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- On the Town
- Wonderful Town
- The Three Penny Opera

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Leonard Bernstein became popular overnight from a special on TV where he talked about Musical Theatre.

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Bye, Bye Birdie took a look at everything that was happening in the US at that time, which was wild because they were still living it. Broadway was becoming less relevant to culture at this time.

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There was a lot of racial tension in the US especially in the south. Things were going on like Brown vs. Board of Education and the integration of schools.

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People were starting to have sex before marriage. According to the Kinsey report, people were living adulterous lives, saying one thing and living another.

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There was nuclear anxiety from about 1946-1962. There were atomic bomb tests and people were stressed that they would fall back into a Great Depression.

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Mass- Christianity was on the rise, it was almost unamerican to be in-religious. It was known as the Christian Century.

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By the 1930’s 1/3 of Americans were living in suburbs, it became a white flight thing. This reminds me of the neighborhood my parents used to live in as kids right behind Graceland. My grandmother still lives there, but there was a huge case of White Flight there.

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Today's cities may be more diverse overall, but people of different races still don't live near each other.

Nearly 50 years ago, after a string of race-related riots in cities across America, President Lyndon B. Johnson commissioned a panel of civic leaders to investigate the underlying causes of racial tension in the country.

The result was the Kerner Report, a document that castigated white society for fleeing to suburbs, where they excluded blacks from employment, housing, and educational opportunities. The report's famous conclusion: "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white-separate and unequal."

Much of America would like to believe the nation has changed since then. The election of a black President was said to usher in a " post-racial era." Cheerios commercials now feature interracial couples. As both suburbs and cities grew more diverse, more than one academic study trumpeted the end of segregation in American neighborhoods.

But now, a new report calls into question that much-vaunted progress. In a study published Thursday in the August issue of American Sociological Review, a trio of academics looks into the data and finds that segregation is actually becoming more pronounced in many American neighborhoods. The practices derided by the Kerner Commission, including white flight, exclusionary zoning, and outright prejudice, are continuing to create black areas and white areas, but this time around, those areas exist in both the cities and the suburbs.

"We're more negative than other researchers who see declines in segregation," Daniel Lichter, the lead author and a sociologist at Cornell, told me. "I have a hard time putting a positive spin on this research."

Previous data has suggested that segregation between black and white populations is declining. But much of that research looked at entire metropolitan areas, and found more minorities in suburbs, which led researchers to conclude that the nation was no longer divided into black cities and white suburbs. Lichter and his colleagues looked at at smaller communities, and found that while black residents don't just live in inner cities anymore, the suburbs they've moved to are majority black, while other suburbs are majority white.

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"Our substantive point is straightforward," they write. "Segregation between places (e.g., city-suburb or suburb-suburb) may be increasing, even as overall metro-neighborhood segregation declines."

In the 1960s, white families moved from cities to suburbs when they saw black neighbors move in next door. Now, they move from suburbs to farther-out fringe areas often not counted in academic studies "hunkering down in all-white neighborhoods, affluent gated communities, or unincorporated housing developments at the exurban fringe," the researchers write.

And more white Americans, drawn by walkable neighborhoods or transit, are moving back into the inner cities that were once shunned. Young whites and baby boomers, for example, are moving to areas of central cities such as Washington, D.C., which was, for years, a majority-minority city. That, in turn, prices out minority residents.

Segregation isn't just happening between black and white towns. Hispanic and Asian residents are segregated into their own cities and towns, too. Dover, New Jersey, for instance, a town 30 miles west of New York, was 70 percent Hispanic in the 2010 Census. In 1980, it was only 25 percent Hispanic.

These patterns of segregation are governed by housing practices on individual and municipal levels, like they were 50 years ago. Lenders and real estate agents still steer families to areas with populations of similar races, white families still flee areas with growing minority populations, and family and immigrant networks still attract groups of people similar to themselves.

Over time, communities become known as "black" or "white" or "Asian" or "Latino," but local policy choices govern some of these categorizations. For example, in Ferguson, Missouri, the percentage of the population that was black increased to 67.4 percent from 25.1 percent between 1990 and 2010. The white population there dropped to 6,206 from 16,454 over the same time period. As whites started to leave, the local government began to allow for the construction of low- and mixed-income housing apartments. Investment firms bought out underwater mortgages and rented the homes to minorities.

"Ferguson became recognized as a 'black suburb' that could be distinguished from other nearby suburban communities that made different zoning and administrative decisions," the authors write.

On the flip side, white communities make decisions that keep minorities out. Exclusionary zoning laws make it difficult to build mixed-income housing or apartment buildings in some towns, despite court cases seeking to make cities more diverse. These housing policies mean that cities compete for different types of people, and by banning apartment buildings or affordable housing, cities can better attract affluent white taxpayers.

