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Oklahoma! (musical)
''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie. The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943. It was a box office hit and ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances, later enjoying award-winning revivals, national tours, foreign productions and an Oscar-winning 1955 film adaptation. It has long been a popular choice for school and community productions. Rodgers and Hammerstein won a special Pulitzer Prize for ''Oklahoma!'' in 1944. This musical, building on the innovations of the earlier ''Show Boat'', epitomized the development of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the most well-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music. Rodgers is known for his songwriting partnerships, first with lyricist Lorenz Hart and then with Oscar Hammerstein II. With Hart he wrote musicals throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including '' Pal Joey'', '' A Connecticut Yankee'', '' On Your Toes'' and '' Babes in Arms.'' With Hammerstein he wrote musicals through the 1940s and 1950s, such as '' Oklahoma!'', '' Flower Drum Song'', '' Carousel'', ''South Pacific'', ''The King and I'', and '' The Sound of Music''. His collaborations with Hammerstein, in particular, are celebrated for bringing the Broadway musical to a new maturity by telling stories that were focused on characters and drama ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bye Bye Birdie (musical)
''Bye Bye Birdie'' is a stage musical with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adams, based upon a book by Michael Stewart. Originally titled ''Let's Go Steady'', ''Bye Bye Birdie'' is set in 1958. The short story "Dream Man", authored by Bill Doyle, which appeared in the May 18, 1957, issue of the '' Saturday Evening Post'' may well have been the genesis of the eventual stageplay. The play book was also influenced by Elvis Presley's conscription into the Army in 1957. The rock star character's name, "Conrad Birdie", is word play on the name of Conway Twitty. Twitty later had a long career as a country music star, but in the late 1950s he was one of Presley's rock 'n' roll rivals. The original 1960–1961 Broadway production was a Tony Award–winning success. It spawned a London production and several major revivals, a sequel, a 1963 film, and a 1995 television production. The show also became a popular choice for high school and college productions due to its va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette, depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style, was originally sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley from a design sketch by art director Cedric Gibbons. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The Academy Awards cere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Moon
''The New Moon'' is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Frank Mandel, and Laurence Schwab. The show was the third in a string of Broadway hits for Romberg (after ''The Student Prince'' (1924) and ''The Desert Song'' (1926)) written in the style of Viennese operetta. Set in 1792, shortly before the French Revolution, the story centers on a young French aristocrat in disguise, who has fled his country and falls in love with the daughter of a prominent New Orleans planter. It premiered in Philadelphia in 1927 and played on Broadway in 1928. It spawned a number of revivals and two film adaptations, and it remains popular with light opera companies. The piece turned out to be "Broadway's last hit operetta", as World War II and the Golden Age of musicals approached. Performance history ''The New Moon'' debuted in Philadelphia on Christmas Eve, 1927. The tryout was a failure, and the show was extensively revised before another tryo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Desert Song
''The Desert Song'' is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Moroccan fighters, against French colonial rule. It was also inspired by stories of Lawrence of Arabia aiding native guerrillas. Many tales romanticizing Arab North Africa were in vogue, including ''Beau Geste'' and ''The Son of the Sheik''.Traubner, Richard. ''Operetta: A Theatrical History'', pp. 387–89 (2003) Routledge Originally titled "Lady Fair", after successful out-of-town tryouts in |
Rose-Marie
''Rose-Marie'' is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story is set in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon. When Jim falls under suspicion for murder, her brother Emile plans for Rose-Marie to marry Edward Hawley, a city man. The work premiered on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre on September 2, 1924, running for 557 performances. It was the longest-running Broadway musical of the 1920s until it was surpassed by ''The Student Prince'' (1926). It was then produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London in 1925, enjoying another extraordinary run of 581 performances. It was filmed in 1928, in 1936 and again in 1954. The best-known song from the musical is "Indian Love Call". It became Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy's " signature song". Several other numbers have also become standards, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pal Joey (musical)
