The Capeman - The Capeman After Broadway

The Capeman After Broadway

The Capeman was not performed in its original form after its 68-show original Broadway run. Shortly after the show's closure there were discussions of a Songs of The Capeman national concert tour, but these plans were abandoned.

Just days after the show's Broadway premier, Variety journalist Greg Evans suggested that the doomed show would work well as a concert of songs. He wrote, "Years from now, when some savvy producer is scouting old theater material for a scaled-down concert staging, The Capeman should be first on his list."

In 2008, Joseph Melillo, director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music produced a stage show called Songs from the Capeman using Paul Simon's Capeman music without the narrative dramatic elements of the show. Melillo said, "I wanted to help Paul, to get this demon out of him and onto the stage, where we could say, 'Look everyone, this is great music.'"

Melillo's production featured the Spanish Harlem Orchestra led by Oscar Hernandez, original music director for the Broadway Capeman.

Paul Simon appeared to sing "Trailways Bus," one of the songs from the show, and finished the evening with a performance of his 1980 Latin-themed single "Late in the Evening."

In August 2010 a heavily revised production of The Capeman ran three shows at Central Park's Delacorte Theater, directed by Diane Paulus. The production featured Obie Bermúdez as The Umbrella Man and a musical number by Danny Rivera. This version was substantially stripped down, with a running time of only about 90 minutes (compared to the original production's three hours). The new version increased the focus on Agron's mother, dropped some characters and subplots, used more choreography, and had no sets. The media was instructed not to write reviews of the show which was officially described as a work in progress, with Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis calling it "just a sketch" of full reconception of the show. Even so, Ben Brantley of the New York Times, who said the original Broadway production was "like watching a mortally wounded animal", gave a positive review, focusing on the organic staging outdoors on a rainy night in Central Park.