister, who is kind of the curator of cool in my childhood. And Goosebumps was cool. And it was also huge. There were like 60-something books, all a product of the mind of the mysterious R.L. Stein.

And they told stories about haunted masks, cursed clocks and shrunken heads. Some of them were choose-your-own adventure style. Weren't they also coming out like crazy fast? Yeah, from 1994 through 97, There was a new book every month. At one point, they were selling at a rate of four million books a month. I mean, I can say this because I read lots of books to my son. Kids love creeping themselves out.

They just, anything creepy or spooky, they're so in. And us 90s kids especially, we were freaks. And it only got better in 1995. This is the theme song to the Goose Bumps TV show. And Ben and Quincy, when I fired up an episode recently and heard this music, I was instantly transported back to elementary-aged Amory, who wanted to watch the episode that was coming on but didn't want to watch it because I knew it would be creepy, but also wanted to watch it because I knew it would be creepy.

Don't you get it? It predicts the future. And it makes it bad. If you're like, ah, who is that voice? That was a 15-year-old Ryan Gosling in the episode Say Cheese and Die. I like to call them hot gals. In 2015, there was a Goosebumps movie starring Jack Black as author R. L. Stein. Hey, what happens now?

You go home, you put on your PJs, you get your blankie, you go nap, nap in the morning. This will all just feel like a bad dream. So in three decades, Goosebumps has gone from the page. To the small screen. To the big screen. And now to the stage. So, confession. Quincy, when you first told us that there was a Goose Bumps the Musical,

I was expecting it to be hot garbage. Because while I was a theater kid, I actually don't like a lot of musicals. I'm not someone who just listens to cast recordings for fun. I find them kind of cringy out of context. I also don't love the commercialization of Broadway that we've seen over the last decade. Like, do we need Shrek the musical and SpongeBob the Musical? And now goosebumps the musical. How dare you?

How dare you? On top of all of it. But I know I'm not alone. So to my fellow musical skeptics out there, like they say in the theater, suspend your disbelief, at least for the length of this episode. Because I did. And? Goose bumps. You covered head to toe in goosebumps.

And yet you feel a strange delight. Did you feel a strange delight, Amory? You know what? I did. I freaking loved it. I listened all the way through. And when I was done, I immediately texted Quincy and I was like, how is this not on Broadway? Yeah, and what will it take to get it there? Oh, so you guys are producers now? You're putting it, you're bringing it to Broadway? For the purpose of this episode, sure. Yes.

Well, I mean, since we learned about Goosepumps the Musical on the internet, Quincy, maybe the internet can help? Maybe so. And trying to answer these questions, Ben, led Quincy and me to some interesting characters. It's really fun. I just like to scare kids. And it's about a wonderful university where you learn to murder people. I've been in theater for so long. I never assumed. Anything good is going to happen. Yeah.

Like, then follow with you dare, but all who do beware, for you may find a scare that fills your soul with bright and gives you goosebumps in the... I'm Amory, say cheese and die Sievertson. I'm Ben, the Beast from the East, Johnson.

I'm Quincy. Welcome to Camp Nightmare Walters, and we're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Today's episode, Goose bumps. The musical. Listener beware. You're in for a scare.

So follow if you dare. But all who find a scare the fuse. One reason, at least that most people haven't heard of Goose bumps the musical, other than on Instagram, is because it's really only been performed by community theaters in places like Parasance. Kentucky, Netkong, New Jersey, shout out to our listeners there, and Newburyport, Massachusetts. And that's where I go to catch a glimpse of this elusive thing. It's about an hour drive north of Boston. The entire cast learned that this show existed through Facebook. That's where the calls for the auditions were posted. The guy directing this production is John Moynihan at Firehouse Center for

the arts, and he grew up with Goosebumps. Yeah, I mean, Goosebooms was a big part of my childhood. But the real muse behind this production, his wife, John thinks she found out about Goosebumps the musical online as well on Playbill.com or something in October of 2021. That's when the cast album came out. So my wife is a big, like a huge R.L. Stein and Goosebumps fan. So she was just like looking around one day and said, hey, Did you see this new Goosebums, The Musical?

