The Human Comedy (musical)
Channel: all the knowledge of the universe PRINCIPIA
Date: 2022-01-09

The Human Comedy (musical), by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10037330 / CC BY SA 3.0

#1983_musicals
#Off-Broadway_musicals
#Broadway_musicals
#Musicals_based_on_novels
#Musicals_by_Galt_MacDermot
#Sung-through_musicals
The Human Comedy is a 1983 musical with a book and lyrics by William Dumaresq and music by Galt MacDermot.
William Saroyan's tale originated as a screenplay he had been hired to write and direct for MGM. When the studio objected to its length and an uncompromising Saroyan was pulled from the project,
he rewrote the story as a 1943 novel with the same title that was published shortly prior to the film's release.
The Off-Broadway production, directed by Wilford Leach, opened on December 28, 1983 at Joseph Papp's Public Theater, where it ran for 79 performances.
The cast included Stephen Geoffreys as Homer, Bonnie Koloc as Kate, Don Kehr as Marcus, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Bess, Josh Blake as Ulysses, Rex Smith as Spangler,
Gordon Connell as Grogan, Leata Galloway as Diana, Joseph Kolinski as Tobey, Caroline Peyton as Mary, and Laurie Franks as Miss Hicks.
Like Hair and A Chorus Line before it, The Human Comedy garnered reviews favorable enough to prompt Papp to transfer it a larger, uptown Broadway house.
After twenty previews, with the Off-Broadway cast and creative team, it opened on April 5, 1984 at the Royale Theatre, where it ran for 13 performances.
Frank Rich's critique of the original production had been positive, but The New York Times policy prohibited re-reviewing shows unless they were changed substantially,
so his earlier comments were overshadowed by those damaging ones made more recently by Clive Barnes, among others.
The general consensus was that The Human Comedy, with its intimate story staged in a semi-oratorio style with no scenery save for rear projections used to define each scene's locale, was not suited for a large venue with a conventional proscenium stage.
Following Dude and Via Galactica, it was MacDermo...