RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN A Lasting Legacy From MUSICALS 101website by John Kenrick

Birth of a partnership Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein had known each other since they worked on varsity shows at Columbia University.

A new method of writing Since then, both had deferred to songwriting collaborators who preferred to have the music written before the lyric. They now set out to prove that a "lyrics first" approach would make it easier to integrate songs into a libretto. (British giants Gilbert and Sullivan had done this long before, but in the 1940s it was considered a daring idea for Broadway songwriters.)

Green Grow the Lilacs too serious? Rodgers and Hammerstein felt that the unsuccessful play Green Grow the Lilacs needed something other than the standard musical comedy treatment. The plot involved an Oklahoma Territory farm girl of the early 1900s (Laurie) deciding whether she will go to a dance with the farmhand she fears (Jeeter in the play; Judd in the musical) or the cowboy she loves (Curly).

Murder in a musical? This story takes a jarring turn when the farmhand proves to be a psychopathic murderer who the heroic cowboy is forced to kill in self defense. Murder in a musical? Another sticking point was that Hollywood had turned singing cowboys into a cliché. Could this story sing on Broadway?

A new way of working The new collaborators began with a painstaking assessment of what made the characters tick, where songs would fit and what the style and content of each number should be. They also visualized possibilities for casting, set design, lighting and staging. Once they had agreed on these points, each headed home -- Rodgers to his farm in upstate New York, Hammerstein to his farm in Pennsylvania.

A labor-intensive process Oscar fashioned the book and lyrics with great care, laboring for weeks over certain phrases and rhymes. He then either telegraphed or phoned in the results to Rodgers, who had been mulling over melodic options and would sometimes have a completed tune on paper in a matter of minutes.

The Production Because the Theatre Guild was bankrupt, its mangers gave Rodgers and Hammerstein creative control of the project. With little to lose, R&H took several artistic risks. Instead of opening with the usual ensemble number, the curtain would rise on a farm woman churning butter as a cowboy enters singing a solo about the beauty of the morning. Hammerstein's lyrics were in a conversational style, each custom designed to fit specific characters and situations.

Opening Night – March 1943 Oklahoma! opened at New York's St. James Theatre on the night of March 31st, 1943. The house was not sold out – with no known stars in the cast, it was difficult to even give seats away. Those who did attend found themselves cheering a surprise hit.

A surprise hit "They were roaring. They were howling. People hadn't seen boys and girls dance like this in so long. Of course, they had been dancing like this, but just not where the audience could see them!" -Agnes DeMille, quoted by Max Wilk in OK: The Story of Oklahoma! (New York: Grove Press, 1993), p. 222.

A star-making vehicle As the brash but loveable Curly, baritone Alfred Drake began his reign as Broadway's top male musical star – and as the playful Ado Annie, Celeste Holm earned the stardom she would retain on stage and screen into the next century. The reviews were almost unanimous raves, and block-long lines formed at the box office the next day.

A cultural phenomenon Wartime audiences embraced this reassuring, all-American show, and the skeptics who had scoffed in New Haven pretended that they always knew "Dick and Oscar" were a sure-fire combination. Oklahoma became a cultural phenomenon, setting a new long-run record for Broadway musicals. It also ran for three years in London, toured the U.S. for seven years and made its millions of dollars. By the time the run ended, backers saw an astounding 2,500% return on their investment.

What Changed? Before Oklahoma, Broadway composers and lyricists were songwriters – after Oklahoma, they had to be dramatists, using everything in the score to develop character and advance the action. As Mark Steyn explains in Broadway Babies Say Goodnight (Routledge, NY, 1999, p.67), with songs by Lorenz Hart or Cole Porter, you hear the lyricist – with Hammerstein, you hear the characters.

Character drives story When Oklahoma's Laurie and Curly admit their love by singing "Let People Say We're In Love," audiences become a sea of smiles and moist eyes. This same holds true for the other classic musicals by R&H and their successors – the major characters are believable individuals that we can empathize with. Rodgers and Hammerstein often dealt with serious themes, but they knew that the first duty of theatre (musical or otherwise) is to tell interesting stories about fascinating characters.

A lasting legacy While Rodgers and Hammerstein were not saints, they had genuine faith in the qualities espoused in their shows – goodness, fairness, romance, etc. Now dismissed as cornball or "hokey," such things meant a great deal in the mid-20th Century, and they keep the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein popular today.

Richard Rodgers . . . I feel that the chief influence of Oklahoma! was simply to serve notice that when writers came up with something different, and if it had merit, there would be a large and receptive audience waiting for it. Librettists, lyricists and composers now had a new incentive to explore a multitude of themes and techniques within the framework of commercial musical theater. From Oklahoma! on, with only rare exceptions, the memorable productions have been those daring to break free of the conventional mold. - Richard Rodgers, Musical Stages (NY: Random House, 1975),  p. 229.

The new partnership In the wake of artistic upheaval unleashed by Oklahoma, the Broadway musical entered a new golden commercial and artistic age -- with Rodgers and Hammerstein serving as the first true masters of the new integrated musical play.