And I was like, no, I hadn't seen it, but, you know, I'm going to listen to it. We listened to a couple of songs and just like, the music is just so good. The musical is an adaptation of Goosebump's book number 24, Phantom of the Auditorium, which is loosely based on Phantom of the Opera. But in the book, a Phantom haunts a middle school production of a play called, wait for it, the Phantom. And The Phantom doing The Haunting is trying to avenge the role he never got to play in his middle school production of a play called Wait for it. The Phantom.

The Phantom. That's right. That is soul with meta. Man. This is from that cast recording John's wife discovered, and it didn't take much for their seven-year-old daughter Avonlea to be evangelized. How much of a fan are you? This much. Use your words.

A hundred percent much. Ask her what her favorite songs are and... Who done it? The legend. The phantom. The story of the phantom. So, you know, like basically the entire musical, which is how I felt about Phantom of the Opera. Exactly.

Super scary play and watch a step. Okay. Could you sing any of them for us? And Avinley looks like she almost malfunctions, trying to figure out which one to sing, probably a calculation of which song is her favorite and which one she sounds best on and which will probably be more enjoyable for the audience. And John helps her out.

And though he was pretty... Yes, and the keeper, the phantoms of was so much deeper, a loss that nothing could console. And because John knows the musical so well, rehearsal didn't miss a beat when the person playing Miss Walker, the drama teacher in the story, is running late. Production! And demanded the script's destruction, but once survived right underneath his nose. All amusement aside, John says this is an important work, because it comes at a time when the theater world is trying to appeal to broader audiences in order to stay relevant.

And he thinks Goosebumps the musical could accomplish that and endure. A show like this deserves the opportunity. It deserves the opportunity to be out there to a wider audience. It should be for everybody so that theater can continue to live on after this generation and the next generation passes away, I guess, for not to be a point on it. I know, but I mean, like I said, I think that this is, This is one of those shows that, that, you know, hits that nostalgia and hits that, but it also is so relatable to kids. We really have, like, different pockets of audience for this show.

This is another John, John McLeigh. He wrote the book for Goosebumps The Musical. There's, like, musical theater fans who love it, and then there's Goosebump's folks who are like, what? A musical. Oh, wait, it's good. I'm firmly in both camps, but musicals and goosebumps were pretty different parts of my childhood, so I wouldn't have necessarily thought to put them together.

And neither did John. The idea for Goosebump's The Musical actually came from his agent. She'd said, do you think Goosebumps would be a good show? I was like, yes, I bet it would. And she said, well, I know this composer who's so great, and I think you guys would be friends and really work well together. That composer was Danny Abosh, and conveniently... Like, in fact, one year I actually dressed up as Curley the Goosebum Skeleton for Halloween, second grade.

My mom has the pictures. Danny was in, and GooseBumps the Musical was officially commissioned by two children's theaters. One in Wisconsin, another in Oregon. It debuted in both places in 2016, and from there, it kind of did the equivalent of going straight to VHS. That feels like a very OG GooseBumps-era way to put it, M-ray. All right. It did the... VHS, does anyone know what that is? I don't even know what it stands for, but, okay, let's say it did the equivalent of going straight to the streaming platforms.

Video-high systems. Really? No. Okay. Well, instead of becoming this smash success on Broadway and then having every theater in the country want to put on its own production, as Quincy mentioned, Goosebumps the musical kind of stayed in the community. and youth theater zone. No neon lights.

Maybe some little ones, but yeah, no. But then, last year, that cast recording was released, a full five years later. This is our time, this is our day, because we're finally doing a super scary play. The cast recording made it possible for the music of Goosebumps the musical to reach a national and even international audience. I'll get this text from Danny saying, hey, we have two songs charting in the Republic of Malta. What? What? And this cast recording has a pretty dreamy lineup.

How did the cast recording come to be? Because this is a Broadway star-studded cast that you have here. Danny willed it to happen. It was just a year of his life where he just lived and breathed and ate and slag. That's the Goosebump's album. And I just sat at my house outside Chicago getting these amazing updates. Like, hey, here's Sheryl Lee Ralph singing a song. It sounds brilliant.

