Broadway saw many "great moments" throughout the 20th century, and we're visiting several of them in the course of this year's festival concert offerings. For one of Broadway's greatest, Richard Rodgers, the year 1943 held special significance: it saw both the end of his long-standing and brilliant collaboration with Lorenz Hart and the beginning of his shorter but equally brilliant collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II. And it saw a significant shift as well in the style of show that his team created, from the witty, urbane musical comedies at which Rodgers & Hart excelled in the 1920s and '30s, to the serious, almost operatic musical dramas that marked Rodgers and Hammerstein's work during the 1940s and '50s.
Indeed, it could be argued that 1943 was a watershed year not only for Richard Rodgers, but for Broadway too. Certainly, fully-integrated, serious musical theatre had been attempted--and had often succeeded magnificently--before Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! opened at The St. James Theatre on March 31, 1943. And musical comedy has continued to thrive along the Great White Way well after Rodgers & Hart's November 1943 revival of A Connecticut Yankee closed. Yet there is no doubt that what Rodgers had created with Hammerstein marked the beginning of something new--what historians now often refer to as the Golden Age of Musical Theatre--and that Rodgers' last hurrah with Hart could be seen as the symbolic end of what we like to call the Golden Age of Musical Comedy...an age that cared much more for word-play than the dramatic situation, that preferred a sophisticated witticism and shunned profundity like the plague. Two different ages of an art form that each reflected, perhaps, the unique spirit of their respective times.
So in the spirit of our theme, "Time After Time", we thought to celebrate Richard Rodgers' 1943 with all-new productions of both musicals: the light-hearted Rodgers & Hart comedy A Connecticut Yankee and Rodgers & Hammerstein's ground-breaking drama Oklahoma!. Two stunningly good, yet very different properties representing two very different "times" in the history of the musical and of America more generally.
This year, fulfilling a long-standing dream, we've mounted A Connecticut Yankee at The Shedd's Jaqua Concert Hall, which we believe to be, in size and intimacy, ideally suited to the musical comedy form. Oklahoma! we offer at the Hult Center's Silva Concert Hall, which in like manner is well-suited to the larger-scale musical theatre of the 1940s and '50s. We hope you can join us for both!
On November 17, 1943, at Broadway's Martin Beck Theatre, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart opened their final show together, a sparkling revival of their rollicking 1927 smash hit farce (based on Mark Twain’s novel of almost the same name) about a 1940s American naval officer who gets knocked out by his jealous fiancee and wakes up in 6th century England and King Arthur’s Court, establishes himself as "Sir Boss" by successfully staging a solar eclipse, gets one-upped by his feisty, liberated lady-in-waiting girlfriend Sandy, and thoroughly botches up things before reawakening in 1943 with an enlightened outlook on love, life and country. Whew!
A Connecticut Yankee is Rodgers & Hart at their best. It is just as insanely incongruous as Twain's original with wonderful Rodgers melodies and spot-on Hart wit to boot. Look for the classic “Thou Swell” and “My Heart Stood Still”, together with fun numbers like “On A Desert Isle With Thee”, "To Keep My Love Alive", "Ye Lunchtime Follies", "The Camelot Samba" and more!
Eugene theatre veteran Judith Roberts directs our production, with music direction by Vicki Brabham and choreography by Laura Hiszczynskyj. We have many new faces in this tight cast we're sure you'll enjoy. As for returning favorites, look for OFAM comic master Patrick Torelle as Merlin, diva Siri Vik (last season's Aunt Em) as Morgan Le Fay, and Leah Reis-Dennis (last seen in OFAM's 2007 production of Rodgers & Hart's Babes In Arms) as Evelynne (Sir Galahad's long-suffering girlfriend.
We are extremely pleased to present A Connecticut Yankee in the intimacy of The Shedd's Jaqua Concert Hall, a room that we think is perfectly suited to the shape and form of 1920s-30s musical comedies. Come check out a musical in a very different style at one of our 7 performances!
|
Event Personnel |
|
|
|
Creative Team |
|
|
|
Cast |
|
|
|
Female Ensemble |
|
|
|
Male Ensemble |
|
|
| On A Desert Island With Thee |
| You Always Love The Same Girl (1943) | |