Black-white segregation accounted for much of the divide between different communities, but whites seem more amenable to Asian or Hispanic families moving into their neighborhoods, researchers found.

Hispanic-white and Asian-white segregation in metropolitan areas has remained virtually unchanged between 1990 and 2010, while black-white segregation has declined in metropolitan areas. But segregation between suburban places has increased for blacks and whites, Hispanics and whites, and Asians and whites during that period.

"People know what is a white suburb and what is a black suburb," Lichter says. "Whites are still attracted to those suburbs that are white."

The study takes on added importance in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that upheld parts of the Fair Housing Act that could help bring further legal challenges to discriminatory practices. A few weeks later, the Obama Administration announced an overhaul of how the federal government distributes housing money. The new rules will require metropolitan areas to use data to measure segregation, and then take steps to address it, at least if they want to receive money from the federal government.

Such new policies could be a start to addressing this new version of an old problem. Even if they do, though, it was a divide that the country had hoped to solve half a century ago.

"Equality cannot be achieved under conditions of nearly complete separation," the 50-year-old Kerner report concluded. "The primary goal must be a single society, in which every citizen will be free to live and work according to his capabilities and desires, not his color."

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White Flight Lives on in American Cities

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Today's cities may be more diverse overall, but people of different races still don’t live near each other.

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Women were known as “Silent Partners,” because they had to support their working men.(That’s fun) Racial roles are being enforced just as much as gender roles are.

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Large corporations started merging together to protect themselves from the Cold War. The Nuclear family was a big thing in this time, and there were strict gender roles.

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Musical Theatre setup is being messed with in this time period. Credit cards were invented, it was originally called a diners club card. It also became applicable to people who travelled.

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Poetry started changing into controversial art at the beginning of the golden age.

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The only 5 year period where America Hasn’t been in a war. It also contained the biggest shift between Urban and Rural life

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- Out of this World
- Can-Can
- Silk Stockings
- Aladdin (TV)
- Annie Get Your Gun
- Kiss Me Kate
- Gypsy
- Cabaret

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He fell off of a horse once and had to walk with canes for the rest of his life. He was basically drunk for nineteen years like Larry Hart. This was the phase before Kiss Me, Kate.

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Cole Porter was known for his naughty lyrics, erudite language, tortured human love, and his embrace of Eurocentric style.

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- “Blue Skies” the song that was put into the first American Talkie, or movie with sound
- Developed the AABA format
- “Face the Music”- first musical to give equal billing to an African American
- “Suppertime” it’s from the same musical, gave Ethel Waters a solo
- Many other movies in Hollywood such as, “This is the Army,” “White Christmas,” and “Holiday In.

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Irving married Ellin Mackey and they had four kids together. He bailed her father out of debt during the depression, because he lost a lot of money from his Telegraph company. He lived to be in his hundreds, and she lived to be 85. They were married for 62 years.

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Sorry for stealing your content, Josh but I almost cried in class during this video so I thought I would include it. The wholesome energy Berlin gives off just makes me really happy.

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Irving Berlin - 'Oh, How I Hate to get up in the Morning'

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He became a US citizen in 1916 and was drafted into WWI in 1917. “Oh How I Hate to Get Up In the Morning,” was a song that he wrote when he was over there and it turned into a musical for him and his buddies to perform in. It was called “Yip,Yip, Yank.”

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The Operetta was being kicked out and the American music was not being used in musicals and in society. Simple melodies+ populism+ patriotism from the war= popularity. It also brought classes together.

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Watch I Love Lucy Season 2 Episode 5: The Operetta - Full show on CBS All Access

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The Ricardos and Mertzes perform in an operetta for a club benefit.

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Irving Berlin came up with something called a partner song, which meant that two different melodies at once. For example, you can see them now in a lot of Sondheim shows, such as Into the Woods. It’s not a duet because most of the time, duets follow the same melody line.

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It was a misprint on his music that he sold saying I. Berlin. He changed his name to a new American name.

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Dorothy Goetz was Berlin’s wife, and when they traveled to Cuba she contracted typhoid and passed away. He wrote a song “When I Lost You” in 1912, and ge wrote it about her. It sold 1 million copies.

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Irving Berlin tried to get the idea of jazz and bring it to be more respectable, he had great adaptability.

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He invented a piano that allowed him to only play black keys and then would flip a switch to transpose keys. He only knew how to play the black ones. Most of his songs don’t go over an octave and there was simplicity of harmony and melody.

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Cecil replies:

Yes, it's true. The composer of countless beloved standards and show tunes including "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "White Christmas," and "God Bless America" couldn't read or write music. As you rightly suppose, neither can lots of modern songwriters, but here's the thing: musical illiteracy wasn't all that rare in Berlin's day either. Fact is, if the music industry thinks you've got commercial potential, it'll figure out a way to compensate for your technical deficiencies. All you need to do is come up with the hits.