I'm like, that's great. Cheryl Lee Ralph, by the way, just won an Emmy for the ABC show Abbott Elementary. I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like. But she's also a Tony-nominated Broadway star who sings what I think is Quincy's and my favorite song in the whole show. For sure. It's called... The legend. The Bay was called the Phantom.

It was the scariest of shows. Is that how it started? No one knows how the legend goes. Also on the cast recording is Alex Brightman, who's currently playing the title role in Beetlejuice, the musical on Broadway. Yes, that's a thing. And then there's Christina Alibato from Mean Girls, the musical,

also a thing, and Noah Galvin from Dear Evan Hansen. Broadway stars that I really did not even expect to say yes, and the fact that they did is amazing. I'm still pinching myself about it. And we should say it is not normal to release a cast recording stacked with Broadway actors before the show is even on Broadway. Or in this case, before it's even a twinkle in the eye of a Broadway producer. And yet? I was so happy when they asked me and just like it's also my truly, my like childhood dream show. the concept of it.

Stephanie Stiles is known for the Broadway revival of Kiss Me, Kate, but on the cast recording for her conceptual childhood dream show, as she described it on the theater podcast with Alan Seals, Stephanie plays Tina, the understudy and jealous classmate who thinks she should have gotten the female lead instead of Brooke. And then I listened to the songs, and I'm like, these are unbelievable songs. Like, they're so good.

But despite its clever lyrics, sophisticated music, and a killer cast, Goosebomps The Musical still hasn't garnered the kind of attention its creators were, honestly, I would have hoped for. So what will it take? Composer Danny Abosh actually has a pretty good idea. Broadway musicals can cost upwards of $10, $20 million to produce. So it takes a lot of, you know, capital to, to, um, to, uh, out to Broadway production. Ooh, okay, let's call this ingredient number one for getting a show to Broadway, someone with sights as high as their pockets are deep.

And even if you have connections and an amazing script and an amazing cast and amazing music, sometimes just for that reason, it doesn't come together. And I mean, the people who invest in a Broadway musical need some hope that this is going to recoup their investment. And especially right now, it's just, it's a very hard time for Broadway shows. Okay, so it sounds like Ingredient 2 is an audience. Like, you need to be pretty confident. You can get those butts in those seats.

Yeah, which with a brand like goosebumps and a cast of big Broadway names like the one on the recording, shouldn't be as much of a hurdle, I wouldn't think. Maybe not, but then there's ingredient number three, which is honestly one I hadn't even considered before. Even though in some ways it's the most obvious. You need an available theater in one of the most competitive theater hubs in the world. Phantom of the Opera just announced its closing the longest running Broadway musical of all time. I know, so wouldn't this just slot in perfectly?

Phantom of the Opera closes, goosebumps goes right in its place. I'm a big fan of you continuing to ask that question at every opportunity. When one show closes, another one opens. But, spoiler alert, I don't have $20 million. Ben and Quincy, I'm guessing you don't either. I'll tell you what I do have. Tap shoes in a dream. I should have known that was coming.

And we don't have access to a Broadway theater. Nope. But, you know, most people have only heard about Goosebumps the Musical online at this point. And I think we can harness the power of the internet to help it find an even bigger audience. Do I need to start a change.org petition? What do I need to do? You're laughing. I'm not.

I'm serious. I'm laughing because if I wasn't laughing, I'd be crying. Crying because Danny and John not only put a lot of work into Goosebumps the musical, but they've also been its biggest cheerleaders attending local productions, making an appearance at Broadwaycom this summer, running social media accounts for the musical, running ads through those social media accounts like on Instagram, for, say, posters.

We take the attitude that, like, no one's doing this for us. If we want to get this show to Broadway, it's on us to get it there. And so we're pounding the pavement and really, you know, doing everything we can to get the word out about this show. And it never seems like enough. It seems like, you know, with everything competing for eyeballs on social media and the like. But, yeah, we're trying our best. Well, Quincy, did you buy that poster for Goosebump's The Musical? Uh, no. I don't even remember what merchant was selling it.

