A Bit Of Rodgers And Hart History

I so enjoyed delving into the “Origin Of Pal Joey”, that I thought I’d continue in that vein with a brief history of Rodgers and Hart, without whom Pal Joey would be….well…just a play!

According to the Roundabout Theatre Company’s website, RICHARD RODGERS (Music; 1902-1979) and LORENZ HART (Lyrics; 1895-1943) wrote their first shows together when both were still students attending Columbia University. Their breakthrough came with the score for a 1925 charity show, the Garrick Gaities, which introduced the classic valentine to their hometown, “Manhattan.” Over the next five years they wrote fifteen musical comedies for Broadway and London’s West End before relocating to Hollywood in 1930, where they contributed songs and wrote the scores for several movie musicals, most notably Love Me Tonight starring Maurice Chevalier. In 1935 they returned to New York to write the score for Billy Rose’s circus musical Jumbo, launching a golden era which included On Your Toes, Babes In Arms, I’d Rather Be Right, I Married An Angel, The Boys From Syracuse, Too Many Girls, Higher And Higher, Pal Joey and By Jupiter, which collectively offered such classic songs as “There’s a Small Hotel,” “I Wish I Were In Love Again,” “My Funny Valentine,” “Where Or When,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” “Spring Is Here,” “Falling In Love With Love,” “Sing For Your Supper,” “This Can’t Be Love,” “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “Bewitched,” “I Could Write a Book,” “Nobody’s Heart,” and “Wait Til You See Her.”

In 1943 the partnership disbanded temporarily when Rodgers collaborated with Oscar Hammerstein II on Oklahoma!. But it resumed with a revision of the 1927 Rodgers and Hart hit A Connecticut Yankee, which opened less than a week before Lorenz Hart’s death. For the next two decades, Richard Rodgers collaborated exclusively with Oscar Hammerstein II on such musicals as Carousel, South Pacific, The King And I, and The Sound of Music, winning Tonys, Oscars, Grammys, Emmys and Pulitzer Prizes. After Hammerstein’s death in 1960, Rodgers continued to write for the musical stage; his fortieth, and final, Broadway musical opened less than eight months before his death in 1979.