Born in Russia and brought to the U.S. at age five, Irving Berlin dropped out of school in his early teens and taught himself to play the piano while working as a singing waiter from 1904 to 1907. He played almost entirely in the key of F-sharp, allowing him to stay on the black keys as much as possible. This wasn't unheard-of for a self-taught musician, since it's easier for untrained fingers to play the black keys (which are elevated and widely spaced) without hitting wrong notes. In a 1962 interview, Berlin said, "The black keys are right there, under your fingers. The key of C is for people who study music."

So how did he write music if he couldn't write music? Simple - he got someone else to write it down for him. Music publishers in those days had professional arrangers on staff for that purpose, since many tunesmiths (a lot of black composers of ragtime, for instance) were similarly self-taught. Berlin would bring in whatever he had - sometimes just a whistled melody, sometimes the piano chords to go with it - and the arranger/collaborator would help fill in any blanks, then write it all out in musical notation. "Alexander's Ragtime Band," the song that made Berlin a star, was dictated to one Alfred Doyle, who reportedly was paid 50 cents a page.

Getting tunes down on paper wasn't Berlin's only challenge. Having limited skills as a pianist, he couldn't easily change keys. Not to worry. Around 1910, as his career was starting to take off, he bought an upright "transposing piano" for $100. To one side of the keyboard was a small wheel. Turning the wheel shifted the keyboard right or left relative to the strings, positioning the hammers over higher or lower notes than they would ordinarily strike. Thus while still playing on the (mostly) black keys of F-sharp major, Berlin could hear the music in a variety of other keys. Transposing pianos were common back then; almost every music publishing house on Tin Pan Alley had one. Berlin called his instrument his "trick piano" and sometimes his "Buick," presumably because of the transposing wheel's resemblance to a steering wheel (he later got another model that used a lever instead). He took it with him almost everywhere, including on vacation cruises with his family.

In 1916 Berlin asked a friend, the famous composer Victor Herbert, whether he should study music. Herbert said it wouldn't hurt but seemed unnecessary. Berlin took piano lessons briefly but quickly decided his time was more profitably spent dictating songs.

As Berlin's fame grew, he could afford to hire a secretary with formal music training to transcribe for him. The first of these assistants was pianist Cliff Hess, who held the position from roughly 1912 to 1917, followed after World War I by Arthur Johnston. At one point the young George Gershwin applied for the job, but Berlin thought him too talented to be happy as a mere amanuensis. Finally the job was taken by Helmy Kresa, a German-born musician trained at the Milwaukee Conservatory who worked as Berlin's musical secretary for almost 60 years, with time off for the occasional spat. Kresa was present at the creation of most of Berlin's songs and helped defend the composer against phony plagiarism charges. Berlin always maintained that his musical secretaries were essentially stenographers - the secretary may produce the letter, but the executive has to dictate it.

Berlin boasted of his ignorance of music. As early as 1915 he said that since he knew little about the rules of songwriting, he was free to violate them, "and the result was [often] an original twist." Evidently he was also free of the demons that drive some creative sorts to an early grave. Having donated his transposing piano (the later version, with the lever) to the Smithsonian in 1973, he died in 1989 at age 101.

Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com.

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If Irving Berlin couldn't read or write music, how did he compose?

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Cecil replies: Yes, it's true. The composer of countless beloved standards and show tunes including "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "White Christmas," and "God Bless America" couldn't read or write music. As you rightly suppose, neither can lots of modern songwriters, but here's the thing: musical illiteracy wasn't all that rare in Berlin's day either.

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There was directness of language because Russian was his first language. His lyrics were very simple. He became a singing waiter and he hired someone to write out harmonies. He couldn’t read or write music very well.

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He was 8 when his dad passed away and he became a Newsie and left school. He also made money by singing in the street.

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Originally Israel Baline, he left Russia because of rising anti-demotion. He is known as, “The Dean of American Music.” He lived in the Lower East Side when they got to New York.

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“The Sound of Music” was the last production that Rodgers and Hammerstein ever did. Hammerstein has written 1,589 songs in his lifetime, and Edelweiss was the last one he wrote. *cries*

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It was meant to bring western and eastern civilization into a musical together. Yum Brynner was in the production from 1951-1985. The musical ran for 3 years and contained a lot of orientalism.

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- Sayyid Qutb was in the US and learned about racism and took it back with him. He was the teacher of Bin Laden and helped to be the foundation of Al Queda.
- North Korea went to war with South Korea, one Communist the other not.