But it got me to listen to the cast recording, which, one, is probably a better outcome anyway, and two, got you to listen to it. Which might get me to listen to it and maybe some endless thread friends. And there's even more reason to have faith. Maybe Goosebumps the musical is just on a similar trajectory to Goosebumps the Books. And they just sat there on the shelf. They didn't do anything. for months. No one bought him. And this guy would know. He wrote them.

Can you give us kind of the brief origin story of how goosebumps began for you? You want me to go back to primordial times? Coming up, the architect of age-appropriate, spooktacular page turners himself, R. L. Stein. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out. about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics. Country music.

Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radio Lab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts.

There is something powerful about the sound of the human. and voice. Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's story with a custom podcast from City Space Productions, the Creative Studio from WBUR's business partnerships team. Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences, whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. R. L. Stein, as his somewhat mysterious sounding name would suggest, is kind of an elusive guy. He doesn't really do media interviews, but our request was coming at a special time. How are you personally celebrating the 30th anniversary of goosebumps?

By talking to you. Love it. We were under the careful supervision of his mini-mee, an R.L. Stein ventriloquist dummy positioned just over the real R. L. Stein's left shoulder. Oh, God. I'm expecting it to open its eyes and they will be red and upset. Yeah, well. Not into it.

But really, it's all R.L. Stein's fault. Any of my fellow goosebumps kids read the book, Night of the Living Dummy? Or watch the episode of the TV show featuring Slappy, the Ventriloquist Dummy? The actual stuff of nightmares. Right? And so imagine my surprise when I heard R.L. Stein this. I don't really want to

terrified kids. But that's, but you've made, you've done that for 30 straight years. No, but they're not terrified. I hate it when kids come up to me at a book signing. Say, oh, you gave your book gave me nightmares. I hate that. But then why write it?

Why write it? Then I'm reading. I can, you know, the most satisfying part for me is all these parents who come to me and said, my kid never read a book in his life. And I caught him reading with a flashlight. under the covers or people who come up to me and say,

I wouldn't be a librarian today if it wasn't for you, or you got me through a bad time. You know, that's really what it's about. But as Stein himself said, the Goosepump's books weren't an automatic hit when the first ones came out in 1992. Because there was no advertising. There was no hype.

No one really knew me at the time. But somehow, after four months or so, somehow kids discovered them. and took them to school and showed them to others. It's a secret kids network of kids telling kids. Kids telling kids, huh? So do you need to start a secret Goosebumps the Musical network? Like, yeah, yeah, everyone knows about Wicked, but have you heard about Goosebumps the musical?

Honestly, I kind of already have. I mean, I've told just about all of my theater-loving friends about it. That's not a secret. That's not a secret. This is the goal, Ben. We're trying to make it. We're trying to make it not a secret, but in a sneaky way. This is like the opposite of a whisper campaign. It's like Amorye singing at the top of her lungs campaign. Well, you know who I didn't think I need to sing Goosebumps the musical's praises to. Mr. Goosebumps himself. I don't know anything about it. I've never seen it.

You've never seen it. No, I don't know. Aral Stein has never listened to the cast recording of Goosebumps the musical. What? Even though he's on it, he made a cameo on it. Principal Stein and I will be discussing this with your parents and deciding if we have to cancel the play. Cancel the play? No! We may not have a choice. And Zeke, we will also discuss what other punishments might be appropriate.

Principal Stein. Good stuff. This is ridiculous to me because, can I just say, it is fantastic. It is? It is. And this is coming... I'm not kidding, Mr. Stein. Are you sure? Are you sure, Amory? You know what, Aral Stein doesn't have to take it from me, because Quincy and I spoke to someone who may as well be the president of the secret goosebumps The Musical Network.

I have a specific memory of listening to the title track of the song, Goosebumps, for the first time. And immediately afterwards, I texted my friend who was also listening to it. And I told her, this sounds exactly the way that Halloween used to feel when we were kids. This is crazy with dread. Hairball service. Something under your bed. Spider. Right.

