One of the worst things I've ever seen was TUSK: A MUSICAL, as part of the very first NYMF. The story revolved around a family of elephants (played, of course, by humans, employing color-blind casting) who are captured and sent to the circus and are tortured by a drunk ringmaster, played by Jeb Brown, who later went on to star in one of the other worst things I've ever seen...RING OF FIRE on the Broad Way. He's now in GREASE! Enough said.
Anyway, during TUSK: THE MUSICAL, the drunk, 40-something has a scene/song where he's boozing up and getting angry and violent. He decides to take out his aggression on the baby elephant - played by a young African American girl. As he has hovering above the cowering little African American girl-elephant, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a whip - yes, a WHIP - in the other, I began to wonder if it was the absolute worst thing I'd ever seen or if it was some stroke of genius that I was just too dumb to recognize. Now I'm pretty sure it was the worst thing I've ever seen.
On Broadway, I've seen a few clunkers, too... SUZANNE SOMERS: THE BLONDE IN THE THUNDERBIRD comes immediately to mind, as do GOOD VIBRATIONS and RING OF FIRE. And DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES, though I did love it in a twisted way. And then there were IN MY LIFE and THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'... Oh! And HOT FEET: THE MUSICAL THAT DANCES TO THE TUNE OF EARTH, WIND AND FIRE.