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Joshua Logan directed “Annie Get Your Gun” before this, and Leland Hayward has already produced “Gypsy” and “The Sound is Music.” Logan accidentally blabbed to R and H about their great idea, and they bought out the rights from underneath them.

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Lists The 17 Most Tony Award-Winning Works of All Time

When we stack up a show's Tony wins between all of its Broadway productions-including revivals-who comes out on top?

Fact: The Producers shattered Tony history when it won a record-setting 12 statues in 2001-even Hamilton fell one short of that accomplishment in 2016.

But what if we look at titles-plays and musicals-throughout their life span on Broadway, including revivals? What are the most Tony-winning pieces of literature in history? Playbill dove into the archives to determine the shows that-over time-have taken home the most Tony trophies.

Beginning with the pieces that earned the most Tonys and working backwards, we calculated 17 shows earned nine awards or more in the history of theatre's top honor. Does The Producers still stay on top? Read the list below to find out.

(Note: Within each category below, shows are listed in reverse chronological order as the more recent shows have had less time to accumulate Tony hardware.)

And don't forget to tune in to the 71st Annual Tony Awards one CBS June 11 to find out if this year's leading nominee (The Great Comet with 12 nominations) will join these ranks.
For more information visit TonyAwards.com. 9 TONY AWARDS
This satirical look at then-relatively-new office culture premiered on Broadway in 1961. The production took home seven 1962 Tony Awards, for Best Leading Actor in Musical (Robert Morse), Featured Actor in a musical (Charles Nelson Reilly), Author (Burrows, Weinstock, and Gilbert), Conductor and Musical Director (Elliot Lawrence), Direction of a Musical (Burrows), Producer (Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin), and Musical. Matthew Broderick won Best Leading Actor in a musical for his performance in the 1995 revival, while the 2011 production starring Daniel Radcliffe saw a Featured Actor win for John Larroquette.
16. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

Since its premiere in 1962, Albee's classic three-act drama following the marital struggles of a middle-aged couple as they entertain a colleague and his wife-and drink heavily-has been revived on Broadway three times: 1976, 2005, and 2012. The original production won five 1963 Tony Awards for Best Leading Actor in a Play (Arthur Hill), Leading Actress in a Play (Uta Hagen), Direction of a Play (Alan Schneider), Producer (Richard Barr and Clinton Wilder), and Play. Bill Irwin won Best Leading Actor in a Play for the 2005 revival, while the 2013 production took home awards for Leading Actor in a Play ( Tracy Letts), Direction of a Play ( Pam MacKinnon), and Revival.

This musical-Sondheim's first on Broadway to feature both his lyrics and music-is a hilarious farce that tells the story of a Greek slave who will stop at nothing to win his freedom. The show opened on Broadway in 1962, and at the 1963 Tony Awards, it won six awards for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Zero Mostel), Featured Actor in a Musical (David Burns), Author (Shevelove and Gelbart), Direction of a Musical ( George Abbott), Producer ( Harold Prince), and Musical. A 1972 revival took home Tonys for Best Leading Actor in a Musical and Featured Actor in a Musical as well, for Phil Silvers and Larry Blyden respectively. The most recent revival, in 1996, won Nathan Lane his first Tony Award, for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, which means every actor portraying the role of Pseudolus has won a Tony Award for their performance thus far.

Telling the tale of the young son of Charlemagne who tries his hand at war, love, and other joys before settling down, Pippin premiered in 1972. At the 1973 Tony Awards, it won five trophies: Best Leading Actor in a Musical ( Ben Vereen), Choreographer ( Bob Fosse), Direction of a Musical (Fosse), Lighting Design ( Jules Fisher), and Scenic Design (Tony Walton). A 2013 revival won four: Best Leading Actress in a Musical ( Patina Miller), Featured Actress in a Musical ( Andrea Martin), Direction of a Musical ( Diane Paulus), and Revival of a Musical.

This Broadway classic about ensemble dancers at an audition for a Broadway musical was, for quite some time, the longest-running Broadway musical, with 6,137 performances running from 1975 to 1990 at the Shubert Theatre. Though it had one revival (in 2007), all of its Tony wins are from the original production, including Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Sammy Williams), Featured Actress in a Musical (Carole Bishop, now Kelly Bishop), Leading Actress in a Musical ( Donna McKechnie), Book of a Musical (Kirkwood and Dante), Choreographer ( Michael Bennett and Bob Avian), Direction of a Musical (Bennett), Lighting Design (Tharon Musser), Original Score Written for the Theatre (Hamlisch and Kleban), and Musical.
10 TONY AWARDS
This Broadway hit, a hilarious tale of Mormon missionaries in Uganda, is still running on Broadway. The show was a big smash at the Tony Awards after it opened in 2011, taking home awards for Best Orchestrations ( Larry Hochman and Stephen Oremus), Direction of a Musical ( Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker), Sound Design of a Musical ( Brian Ronan), Lighting Design of a Musical (Brian MacDevitt), Scenic Design of a Musical ( Scott Pask), Featured Actress in a Musical ( Nikki M. James), Original Score Written for the Theatre and Book of a Musical (both for Lopez, Parker, and Stone), and Musical.

