Oscar Hammerstein, II
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Oscar Hammerstein, II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II (; July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960) was an American lyricist, librettist, theatrical producer, and (usually uncredited) director in the musical theater for almost 40 years. He won eight Tony Awards and two Academy Awards for Best Original Song. Many of his songs are standard repertoire for vocalists and jazz musicians. He co-wrote 850 songs. He is best known for his collaborations with composer Richard Rodgers, as the duo Rodgers and Hammerstein, whose musicals include '' Oklahoma!'', ''Carousel'', ''South Pacific'', ''The King and I'', and ''The Sound of Music''. Described by Stephen Sondheim as an "experimental playwright", Hammerstein helped bring the American musical to new maturity by popularizing musicals that focused on stories and character rather than the lighthearted entertainment that the musical had been known for beforehand. He also collaborated with Jerome Kern (with whom he wrote '' Show Boat''), Vincent ...
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Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Doylestown is a borough and the county seat of Bucks County in Pennsylvania, United States. It is located northwest of Trenton, north of Center City, Philadelphia, southeast of Allentown, and southwest of New York City. As of the 2020 census, the borough population was 8,300. History Like most of the region, the area of Doylestown was inhabited by the Lenape people until the arrival of the Europeans. Doylestown's origins date to March 1745 when William Doyle obtained a license to build a tavern on what is now the northwest corner of Dyers Road and Coryell's Ferry Road (now Main and State Streets). Known for years as "William Doyle's Tavern," its strategic location, at the intersection of the road (now U.S. Route 202 in Pennsylvania, U.S. Route 202) linking Swede's Ford (Norristown, Pennsylvania, Norristown) and Coryell's Ferry (New Hope, Pennsylvania, New Hope) and the road (now Pennsylvania Route 611, PA Route 611) linking Philadelphia and Easton, Pennsylvania, Ea ...
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Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as " Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", " A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Long Ago (and Far Away)". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg. A native New Yorker, Kern created dozens of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in a career that lasted for more than four decades. His musical innovations, such as 4/4 dance rhythms and the employment of syncopation and jazz progressions, built on, rather than rejec ...
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South Pacific (musical)
''South Pacific'' is a musical theatre, musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and Book (musical theatre), book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway theatre, Broadway and was an immediate hit, running for 1,925 performances. The plot is based on James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Pulitzer Prize–winning 1947 book ''Tales of the South Pacific'' and combines elements of several of those stories. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed they could write a musical based on Michener's work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, send a strong progressive message on racism. The plot centers on an American nurse stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II, who falls in love with a middle-aged expatriate French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed-race children. A secondary romance, between a U.S. Marine lieutenant and a young Tonkinese woman, explores his fears of th ...
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Carousel (musical)
''Carousel'' is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play ''Liliom'', transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that ''Carousel'' was his favorite of all his musicals. Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, ''Oklahoma!'' (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on anot ...
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Oklahoma!
''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical theater, musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs (play), Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Oklahoma, 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 theatre, 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 Academy Awards, Oscar-winning 1955 Oklahoma! (1955 film), film adaptation. It has long been a popular choice for school and community productions. Rodgers and Hammerstein won a Pulitzer Prize Special Citatio ...
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Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American Musical composition, 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 (musical), Pal Joey'', ''A Connecticut Yankee (musical), 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 (musical), Carousel'', ''South Pacific (musical), South Pacific'', ''The King and I'', and ''The Sound of Music''. His collaborations with Hammerstein, in particular, are celebrated for brin ...
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Jazz Music
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. But jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational styl ...
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Academy Award For Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is presented to the ''songwriters'' who have composed the best ''original'' song written specifically for a film. The performers of a song are not credited with the Academy Award unless they contributed either to music, lyrics, or both in their own right. The songs that are nominated for this award are typically performed during the ceremony and before this award is presented. The award category was introduced at the 7th Academy Awards, the ceremony honoring the best in film for 1934. Nominations are made by Academy members who are songwriters and composers, and the winners are chosen by the Academy membership as a whole. Fifteen songs are shortlisted before nominations are announced. Eligibility , the Academy's rules stipulate that "an original song consists of words and music, both of whic ...
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Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in Midtown Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theatre. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards were founded by theatre producer and director Brock Pemberton and are named after Antoinette "Tony" Perry, an actress, producer and theatre director who was co-founder and secretary of the American Theatre Wing. The trophy consists of a spinnable medallion, with faces portraying an adaptation of the comedy and tragedy masks, mounted on a black base with a pewter swivel. The rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the off ...
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Theatre Director
A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. The director's function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. The director thereby collaborates with a team of creative individuals and other staff to coordinate research and work on all the aspects of the production which includes the Technical and the Performance aspects. The technical aspects include: stagecraft, costume design, theatrical properties (props), lighting design, set design, and sound design for the production. The performance aspects include: acting, dance, orchestra, chants, and stage combat. If the production is a new piece of writing or a (new) translation of a play, the director ...
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Librettist
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. ''Libretto'' (; plural ''libretti'' ), from Italian, is the diminutive of the word '' libro'' ("book"). Sometimes other-language equivalents are used for libretti in that language, ''livret'' for French works, ''Textbuch'' for German and ''libreto'' for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word ''libretto'' to refer to the 15 to 40 page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained a very detailed description of the ballet's story, scene by s ...
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Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg (July 29, 1887 – November 9, 1951) was a Hungarian-born American composer. He is best known for his musicals and operettas, particularly ''The Student Prince'' (1924), ''The Desert Song'' (1926) and ''The New Moon'' (1928). Early in his career, Romberg was employed by the Shubert brothers to write music for their musicals and revues, including several vehicles for Al Jolson. For the Shuberts, he also adapted several European operettas for American audiences, including the successful '' Maytime'' (1917) and '' Blossom Time'' (1921). His three hit operettas of the mid-1920s, named above, are in the style of Viennese operetta, but his other works from that time mostly employ the style of American musicals of their eras. He also composed film scores. Biography Romberg was born in Hungary as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish
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