Middleburg Players present…
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
Produced by
Laurie Maggiano
Directed By
Robyn Yovanovich
Buchanan Hall, Upperville, Virginia.
Tickets at the door or through Little River Inn. 703-327-6742
Catch the Gala Dinner Performance of Oklahoma! on Saturday July 26 at 6:30 PM for $60.00!
Other performance dates:
July 25, August 1 & 2 at 7:00 PM
August 3 at 2:00 PM
Adults: $20.00
Children: $12.00
Buchanan Hall, Upperville, VA
Producer’s Notes
Oklahoma! (1943) was the first musical play written by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. Rodgers wanted to adapt a rural folk drama of the 1930s -- "Green Grow the Lilacs" -- to the musical stage and felicitously, Hammerstein, accepted the proposition to collaborate. Their simple tale of cowhands and farmers finding love and community in the Oklahoma territory caught the imagination and patriotic passion of wartime America. Laurey, a spunky girl who runs her aunt's farm, is courted by two very different young men: Curly, and brash cowhand, and Jud, a surly, pathological farmhand. A comic subplot follows Laurey's friend, Ado Annie and her on-again/off-again relationship with cowboy Will Parker. Laurey’s journey to find the man of her dreams and the satisfaction of settling down with the right one underscores the journey of the territory toward progress, community, and statehood.
The original production of Oklahoma! opened on March 31, 1943 at the St. James Theatre in New York, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, and starring Betty Garde, Alfred Drake, Joan Roberts, Celeste Holm, Joan McCracken, and Howard Da Silva. The production was choreographed by Agnes de Mille, who provided one of the show's most notable and enduring features: a 15-minute first-act ballet finale (often referred to as a dream ballet) arising from Laurey's inability to make up her mind between Jud and Curly. In the decade before Oklahoma! opened, not a single hit show ran over 500 performances. Oklahoma! ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances.
The play was adapted into an Academy Award–winning musical film in 1955, starring Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones (in her film debut), Rod Steiger, Gloria Grahame and Eddie Albert. Rodgers and Hammerstein personally oversaw the film themselves to prevent the studio from making the changes that were then typical of stage-to-film musical adaptations—such as putting in new songs by different composers. The film Oklahoma! followed the original stage version extremely closely.
The music from Oklahoma! broke out to achieve extraordinary popularity; the love song "People Will Say We're in Love" was a number-one song in 1943. The title song became the State song of Oklahoma in 1953 and others are immediately recognizable including, “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin” and “The Surrey With the Fringe On Top”.
Middleburg Players is delighted to bring a show that’s…as big as all outdoors…to the stage at Buchanan Hall and to welcome Director Robyn Yovanovitch back for her 20th production with the Players! Robyn, Chairman of the Fine Arts Department of Foxcroft School, was the recipient of the Helen Hayes scholarship at The Catholic University of America (after performing the role of Ado Annie as a high school senior) and toured Germany, Belguim and Holland on a USO Tour. She performed at Ford's Theatre in DC, had some understudy roles on Broadway and has done television commercials.
Karen Chase, Music Director at Hill School and Middleburg Methodist Church is also back. Karen formerly directed musicians in MB Players productions of Oliver and Fiddler on the Roof. Finally, but by no means least Peggy Doerwaldt has retuned to choreograph many of the memorable dance numbers in the show including; Kansas City, Cain't Say No, Many a New Day, It's a Scandal! It's an Outrage!, Out of My Dreams and the ballet sequence, The Farmer and The Cowman, All 'Er Nothin', and Oklahoma. Peggy is also a professional educator and previously worked with the Players on Fiddler and last year’s very personal tribute to Middleburg and Doc Safer, It Was Mostly Fun.
Now sit back and prepare to be transported to a place where the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. Enjoy!
Laurie A. Maggiano, Producer
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