The cloud of the park. Or is it possible the thing you fear most is meeting up with a ghost? This is Kristen Stickley. She loves musical theater and she loves all things spooky. Goose bumps in particular. So goosebumps the musical. This is right up my alley. And the first time I ever heard about it, I was like,

there's no way this can be real because this sounds like they wrote it specifically for me. No way it could be real is exactly how I felt when I saw that Instagram ad. I found this certified superfan through Danny the composer who met Kristen this summer at Broadway con. She poured her heart out about the music to him and to us. The fun and the innocence and the spookiness and the nostalgia of the original series just in the music alone. I'm like, what do you mean this music didn't play every time you opened a goosebumps book? Like, I could have sworn. Unlike us, who just learned about Goosebumps the Musical a couple months ago,

Kristen has been rooting for it since she found the cast recording online last year. And she's not alone. Let's not forget the Republic of Malta. But Goosebumps the Musical clearly still feels like kind of a secret. Yeah, even in the heart of Broadway, our colleague Megan found exactly one person who had heard of it, and he didn't seem to know that much. in like a sentence, how would you describe it? Thrilling.

In a sentence. Oh, the show is crazy, high energetic and thrilling. Scary. I really think that once this show reaches a wider audience, it's inevitable that it's going to end up blowing up in popularity because everybody I've come across who's listened to it has said the same thing. I cannot believe no one told me about this show. like it's actually so good. There's something else Goosebumps the Musical might have going for it.

Timing. Because the music was written and recorded by people who grew up reading the Goosebump's books. And so did some of the folks, producer Megan encountered on Broadway. People like Ellen and Jason from Detroit. Now we're in the demographic where we grew up with that step as kids

and now we're adults with, you know, a little bit of money to spend. You know, not too much, but enough to have a nice night out. So I would be down to see it. Yeah, I'm thinking nostalgia. Goose bumps fans like Ellen and Jason and me, we are ready for more goosebumps. This is a lesson R.L. Stein and some collaborators learned the hard way back in 1996, even if they remember it fondly.

You know, back in the day, we had a wonderful goosebumps musical that traveled. It was produced by Ken Feld, who owned Ringling Brothers, and Disney on. And it was written by a wonderful composer, Rupert Holmes. A Goosebump's Musical before Goosebumps the Musical? Not exactly. There was a traveling goosebumps stage production. But it wasn't a musical, as R.L. Stein remembers. Although the play was written by musician Rupert Holmes.

Ben, do you know who Rupert Holmes is? Is it Sherlock's Missentrop, Great, Great, Great Grandson? That's pretty good. He was born in England. But I'll ask another question. Do you like Pena Coladas? Rupert Holmes is the Pena Colada song guy? He sure is.

And it was the success of the Pena Colada song, aka Escape, that made it possible for Rupert to pursue his theatrical ambitions and write the musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood. And by right, I mean, he wrote the book, the music, and the lyrics, and he won Tony Awards for all three. They didn't have a category that year, but I also did the orchestrations.

That took three years out of my life, and that was all funded by a song that went, if you like, Pena Coladas and getting caught in the rain. So, yes, that was a very good thing for me in terms of expanding what I do. Ruperts may be also taken after R.L. Stein and written some spooky novels, including a forthcoming one titled Murder Your Employer, about a university where students learn how to murder people. My theory is there are people who will leave the book on their desk at work just so that their employer will see what you're considering doing. As for his work as a playwright, Rupert has had many highly acclaimed shows performed at many prestigious theaters. But when he talks about the goosebumps live on stage touring production, you can hear the childlike delight in his voice.

The entire stage was outlined in kind of horrifying, scary figures. And in the attic, it turned out to be a kind of alien invasion of creatures. And they had fallen to their death on stage. And now it's haunted, which is set in a fun house that sloppy controls and taunts the children in. So it's a lot of fun. But the fun only lasted for a matter of months. What happened was that there was a lag. The generation that had been reading R.L. Stein and watching all the TV shows that they did as well,

had gotten to be about 16 or 17. And what happens is when you're a teenager and you're in those mid-teens, you start to say, I want to move on to adult things now. It's only when you're adult, you get nostalgic for your youth and then you go back to those things.