This modern musical telling of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has been a classic since its Broadway premiere in 1948. The original production won five 1949 Tony Awards, including Best Author (for the Spewacks), Composer and Lyricist (Porter), Costume Designer (Lemuel Ayers), Producers (Saint Subber and Ayers), and Musical. A 2000 revival took home five awards as well, for Best Costume Design for a Musical (Martin Pakledinaz), Orchestrations (Don Sebesky), Leading Actor in a Musical ( Brian Stokes Mitchell), Direction of a Musical ( Michael Blakemore), and Revival of a Musical.

Based on Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker, Dolly tells the story of a meddlesome matchmaker who works to find mates for her clients but also herself. The original production was a big winner at the 1964 Tony Awards, taking home Tonys for Best Leading Actress in a Musical ( Carol Channing), Author (Stewart), Choreographer (Gower Champion), Composer and Lyricist (Herman), Conductor and Musical Director (Shepard Coleman), Costume Design (Freddy Wittop), Scenic Design (Oliver Smith), Direction of a Musical (Champion), Producer ( David Merrick), and Musical. While subsequent revivals did not receive Tony love, the show is currently back on Broadway in a new production starring Bette Midler that just received ten Tony nominations earlier this week, so this particular show might just be moving up the list come June 11.

This classic musical about a Jewish milkman and his tradition-bucking daughters is one of Broadway's most frequent for revivals-there have been five since its premiere in 1964-so it should be no surprise to find it on this list. The original production won eight 1965 Tony Awards for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Zero Mostel), Leading Actress in a Musical (Maria Karnilova), Author (Stein), Composer and Lyricist (Bock and Harnick), Costume Design (Patricia Zipprodt), Direction of a Musical ( Jerome Robbins), Producer (Harold Prince), and Musical. A 1991 revival won Best Revival of a Musical as well. Its four other revival productions received nominations, but no other wins.

Everyone's favorite musical about revenge and cannibalism, Sweeney Todd debuted in 1979 and nearly swept the Tony Awards that year. The production won eights awards for Best Leading Actor in a Musical ( Len Cariou), Leading Actress in a Musical ( Angela Lansbury), Book of a Musical (Wheeler), Original Score Written for the Theatre (Sondheim), Scenic Design ( Eugene Lee), Costume Design (Franne Lee), Direction of a Musical (Harold Prince), and Musical. A 2006 revival won two: Best Orchestrations (Sarah Travis) and Direction of a Musical ( John Doyle).

Based on the movie of the same name telling the story of a little boy who desperately wants to go to ballet school, this show debuted in 2008 and was the big winner at the 2009 Tony Awards. The production won Best Actor (David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, and Kiril Kulish), Featured Actor in a Musical (Gregory Jbara), Choreographer (Peter Darling), Direction of a Musical ( Stephen Daldry), Scenic Design of a Musical (Ian MacNeil), Costume Design of a Musical (Nicky Gillibrand), Sound Design of a Musical (Paul Arditti), Orchestrations (Martin Koch), Book (Hall), and Musical.

For 1983, a musical about gay parents and drag queens must have been risqué, but that didn't stop the 1984 Tony Awards from accepting it with open arms. The original production won Tonys for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (George Hearn), Book of a Musical (Fierstein), Costume Design (Theoni V. Aldredge), Direction of a Musical ( Arthur Laurents), Score (Herman), and Musical. A 2005 revival won Best Choreography ( Jerry Mitchell) and Revival, while the 2010 production took home awards for Actor ( Douglas Hodge), Director (Terry Johnson), and Revival.
12 TONY AWARDS
5. Hamilton, by Lin-Manuel Miranda
As any Playbill reader should know well by now, Hamilton opened last season and continues a highly-successful run at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. To the surprise of exactly no one, the show was last year's big winner at the Tony Awards. There was initially speculation that it might equal The Producers' record of 12 wins which did not come to pass, but it nevertheless did incredibly well with wins for Leading Actor in a Musical (Leslie Odom, Jr.), Featured Actor in a Musical (Daveed Diggs), Featured Actress in a Musical (Renée Elise Goldsberry), Costume Design of a Musical ( Paul Tazewell), Lighting Design of a Musical ( Howell Binkley), Orchestrations ( Alex Lacamoire), Direction of a Musical ( Thomas Kail), Choreographer ( Andy Blankenbuehler), Score (Miranda), Book of a Musical (Miranda), and Musical.

