[miss marmelstein]

Thank God you and others have come to my rescue! I thought I would have a heart attack when I started reading these comments.

Yes, all of the music was adapted from Borodin. When I was a kid I would listen to classical music stations and always wondered why they were playing music from “Kismet.”

I’m sorry the people involved in this production are not going to be allowed to perform this show because of stupid people. It’s not often revived in community/high school theatre and it needs to be.

[Liz]

ALFRED DRAKE IN KISMET COSTUME---PAINTING

[DManA]

As I recall it makes the Arabs look rather foolish.

[Sans-Culotte]

When I first saw the story, I thought the show was being pulled because it was “not properly respectful of muslims”. I thought CAIR was probably behind it. I bet we’ll never see films of shows like Kismet or The Desert Song again, or anything like those fun Maria Montez/Jon Hall movies.

[robowombat]

This post remind me of how far we (the US) has come in a depressing way. In college one of my friends was a Maronite Lebanese American who worked weekends at a ‘middle eastern restaurant’ owned by a Muslim Lebanese family. It was a nice place made up in kitschy faux Middle Eastern style. The musical version of Kismet played every evening along with the Borodin music and what Mr. Abbas called Arab elevator music. A signed picture of Howard Keel in his Kismet costume hung in a prominent place with some other tv and cinema tars including Danny Thomas. Mr. Abbas was my conduit to interviewing other Muslim businessmen and civic leaders for a senior poly sci paper. They tended to be Republicans and were about as un Islamacist Muslims as possible all expressing revulsion of terrorism.