Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers was an icon of the musical theatre, a prolific composer whose career spanned six decades and who wrote more than 1000 songs and 40 shows for the American stage. In this book, Geoffrey Block examines Rodgers's entire career, providing rich details about the creation, staging, and critical reception of some of his most popular musicals. Block traces Rodgers's musical education, early work, and the development of his musical and dramatic language. He focuses on two shows by Rodgers and Hart ("A Connecticut Yankee" and "The Boys from Syracuse") and two by Rodgers and Hammerstein ("South Pacific" and "Cinderella"), offering new insights into each one. He concludes with the first serious look at the five neglected and often maligned musicals that Rodgers composed in the 1960s and 1970s, after the death of Hammerstein.