Another frequently revived piece, Salesman is the sad tale of Willy Loman whose career is crumbling, and it's had six Broadway productions and six chances at Tony Awards since its premiere in 1949. The original production won Best Featured Actor (Arthur Kennedy), Scenic Design (Jo Mielziner), Author (Miller), Director (Elia Kazan), Producers (Kermit Bloomgarden and Walter Fried), and Play. The 1975 revival did not take home any wins, but the 1984, 1999, and 2012 revivals all won Best Revival, while the 1999 production also took home Best Actor in a Play ( Brian Dennehy), Featured Actress in a Play (Elizabeth Franz), and Direction of a Play ( Robert Falls).

A gritty exploration of Weimar Germany during the rise of the Nazi party, Cabaret has had four Broadway productions including its 1966 premiere. The original production won Tonys for Best Featured Actor in a Musical ( Joel Grey), Featured Actress in a Musical (Peg Murray), Choreographer (Ron Field), Composer and Lyricist (Kander and Ebb), Costume Design (Patricia Zipprodt), Scenic Design (Boris Aronson), Direction of a Musical (Harold Prince), and Musical. The 1998 revival won Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Ron Rifkin), Actor in a Musical ( Alan Cumming), Actress in a Musical ( Natasha Richardson), and Revival.
17 TONY AWARDS
The record holder for the most Tony wins by one production is unsurprisingly near the top of the list. The Producers, a hilarious musical about two conniving Broadway producers who endeavor to make money by fraudulently and purposefully producing a horrible musical, won Tony Awards in 2001 for Best Actor in a Musical (Nathan Lane), Featured Actor in a Musical ( Gary Beach), Featured Actress in a Musical ( Cady Huffman), Scenic Design (Robin Wagner), Costume Design ( William Ivey Long), Lighting Design ( Peter Kaczorowski), Orchestrations (Doug Besterman), Direction of a Musical ( Susan Stroman), Choreography (Stroman), Book of a Musical (Brooks and Meehan), Score (Brooks), and Musical.

1. South Pacific, by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Joshua Logan

When it comes to Tony-winning pieces of literature, nothing even comes close to beating South Pacific. This classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical follows the lives of U.S. military men, nurses, and residents in-you guessed it-the South Pacific, during World War II. It's only had two Broadway productions (plus a brief revival at City Center) since its premiere in 1949, but both did extremely well at the Tony Awards. In a bizarre situation, the original production's scenic designer Jo Mielziner won a Tony in 1949 for her work across Broadway that season, including both South Pacific and Death of a Salesman, but the production's other Tonys were awarded at the 1950 ceremony. The production won Best Actor in a Musical (Ezio Pinza), Actress in a Musical ( Mary Martin), Featured Actor in a Musical (Myron McCormick), Featured Actress in a Musical (Juanita Hall), Director (Logan), Original Score (Rodgers and Hammerstein), Libretto (Hammerstein and Logan), Producers (Leland Hayward, Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Logan), and Musical. Lincoln Center's 2008 revival took home awards for Best Actor in a Musical ( Paulo Szot), Direction of a Musical ( Bartlett Sher), Scenic Design of a Musical ( Michael Yeargan), Costume Design of a Musical ( Catherine Zuber), Lighting Design of a Musical ( Donald Holder), Sound Design of a Musical ( Scott Lehrer), and Revival.
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Logan Culwell-Block is a musical theatre historian, Playbill's manager of research, and curator of Playbill Vault. Please visit LoganCulwellBlock.com.

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The 17 Most Tony Award-Winning Works of All Time | Playbill

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Lists The 17 Most Tony Award-Winning Works of All Time When we stack up a show's Tony wins between all of its Broadway productions-including revivals-who comes out on top? Fact: The Producers shattered Tony history when it won a record-setting 12 statues in 2001-even Hamilton fell one short of that accomplishment in 2016.

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The musical was based on a book called, “The Tales of the South Pacific.” It was taken from three or four different chapters in the book that took place in the Solomon Islands.

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- Alien invasions were becoming popular
- 1959- Elvis’s first album came out
- 1959- The Sound of Music came out
- 1947- The first Tony Award was given out do Antoinette Perry

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They owned Williamson Music Company which was a publishing company that they owned together. They had a very objective and professional relationship. They also became producers of other shows, bought theaters, and dipped their toes a little in film. Each work had its own tone, and all of their plays dealt with social issues.

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The musical also touches on the treatment of women, and domestic abuse. There are many times throughout the show where he is manipulative and abusive. It tells the victims stories who have to deal with domestic abuse everyday.

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The show that we did here also ties into this time period, the bomber girls were women who were trying to support the war effort by getting out of the house. Later, in the 1940’s the men came back from the war and tried to force the women out of the work force because they were only filling in for them.

