One of the most sexually explicit musicals ever to play Broadway, the flesh-flaunting “Let My People Come,†is being updated by composer Earl Wilson, Jr., for a comeback this winter at the Underground, a bar and lounge on the Upper West Side, the show's producer said on Tuesday.
The original musical became a word-of-mouth sensation in 1974 for the nudity and sexual frankness on stage at the Village Gate; it ran for two-and-a-half years before moving from Greenwich Village to Broadway's Morosco Theater in June 1976, where it ran for four months of preview performances without ever officially opening. The show had long-running productions in several cities over the years, and dance-party tribute shows occasionally popped up at gay bars and elsewhere in New York.
The producer of the new staging, John Forslund, said he was working with Mr. Wilson on revising some lyrics to make the show's original songs more topical and modern. Mr. Forslund also said the new run would have “far less nudity than the original, but there will be some full-cast nudity as well as burlesque.â€
Mr. Forslund, the producer of a weekly talent show at the Underground, “Bound for Broadway,†as well as several solo concerts around New York, said the new version of “Let My People Come†would have two performances on Friday nights starting Feb. 8 and run for at least eight weeks. He described the production as “a try-out to gauge the material before today's audiences and test the New York market for the show,†which, if popular, he hopes to move to an Off Broadway theater in 2014 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the musical's original downtown production.
