Creature from the Black Lagoon: The Musical

Creature From the Black Lagoon – The Musical
Promotional artwork for Creature From the Black Lagoon: The Musical.
Universal Studios Hollywood
Area	Upper Lot
Status	Closed
Opening date	July 1, 2009
Closing date	March 9, 2010
Replaced	The Land of a Thousand Faces (1975 - 1980) Castle Dracula Live Show (1980 - 1983) The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery Spectacular (1983 - 1992) Beetlejuice's Rock and Roll Graveyard Revue (1992 - 1999) Spider-Man Rocks (2002 - 2004) Fear Factor Live (2005 - 2008)
Replaced by	Special Effects Stage
General statistics
Attraction type	Live Show
Theme	Creature From the Black Lagoon
Duration	25 minutes

Creature From the Black Lagoon: The Musical was a live performance show formerly located at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park in Los Angeles, California. It debuted on July 1, 2009, replacing Fear Factor LIVE. As of March 9, 2010 this show was officially closed. The musical at Universal Studios Hollywood was loosely based on the basic plot of the 1954 Universal movie.

The show began with a clip from The Today Show with Matt Lauer, talking about the Creature. The premise was that Universal made the film based on a real creature, and a new team of explorers were on a second expedition to investigate, the principals being Kay, Mark & David (all characters which also appeared in the original film).

Aboard the Rita, the Captain (which in this version, is an Amazonian woman - a voo-doo Shirley Bassey) leads the cast in the opening number, “Black Lagoon".

Kay vents her romantic frustrations with her fiancé in the second song, “Slay Me". The song recreates the famous "swimming sequence" from the original movie, in which Kay swims while the Creature observes her below, tantalized.

The next song is “Prime Evil", in which everyone sings about the Creature. To the dismay of the cast, the Creature climbs onto the boat and joins the song.

The Creature kidnaps Kay and takes her back to his lair, which bears a resemblance to an underwater grotto bachelor pad. This is where the Creature and Kay bond during their duet, "Strange New Hunger". Mark and David, Kay's fellow scientists, rush in to save Kay. The Creature tells her his name....Gill! He gets shot with a tainted speargun, with results that soon become clear.

Back aboard the Rita, the scientists hear massive footsteps. Turns out the spear that pierced Gill had fallen into a supply of "human growth hormone" and the Creature, now 25 feet high, appears. Kay sings an encore of “Strange New Hunger", rising to the level of the Gill's face on a vine. Before he can stop himself, the Creature eats her...and the Captain sums up the unpredictability of love with an encore of "Black Lagoon".

Due to the recent unpopularity of the park's former Fear Factor Live show, the attraction went down for improvements in spring 2007 and early 2008, both failing to outperform their previous versions. Because of this, Universal closed the attraction on August 14, 2008, confirming that it would soon be replaced by a Creature From the Black Lagoon-themed show titled Creature From the Black Lagoon- The Musical to open the following Spring. Fred Barton served as composer and co-lyricist, Gerard Alessandrini served as co-lyricist and co-director. Peter Fish provided additional music and Lynne Taylor-Corbett received final credit as choreographer and director. Jonathan Tolins is the scriptwriter, and the production is co-produced by Marc Routh and Broadway Attractions. Due to lack of audience interest, "Creature from the Black Lagoon: The Musical" was closed temporarily in mid September. On March 9, 2010, Universal Studios Hollywood revealed that the attraction had been officially closed. On June 26, 2010, the venue reopened with an updated version of the lower lot special effects show entitled Special Effects Stage.