The Human Comedy, 1984

The run closed April 15, 1984

Opened

April 5, 1984

Closed

April 15, 1984

Performances

13

Previews

Unknown

Theatre

Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

Of the 464 productions we hold that opened in the 1980s and carry a performance count, this is the 338th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.

Who was in it27 named

Kenneth Bryan
Debra Byrd
Marc Stephen Delgatto
Christopher Edmonds
Laurie Franks
Stephen Geoffreys
Walter Hudson
David Lawrence Johnson
Don Kehr
Lisa Kirchner
Joseph Kolinski
Grady Mulligan
Daniel Noel
Louis Padilla
Caroline Peyton
Vernon Spencer
Dan Tramon
Michael Willson

9 of these 27 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 18 are set from the identifier in the cast list, which is a slug of the name, so hyphens and full stops are lost and a few come out wrong. We hold nothing else about them. Nobody here is matched to a character: the cast list records who was in the company and not what they played.

Creative team

Director

Wilford Leach

Choreographer

Ethel Martin

Orchestrations

Galt MacDermot

A producer is one string on this record, however many people or companies it names. Directors and choreographers are held both as text and as identifiers; where an identifier exists the name links to a page.

Recordings 1 held for the work

None of these is attributed to this staging. They are filed against The Human Comedy, and nothing says which production any of them documents. Closing that join is the point of this catalogue and it is not closed yet.

Around this production

Saroyan first wrote the story as a screenplay which he was scheduled to direct; when he was fired from the picture, he turned the screenplay into a novel, which came out shortly before the movie was released in 1943.

• His most recent work was 1984’s The Human Comedy, featuring a highly interesting score and bearing many similarities to a folk opera. Broadway Musicals the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time Bloom Ken 1949 Vlastnik Fra, p. 157
• composer MacDermot, he did return to Broadway in 1984—via the Shakespeare Festival—with a quick-flop musicalization of William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy, of all things. Thirteen performances and out. More Opening Nights On Broadway A Critical Quotebook of Compiled By Steven Suski, p. 975
• His subsequent Broadway adventures were unwieldy failures (DUDE! [October 9, 1972], VIA GALACTICA? [November 28, 1972], and the more intimate THE HUMAN COMEDY’ [April 5, 1984]); but the man can sure write a tune. Show Tunes the Songs Shows and Careers of Broadway S Suskin Steven Suskin Steven, p. 428
• The Human Comedy was a risky prospect for Broadway. While rear projections establishing the story’s various locales were added for Broadway, the show was otherwise staged starkly, in semioratorio concert style. Not Since Carrie Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops Ken Mandelbaum, p. 344
• The original cast recorded the show, but the recording has never been commercially released, thus depriving those who might find The Human Comedy the ideal piece for their company of familiarity with it. Not Since Carrie Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops Ken Mandelbaum, p. 345

Passages naming this production, found by keyword across 178 books. Where it turns up in the literature, not curated notes about it.

What this page does not know

• No photograph of this staging.
• No character names. We can say who was in the company and not who they played.
• Which of the 1 recordings of The Human Comedy document this run, if any.
• Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.