MAMOULIAN, Rouben; ROGERS, Richard; HAMMERSTEIN, Oscar 2nd. Oklahoma!. New York: Random House, 1943, 1943.

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Description: First Edition, Warmly Inscribed by Rouben Mamoulian The Director of the Pulitzer Prize Winning Musical - Oklahoma [MAMOULIAN, Rouben, director]. ROGERS, Richard. HAMMERSTEIN, Oscar 2nd. Oklahoma! A Musical Play by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, 2nd. Based on Lynn Riggs' Green Grow the Lilacs. Book and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, 2nd. New York: Random House, [1943]. Inscribed on the front free endpaper "For Ken - With thanks for the warm enthusiasm with which he appreciates the right and the beautiful wherever he finds it. Rouben [Mamoulian]". First edition. Small octavo (8 x 5 3/8 inches; 203 x 137 mm.). [x], [1]-146 pp. Photogravure frontispiece and four photogravure plates. The last few leaves slightly creased at lower corner. Publisher's light gray cloth, front cover with a pair of cowboy boots in blue and brown, spine blocked in brown and blue and lettered in white. A near fine copy in the original pictorial dust jacket, slightly worn at extremities. Oklahoma! is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs's 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. Between the world wars, roles in musicals were usually filled by actors who could sing, but Rodgers and Hammerstein chose, conversely, to cast singers who could act. Though Theresa Helburn, codirector of the Theatre Guild, suggested Shirley Temple as Laurey and Groucho Marx as Ali Hakim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, with director Rouben Mamoulian's support, insisted that performers more dramatically appropriate for the roles be cast. As a result, there were no stars in the production, another unusual step.[8] The production was choreographed by Agnes de Mille (her first time choreographing a musical on Broadway), who provided one of the show's most notable and enduring features: a 15-minute first-act ballet finale (often referred to as the dream ballet) depicting Laurey's struggle to evaluate her suitors, Jud and Curly.[11] Rouben Zachary Mamoulian (1897-1987) was an American film and theater director. Mamoulian was also the first to stage such notable Broadway works as Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945), and Lost in the Stars (1949).

Seller: David Brass Rare Books, Inc., Calabasas, CA, U.S.A.