''Pal Joey'' is a 1940 musical with a book by John O'Hara and music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The musical is based on a character and situations O'Hara created in a series of short stories published in '' The New Yorker'', which he later published in novel form. The title character, Joey Evans, is a manipulative small-time nightclub performer whose ambitions lead him into an affair with the wealthy, middle-aged and married Vera Simpson. It includes two songs that have become standards: "I Could Write a Book" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered". The original 1940 Broadway production was directed by George Abbott and starred Vivienne Segal and Gene Kelly. Though it received mixed reviews, the show ran for 10 months, the third-longest run of any Rodgers and Hart musical. There have been several revivals since, including a 2008–09 Broadway run, and a 1957 film adaptation starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak. Background Author Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Boys From Syracuse
''The Boys from Syracuse'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, based on William Shakespeare's play ''The Comedy of Errors'', as adapted by librettist George Abbott. The score includes swing and other contemporary rhythms of the 1930s. The show was the first musical based on a Shakespeare play. ''The Comedy of Errors'' was itself loosely based on a Roman play, ''The Menaechmi, or the Twin Brothers'', by Plautus. The show premiered on Broadway in 1938 and Off-Broadway in 1963, with later productions including a West End run in 1963 and in a Broadway revival in 2002. A film adaptation was released in 1940. Well-known songs from the score include " Falling in Love with Love", " This Can't Be Love" and "Sing for Your Supper". Production history Abbott directed and George Balanchine choreographed the original production, which opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theater on November 23, 1938, after tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut and Boston. The sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babes In Arms
''Babes in Arms'' is a 1937 coming-of-age musical comedy with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and book by Rodgers and Hart. It concerns a group of small-town Long Island teenagers who put on a show to avoid being sent to a work farm by the town sheriff when their actor parents go on the road for five months in an effort to earn some money by reviving vaudeville. Several songs in ''Babes in Arms'' became pop standards, including the title song, "Where or When", " My Funny Valentine", " The Lady Is a Tramp", "Johnny One Note" and "I Wish I Were in Love Again". The film version, released in 1939, starred Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and was directed by Busby Berkeley. Its radically revised plot retained only two songs from the original stage version—"Where or When" and "Babes in Arms". The film is credited with popularizing the "kids putting on a musical for charity" trope. The original version had strong political overtones with discussions of Nietzsche, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Milton Hart (May 2, 1895 – November 22, 1943) was an American lyricist and half of the Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. Some of his more famous lyrics include "Blue Moon", " The Lady Is a Tramp", "Manhattan", " Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", and " My Funny Valentine". Life and career Hart was born in Harlem, New York City, the elder of two sons, to Jewish immigrant parents, Max M. and Frieda (Isenberg) Hart, of German background. Through his mother, he was a great-grandnephew of the German poet Heinrich Heine. His father, a business promoter, sent Hart and his brother to private schools. (His brother, Teddy Hart, also went into theatre and became a musical comedy star. Teddy Hart's wife, Dorothy Hart, wrote a biography of Lorenz Hart.) Hart received his early education from Columbia Grammar School and entered Columbia College in 1913, before switching to Columbia University School of Journalism, where he attended for two years. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Ballet
A dream ballet, in musical theater, is an all- dance, no-singing production number that reflects the themes of the production. The plot, themes, and characters are typically the same—although the people playing the characters may be different, as the roles of the dream ballet are usually filled by well-trained dancers rather than actual actors. Dream ballet sequences exist mainly for clarification, foreshadowing, and symbolism, and occur outside the continuity of the production. They also advance the plot of the story through dance. Dream ballets also provide the opportunity to impress the audience with advanced dancing techniques and elaborate staging that would otherwise be impossible or dramatically inappropriate. The dream ballet is thought to have originated in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1943 musical ''Oklahoma!'', which includes an 18-minute first-act dream ballet finale choreographed by Agnes de Mille, but dream ballets were devices of music-theatrical productions well b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motif (music)
In music, a motif IPA: ( /moʊˈtiːf/) (also motive) is a short musical phrase, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition: "The motive is the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity". The '' Encyclopédie de la Pléiade'' regards it as a " melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic cell", whereas the 1958 ''Encyclopédie Fasquelle'' maintains that it may contain one or more cells, though it remains the smallest analyzable element or phrase within a subject. It is commonly regarded as the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that still maintains its identity as a musical idea. "The smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity". Grove and Larousse also agree that the motif may have harmonic, melodic and/or rhythmic aspects, Grove adding that it "is most often thought of in melodic terms, and it is this aspect of the motif that is connoted by the ter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