So here we are, fellow adults. 30 years into goosebumps, the nostalgia is palpable. Even R. L. Stein is finally ready to welcome Goosebumps the musical into his life and see a production somewhere. Yeah, I have to go. I have to go. You talk me into it. Or maybe since Aral Stein is based in New York City, goosebumps the musical will come to him.

Oh, like where your head's at, Quincy. And since our Pina-Colada-loving Tony Award winner, Rupert Holmes, has some experience with this, maybe he can help answer the question. What does it take to get something to Broadway? A miracle these days. A miracle. Woof. All right, I grant you that doesn't sound very hopeful, but pulling those ingredients together, the money, the cast, the audience, the timing. You need to be lucky enough for some show to completely collapse right while you're ready to go. All of that is the miracle. And there are like two dozen of them on Broadway right now. And you said Phantom of the Opera is closing soon, right? I mean, this is like the perfect thing to slot in, no? And it would be super fan approved.

Oh my gosh. That's simply poetic. Going from one phantom haunting the theater to the next one, it's only the natural order, I think. You know what? I'm going to, I'm going to support you in that belief. And just know that there's 50 other musicals all vying for that same theater right now. Oh, go get caught in the rain, Ruper. So what can we do to give goosebumps an edge?

I floated my online petition idea by that super fan Kristen and she said basically, hey, it's worked in the past. Beetlejuice the musical was supposed to close on Broadway a couple years ago, but you know what helped save it? Saying Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice? You know, kind of. It was more than 36,000 signatures on the Save Beetlejuice the Musical online petition. It eventually found a new home in the Marquisheed Theater on

Broadway, and they are constantly attributing it to the passion of the fans and making it known very loudly that there was a really huge desire for this show to continue to run. And so I don't know if what needs to be done as a petition similarly, but I will be the first one to start that petition. Kristen, way ahead of you. In the show notes of this episode, you will find a link to a petition to get Goosebumps the musical to Broadway. Is it going to take a miracle? Yes, yes, it will. But who knows that better than the guy whose wildly successful book franchise almost never launched? And if it was today, the bookstores would have yanked him off the shelf. They wouldn't be around. And the guy who's been able to reinvent himself over the course of his

career from Pena Coladas to Tonys to murderous novels. The year that Babe Ruth hit the most home runs in baseball. He also led baseball in strikeouts. Why? Because you can't hit a home run unless you're willing to make a big swing. And if you make a big swing, the odds are in favor of you looking like an idiot. But give it your best shot and know what you'll do if you fall slightly short of that, how you can capitalize on that, because you'll get another at bat. So swing with us. Sing along with us. Sign the petition to get Goosebombs the musical to Broadway. And who knows?

I don't think it's far-fetched to say it's only a matter of time before it gets the major production that it deserves, and I will be front row and center when that happens. If you had the chance to get tickets to see Goosepums Musical, would you go? Of course. Sure. Yes. Absolutely. Yes.

If it came on to Broadway, would you be interested in seeing it? Probably. I'm not going to lie. I liked goosebumps. We like horror. We like musicals. Sign us up. Absolutely.

All right. Okay, thank you so much. Bye. Curtin Call. Endless thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was produced by Quincy Walters, our web producer and Broadway correspondent with Tap Shoes and a Dream, Megan Cattell.

And by me, it was written and co-hosted by Quincy, me, and... A little taste to tapadoo of Ben Brock Johnson. Mix and sound designed by Emily Jenkowski. Goose bumps. musical music by Danny Abosh, lyrics by Danny Abash and John McLeigh. Yeah, and big thanks to them for letting us spookily serenade you with it throughout this episode. The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Nora Sacks, Grace Tatter, and Paul Vicus.

Endless thread is a show about the blurred lines between digital communities and the ventriloquist dummy I hid in the Amory's house for her to find one day and freak the F out. I thought you were going to say, you know, digital communities. and tap shoes in a dream. Tapes and a dream! If you got an untold history and unsolved mystery or a wild story from the internet that you would like for us to tell or sing or dance,

hit us up. Email endless thread at wbUR.org. I'll do the singing, then it'll do the dancing. Damn Skippy. So follow if you dare. Find a scare that fills your soul.