Oklahoma! set a new standard for musicals, and now the silly musical comedies of days past were no longer good enough. The gamble paid off, however, and the show, “enjoyed a success unmatched by any prior Broadway musical, and its influence on subsequent musicals was both immediate and far-flung.” (Stempel 300). Murder in a musical?! The story and the songs were considered more important than silly gags or star power.

Not to mention there is a scene where the main villain is murdered *double gasp*. Oklahoma! rejected this formula, with a well written story and no gags to be seen *gasp*. Most of the musicals around this time had a thin, underwritten plot that only served to loosely connect the gags and musical numbers. Based on the 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs, Oklamona! was one of the first “musical plays”. Oklahoma! is the story of the romance of cowboy Curly McLain and farm girl Laurey Williams in the Oklahoma territory in 1906. While Rodgers and Hammerstein composed many hit shows, none were as revolutionary as their first collaboration, the 1943 musical Oklahoma!.

You would be hard pressed to find a more iconic and successful musical theatre duo than these two. Along with contemporaries Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, Rodgers and Hammerstein have had some of the most staying power, with many iterations of each of their shows being performed throughout the years. They wrote over nine musicals together including The Sound of Music (1959), Carousel (1945), The King and I (1947), South Pacific (1949), Cinderella (1957) and more. Just like it would be foolish to make a blog about the history of the American musical without mentioning the Gershwins, it would be just as stupid to leave out the iconic songwriting duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

Oklahoma by richard rodgers