Home Sweet Homer is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 with a book by Roland Kibbee and Albert Marre

Albert Marre

Albert Marre is an American director and producer in the theatre.Born in New York City, Marre made his Broadway debut as an actor and associate director of the 1950 revival of John Vanbrugh's Restoration comedy The Relapse...

, lyrics by Charles Burr and Forman Brown

Forman Brown

Forman Brown was one of the world's leaders in puppet theatre in his day, as well as an important early gay novelist. He was a member of the Yale Puppeteers and the driving force behind Turnabout Theatre. He was born in Otsego, Michigan, in 1901 and died in 1996, two days after his 95th birthday...

, and music by Mitch Leigh

Mitch Leigh

Mitch Leigh is an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man Of La Mancha.-Biography:Leigh was born in Brooklyn, New York) as Irwin Michnick...

.

Originally called Odyssey, it is one of the most notorious flops in Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 history. Loosely based on Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

ic legend

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

, it focuses on Odysseus

Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....

 and Penelope

Penelope

In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually reunited with him....

, awaiting his return to Ithaca

Ithaca

Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...

.

The show was designed as a vehicle for Yul Brynner

Yul Brynner

Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...

, who was anxious to duplicate his success in The King and I

The King and I

The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...

more than two decades earlier. The original book and lyrics were by author Erich Segal

Erich Segal

Erich Wolf Segal was an American author, screenwriter, and educator. He was best-known for writing the novel Love Story , a best-seller, and writing the motion picture of the same name, which was a major hit....

, and a fairly modest production with a small cast began a national tour in December 1974.

The tour was plagued with problems from the start. Both Brynner and co-star Joan Diener

Joan Diener

Joan Diener was an American theatre actress and singer with a three-and-a-half-octave range.Born in Columbus, Ohio, Diener majored in psychology at Sarah Lawrence College and moonlighted as an actress while still a student...

 frequently were ill and missed performances, and in April 1975, the two, together with Diener's husband Marre and Brynner's wife Jacqueline, filed a $7.5 million lawsuit against Trader Vic's in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, alleging shortribs they ate there shortly before the start of the tour were poisonous and had left them "ill, weak, and infirm." In each city the show received consistently bad reviews, and when it reached Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, Segal asked that his name be removed from the credits. Marre, whose career was littered with bombs like Cry for Us All

Cry for Us All

Cry for Us All is a musical with a book by William Alfred and Albert Marre, lyrics by Alfred and Phyllis Robinson, and music by Mitch Leigh. In response to poor advance sales, the title was...

and Shangri-La

Shangri-La (musical)

Shangri-La is a musical with a book and lyrics by James Hilton, Jerome Lawrence, and Robert E. Lee and music by Harry Warren.Based on Hilton's classic 1933 novel Lost Horizon, it focuses on Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the British diplomatic service, who stumbles across a utopian lamasery high...

, not only revamped the book and lyrics, but fired choreographer Billy Wilson and took over the musical staging as well.

In August, an unhappy Brynner sued to terminate his contract but backed down when he was threatened with a $1 million countersuit. By November, the producers decided to close the show at the end of the tour and forgo a Broadway opening. Brynner threatened to quit if they didn't proceed to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 as planned.

After eleven previews, the show, now an extravagant production retitled Home Sweet Homer, opened at the Sunday matinee on January 4, 1976 at the Palace Theatre

Palace Theatre, New York

The Palace Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1564 Broadway in midtown-Manhattan.-History:Designed by architects Kirchoff & Rose, the theatre was built by Martin Beck a California vaudeville entrepreneur and Broadway impresario. The project experienced a number of business problems before...

. The closing notice was posted as soon as the curtain fell. In addition to Brynner and Diener, the cast included Martin Vidnovic

Martin Vidnovic

Martin Vidnovic is an American actor and singer.Born in Falls Church, Virginia, Vidnovic made his Broadway debut in the ill-fated Home Sweet Homer which, following a one-year tour, closed on opening night...

and Russ Thacker.

Song list

• The Sorceress
• The Departure
• Home Sweet Homer
• The Ball
• How Could I Dare to Dream
• I Never Imagined Goodbye
• Love Is the Prize
• Penelope's Hand
• He Will Come Home Again
• Did He Really Think
• I Was Wrong
• The Rose
• Tomorrow
• The Contest