American Psycho

What will Elton John learn from Tammy Faye’s flop on Broadway?

Amid much hype and excitement last year, Sir Elton John, that most consistently busy of rock ’n’ roll stars, announced that he was going to retire from touring so that he could spend more time with his young children. Yet John has been nothing if not productive — and his definition of “retirement” has been more elastic than most seventy-seven-year-olds. In the last year alone, since he played his final full concert in Stockholm on July 8, 2023, he has participated in a major documentary, Elton John: Never Too Late, for which he has written a new song, performed at a high-profile international business event at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London last month and now has seen his latest musical, Tammy Faye, transfer to Broadway.

The birth, death and rebirth of American Psycho: The Musical

American Psycho was never supposed to be a hit. Bret Easton Ellis thought Glamorama would be his big seller, and Psycho was just an odd interlude; an experiment with form that mocked the disconnection, inanity and opulent obliviousness of America’s new, young, hyper-materialist upper crust. It was also a cloaked reflection of repressed homosexuality, written by a gay author who once dated a closeted financier. It’s not even that violent. Most of it is just the interior monologue of this cold man listing the clothes and food and bad music that occupies his hollow mind. And it was intensely funny, but dryly, darkly so. In short, it wasn’t an obvious literary smash.

american psycho musical