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Also, when his father doesn’t come back it ties into how people were feeling because of the war, they had many family members who never came back from war. Carousel took place in the Guilded Age, and Julie was a millworker. People tied that into how they had to make money during the hard times of the war.

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It ties into the immigrant experience because they had to let some of their culture die to fit into American society.

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Billy has values that do not line up with everyone else, he sings by himself, and no one trusts him. It’s the community feeling is either join us or die.

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There was patriotic commentary in community, they share values, the sing and dance together.

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Mary Rodgers and Sondheim were actually at the same showing of Carousel, and the met each other’s gazes with tears streaming down their face. They had an emotional connection during the dream ballet.

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Carousel did something that had never been done before, they had a ginormous scene from, “You’re a queer one Julie Jordan,” to “If I Loved You.” There was constant underscoring and a fast moving pace, for 23 minutes music doesn’t stop. It’s the pinnacle of the conventional love song.

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Every night for three weeks there were changes to the show every night. One night, they even cut the show in half. The Prologue is not used at the Overture to allow room for exposition of the characters.

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There are some parallels between “It’s A Wonderful Life,” and Carousel because of the angel idea at the beginning of the show.

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They were constantly wondering how are we going to pull it all together? “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was put in to tie up all the loose ends at the end of the show. The had De Mille come back in for choreography and the same director.

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They wanted the problematic character to also have an emotional side and for the audience to feel bad for him in some parts. The character has a complex legacy. Hammerstein took only two weeks to write the lyrics.

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The producers and writing staff didn’t know how to get through “The Tunnel” of the play aka the rough patches that people would not react to well. They added in Soliloquy because it gave them a pathway into the tunnel of Billy’s character.

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It is really dark, as is “Carousel.” In the end of the play “Lilly” aka Billy dies which is not far off from the musical.

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She was known as being part of the gloat club, and recommended that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s next project should be turning the play Liliom by Ferenc Molnar into a musical.

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It was made a movie musical in 1945, because as we talked about before, Hollywood was booming at this time. Meet Me in St. Louis was also put on the big screen.

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A New York City police officer stepped out of the force for a second so he could take part in the production. He eventually went back, but he made a name for himself in the theatre world for a second.

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In 1943 “Carmen Jones” was produced. It was based on the opera “Carmen” but was not set in a cigarette factory in New York City during WWII

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Hart had fallen back into alcoholism, and he went missing when he went to the De Mantico’s bar. They found him later in an alcohol induced coma, and he later died at the hospital.

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Rodgers and Hammerstein separated for a second to do other things and Rodgers went back to Hart. They wrote “Connecticut Yankee” together.

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“It is not our intention to die broke if we can help it.”- Richard Rodgers.
This quote is so relatable😂

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Away We Go was the original name of the musical until the actually added in the number Oklahoma. It changed the feeling of the musical, and so they changed the name.

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Agnes made it a point in her dances that women wanted to have sex just as much as men do. It was a very progressive idea because many people in that society never thought about it that way.

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She choreographed Rodeo and that was the show that Rodgers and Hammerstein went to. They saw her for her talent and decided to put her on choreography for Oklahoma!

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She did the choreography for Oklahoma, she was originally deemed as not being pretty enough. She went to London and came back out of the best choreographers in the business.

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- Invention of Intentionality: they started to embed sound imagery in musicals, it happened before but it was brought back to light. They were verbal mirrors.
- The Conditional Love Song- It has the mentality of if I love you, and not I love you even though I just met you.
- A New Realism- It had operetta vocals instead of belly vocals.

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Oklahoma! forced Rodgers to use different styles of music, aka country. There are high characters, such as Laurey, Curley, and Jud. There are also low characters such as Ado Annie.

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After Rodgers and Hart broke up, Rodgers and Hammerstein had an instant connection, and Oklahoma was the first musical that Rodgers started writing all of the content at the same time as his counterpart. The only one that this didn't happen with was The Sound of Music where Hammerstein wrote the lyrics and not the libretto.

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It was the first time someone actually died onstage, and the first time content that was that heavy on Broadway.

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Oklahoma! was based on the on the play Green Grow the Lilacs which was written by Eugene O'Neill who was one of the only openly gay writers at the time.

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- Theresa Helburn was giving the ideas and pushed them to become Rodgers and Hammerstein.
- It was a rough situation with The Great Depression.
- She realized that Drama, Music, and Ballet could go together to push the plot forward.

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Lawrence Langner was the founder of the theatre guild and was a co-producer, and Theresa Helburn was the executive producer. They were apparently a dream team when they were working together, and they were known for driving American plays.

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Hammerstein was seen as washed out before Oklahoma, but the show put his name back on the map.

