In The New Yorker, Michael Schulman wonders: Is "Carrie" the Worst Musical of All Time? Turning to “some notable buffs,” such a Paul Rudnick, for opinions he offers up this:
Paul Rudnick, playwright and humorist: It’s hard to pick the absolutely worst musical, because some shows were just painfully tedious or derivative or overblown. But, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this selection, “Into the Light,” from 1986, had the distinction of being both terrible and transcendently unlikely, because it was a musical about the Shroud of Turin. It would be hard to imagine a good musical about the Shroud of Turin. If memory serves, the show concerned a battle between faith and science, and it climaxed with a scene in some sort of laboratory. The scientists had proved that the Shroud, with its possible shadowy image of Jesus, wasn’t authentic. But then a laser show erupted, proving I’m not sure exactly what. Maybe that God is, in fact, a really chintzy special effect.