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Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later
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Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later#1
Posted: 4/6/18 at 4:47am

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

 

The show opened 50 years ago this week at the Alvin (now Neil Simon) Theatre.

Based on a popular book and short stories published in The New Yorker, the show was about an exuberant immigrant attending a night class to learn English. Tom Bosley starred in the title role, with Hal Linden and Donna McKechnie also in the cast.

The show only managed to run 29 performances, and with no cast album it has been entirely forgotten. Did anyone see it? Is anyone familiar with the source material, and has any opinion on the musical potential?

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later

 

One song was recorded as a promo, I suppose RCA would have done the Cast Album. This song was the love interest's dramatic Act Two Soliloquy, presented here in an easy listening mode:

 

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Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later#2
Posted: 4/6/18 at 2:15pm

The show had the great misfortune of opening on the night that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The audience members (and the company) learned of it during the show's intermission. 

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Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later#3
Posted: 4/6/18 at 4:21pm

A sweet show, probably too gentle for Broadway, with two disarming leads (Tom Bosley and Barbara Minkus) and still-rising Hal Linden, who brought the show to life with his big second act number (as he would do several years later, when his Act 2 "In My Own Lifetime" helped save THE ROTHSCHILDS from second-act book-and-song trouble). And of course, further plagued because of what had happened to MLK. 

They often say that THE GIRL WHO CAME TO SUPPER, the last real Noel Coward musical, met a similar fate because it opened just after JFK had been assassinated.

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Remembering THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N 50 Years Later#4
Posted: 4/7/18 at 1:18am

Too gentle for Broadway, what a fascinating way to put it. The material does seem rather wholesome for 1968. The world was looking elsewhere.

Wonder if anyone has ever attempted to revive the material?

 

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