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The Musical Attributions of Richard Rodgers

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The Musical Attributions of Richard Rodgers

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- The Waltz
- The Loves Duet
- The "Erotic" tune
- The Dance Tune
- The Uplifting Hymn

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Larry Hart was a raging alcoholic. He had problems with self-hatred, and was really erratic. He wasn't a good partner toRichard Rodgers anymore because he kept going on "Long vacations."

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Oklahoma! won a Pulitzer Prize and it sent Broadway into what we know as the Golden Age of musicals. It had a very big breakthrough and soon Broadway was making a big break through.

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"Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'" was selling at a rate of 4,000 copies a day when it ws printed sheet music, and "People Will Say We're in Love," sold 9,000 copies a day. Some people still wonder today if there was a hidden cast recording of this show someone.

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The show opened in London to 1/2 hour of encores, and it was very popular. It ran for four years and it was seen about three million times.

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Oklahoma opened in 1933, and the show ran for five years and nine weeks. It toured for 10 years in 250 cities in 48 states in front of around 8 million people.

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Check Out Hypnotic Footage From Broadway's All-New Oklahoma!

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Pal Joey is the first time that there is an anti- hero in a musical, and it's Joey. He was predatory and promiscuous, and he destroys the Mythos of Spring mentality. They created the show out of sub universes.

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Other Important Things That Happened in This Time:

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Other Important Things That Happened in This Time:

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- Urinetown was written, which was a parody of "The Cradle Will Rock."
- Rodgers and Hart became the, "New Duo", they wrote,"Babes in Arms" and "The Boys from Syracuse."
- George Cohen kind of fizzled out due to his non supportive mentality of equity.

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She was the first woman to win the Gugenheim Fellowship.

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He did not like Kurt Veil. He was a revolutionary piano prodigy that used his platform to tear apart his class status. He was married to a novelist, but was openly gay. His wife passed away due to anorexia.

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George Gershwin dies in 1937, the last thing he wrote is,"Our Love is Here to Stay."

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He directed "Applause" and "Love Me Tonight" which was written by Rodgers and Hart.

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Censorshiprules in which white and black people couldn't be in relationships in movies because it wasn't an "Industry standard."

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Irving Berlin worked on "Face the Music" and it touched on police brutality in 1937. This is still relevant today, it's crazy how history repeats itself.

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Anything Goes is a satyrical comment on his own class status. The characters are also other versions of himself. Ethel Merman also starred in this one.

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He majored in English at Yale, and wrote over 300 songs in college. He was also the lead of his college glee club. He actually dropped out of law school to go study music. He married Lydia Thomas in 1919.

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1891-1964- He was born in Peru, Indiana. He is the grandson of the wealthiest man in Indiana. He was sent to Wooster Academy and graduated Valedictorian of his class.

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- Girl Crasy-1930- written by Guy Bolton and P.G. Woodhouse. It starred Ethel Merman.
- The Naughty Sohpisticate

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Political parties were actually a lot different at that point than they are now. They were almost the opposite of what they are now.

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- Strike Up the Band
- Of Thee I Sing- a political parody that makes fun of everyone
- It is the first musical that was put into a book and was sold and it was the first musical to win an Pulitzer

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Progression of the musical completely stopped during this time period, and WPA and "America" were a thing. Black minstrelsy spread throughout the United States again, and Stephen Foster resurfaces. This continues into the 1950's to the 1960's. It was old information from a genre that they thought had dies out.

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Ziegfeld passed away when he was nearly penniless, and 22,000 actors from NY registered with LA agents.

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The United States started to become more interested in the movie industry, which meant that Hollywood started booming. People started loosing their Broadway theaters, including Hammerstein's dad Willie.

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Before the crash in the 1930's there were 42 shows on Broadway, and afterwards there were 34. There were 80 theatre on Broadway that produced 218 productions a year.

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15-16 million people were unemployed due to the stock market crash. The classes were leveled out in this time period, because even some really rich people were then poor. People were forced to live in bad conditions because they couldn't afford anything else.

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The stock market crashed on October 29th 1929, leaving thousands of people without any money.

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- it was meant to be an anti-racist book
- It was the first integrated musical ever
- Showed bigotry and leaned into African American stereotypes: Including Queenie

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The Great Depression Didn't Like Depression on Broadway

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The Great Depression Didn't Like Depression on Broadway

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No one wanted to watch sad things during the Great Depression, so truthful musicals were not popular then.

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- Serious drama (Book)
- Music (Score)
- Lyrics (Libretto)
= Showboat

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Myra and Oscar II got divorced in 1929 because Myra was cheating on him, and eventually Oscar got married to Dorothy. She was a model who became a Follies girl, she was also an actress in London.

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Ziegfeld's office was the money behind the project. Some of them even lived on Showboats for a while, studying people and hearing their stories.