Lovely Ladies Kind Gentlemen 1970 B'way Show- Private film*

[@luckibeast844]

Kenneth Nelson was amazing actor!

[@unclelouie3828]

I saw the show many times and know every lyric- too bad you can't understand them from this amateur video. Really, a fun show. At least I captured this on video. Great cast and score. Lou Stuart PS- No mikes strapped to their faces. How nice.

[@luckibeast844]

Please write "Kenneth Nelson" in the title because the video can't be found now

[@MultiShepster]

My dad, Ron Husmann... only wore a mic in the last of his seven Broadway shows… Can Can... which I think I recall closed opening night..

[@barsros]

Can Can ran a couple of performances; I think 5. Ron was wonderful in Lovely Ladies.

[@unclelouie3828]

Ron Husmann, your father!! HE WAS WONDERFUL. Great on stage, good actor, very good looking and a beautiful voice. He had it all.

[@brandemour]

My mother worked with your father at Muny Opera in STATE FAIR. I met him and he autographed our Album of ALL AMERICAN. Such a charming talented man. I think of him often and send him my love.

[@MultiShepster]

@@brandemour VERY Cool..I missed THAT one but I think saw The Merry Widow there 4 nights?...Maybe more...in '78? Earlier in Irene and "The Shirley Jones Show"...Many fond memories of warm evenings at that unique Theatre. His older brother Bob, who just past this year was local to Alton IL...VP at Mc Donald Douglas so I have cousins there now. Headed to VA to see Dad next week...I'll tell him hi.

[@brandemour]

@@MultiShepster Andy that's right. I remember his brother in Alton. One of the kids (in a pig outfit) lived there as well. Oh my, I remember it well

[@howardwilson6116]

I wanted to see and hear more of Eleanor Calbes an exquisite beauty with one of the loveliest voices to grace Broadway. A true artist when she appears she just raises this production to a higher level.

[@MichaelAuthorAllAges]

Gosh. This looks wonderful. This is a musical I do not know. These clips are delightful. Thank you so much for sharing. Liked and shared.

[@bawoman]

Here because I was so compelled by Kenneth Nelson's performance in "The Boys in the Band" (for which I feel he deserved at least an oscar nod)....lovely little musical and so happy I got to see KN speak at @39:45...there is so little of him online. Wish he hadnt gone so soon and I could see him in more stuff.

[@luckibeast844]

I adore "The Boys in the Band"

[@luckibeast844]

It's really rare video! Thank you for loading!

[@zkg]

The curtain speech -- with the reference to "the boys and girls in the band" -- was delivered by Kenneth Nelson, who had starred a few years before in THE BOYS IN THE BAND.

[@UncleLouie867]

I agree with you- "Teahouse of the August Moon" was not something Stan Freeman would have chosen. However- when you're asked to do a B'way Musical (even if you hate the subjest matter) you do it. I saw it a dozen or so times (i'm a friend of Stan's) and the cast was so good and i liked the score more and more.. now i love it. Also the voices were so good. You Hadda be There. Hard to tell from this video- but great to have a record of it.

[@showtunestarpower]

This is an incredible gift to those of us who came of age in the last days of the great American musical period. I always dreamed of seeing this show - and these clips give us a significant chunk. I would have been one of those people who loved it. Wonderful songs! I hear there's a studio cast recording of the score with Lou Diamond Phillips that is delayed. I can't imagine anybody topping Kenneth Nelson!

[@bradactor58]

Thanks for posting this. I played Mclean the psychiatrist in Teahouse of the August Moon in high school Role played by Eddie Albert I think in original. Always wondered about the score for this but did not purchase from Original Records. Maybe will be released on cd someday.

[@Comeinunospecchio]

Thank you very much for this rare pearl!

[@Comeinunospecchio]

I would like to have seen him in "The Fantasticks"

[@ClueSign]

I saw it as a high school kid. The awful and inept Clive Barnes panned it, as I recall. Shortly after it closed, Kenneth Nelson moved to London and had more success there. Remak Ramsey continued on B'way quite a while, as I recall. Thank you for sharing this rare post, I was always hoping to catch a glimpse of this someday.

[@danielorlandi2916]

I Loved the show so much..as a kid I didn't understand why the critics didn't like it..

[@jumannelangston165]

were Broadway musicals sung without individual amplification at this point? The singing is quite lovely.

[@rmichaelfierro]

I *think* they started using lavaliers in the mid-late 70's. I remember the first time I noticed them, in 1981, for DREAMGIRLS, during the beautiful dance numbers, all the girls would grab the guys by the lapels and sing into their lapels, instead of looking at their faces. It took me hours to figure out why.

[@sandracfitzge]

I saw this in Los Angeles as a youngster. It was the first live musical I ever saw. Did they ever make an album?

[@unclelouie3828]

No. They should have.

[@unclelouie3828]

no album..

[@liesljones5987]

I saw this show twice during its L.A. tryout. Kenneth Nelson was outstanding in a Tony-worthy performance. But the show had a number of elements working against it. Asians picketed outside protesting Nelson's casting over an Asian performer - though there was really no experienced Asian leading man at the time -with the possible exception of James Shigeta. Also, the TEAHOUSE story had aged terribly in the mere 17 years since its Broadway debut. The show desperately needed a FIDDLER- like approach. Songwriters Freeman and Underwood were not Bock and Harnick, so even though the leads had strong voices, they did not have strong material to sing. Larry Kasha, the director, was not a Jerome Robbins and lacked Robbins' dictatorial style of working things out. Oliver Smith's physical production was colorful, but the show had a dated 40s-50s commonplace feel to it. Nelson was devastated by Clive Barnes' cruel pan in the NY TIMES, but the show would have failed anyway even with slightly kinder reviews. Nelson's move to England afforded him more gainful employment in a series of long-runs. Still, what a career the man had - beginning as a lead juvenile in SEVENTEEN, spending years as an understudy and replacement, creating leads in THE FANTASTICKS and BOYS IN THE BAND, only to have a genuine lead in a Broadway show undermined. RIP, Mr. Nelson.

[@ClueSign]

LieslJones59 A very fair appraisal. In the fullness of time, it is apparent that everything you described is indeed part of what contributed to the show's demise. It's nice that the very talented Kenneth Nelson experienced success in London in the Showboat revival and others, before he passed.

[@unclelouie3828]

LieslJones59 Bottom Line- The story was dated and a little embarrassing. Otherwise- Great Cast & Score. ps- When offered a B'way show it's hard to say, "I Don't Like The Story".

[@Sotzume]

This is an amazing remnant of a time long gone....perhaps, this musical came too late. By 1970, the world was changing rapidly and with Sondheim's Company opening the same year...we can see the change from traditional to "new". From what I can see, the score was not memorable.....a kind of old fashioned comedy as well. It does sound like the audience loved it though. I find it mostly boring and stereotypical "Asian" with a few moments of musical interest.

[@susanklein7448]

Triple-threat stage vet Kenneth Nelson playing the musical version of the role originated in the film by Marlon Brando. Wrap your now-woke head around that!