Setting the Stage

Oklahoma! ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Tim Carter
Keyword(s):  
Executive Director ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Porgy And Bess ◽  
Kurt Weill ◽  
Rodgers And Hammerstein ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Theatre Guild

The pre-premiere publicity for Oklahoma! generated by the Theatre Guild fixed many of the themes that would dominate its reception history. The Guild had already established a pattern of creating musical versions of plays it had previously staged, by way of George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess of 1935. Its executive director, Theresa Helburn, tried to persuade a number of Broadway composers to pick up the torch, including Kurt Weill (for Ferenc Molnár’s play Liliom, which later became Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel). She also saw some potential in Lynn Rigg’s Green Grow the Lilacs, first done by the Guild in late 1930. Riggs was one of a new generation of “regional” playwrights, and he drew on his own upbringing in Claremore, Oklahoma, for a work interweaving vernacular dialogue and cowboy songs. Rodgers and Hammerstein, however, came from quite other theatrical traditions; anything they did would necessarily be very different.

Oklahoma!

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Carter
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theater ◽  
Final Shape ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rodgers And Hammerstein ◽  
Theatre Guild

Oklahoma! premiered on Broadway on 31 March 1943 under the auspices of the Theatre Guild, and today it is performed more frequently than any other Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. When this book was first published in 2007, it offered the first fully documented history of the making of the show based on archival materials, manuscripts, journalism, and other sources. The present revised edition draws still further on newly uncovered sources to provide an even clearer account of a work that many have claimed fundamentally changed Broadway musical theater. It is filled with rich and fascinating details about the play on which Oklahoma! was based (Lynn Riggs’s Green Grow the Lilacs); on what encouraged Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Guild to bring Rodgers and Hammerstein together for their first collaboration; on how Rouben Mamoulian and Agnes de Mille became the director and choreographer; on the drafts and revisions that led the show toward its final shape; and on the rehearsals and tryouts that brought it to fruition. It also examines the lofty aspirations and the mythmaking that surrounded Oklahoma! from its very inception, and demonstrates just what made it part of its times.

Oklahoma!, “Lousy Publicity,” and the Politics of Formal Integration in the American Musical Theater

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
James O'Leary
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Formal Concept ◽  
Yale University ◽  
World War ◽  
Rare Book ◽  
Porgy And Bess ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Theatre Guild ◽  
Creative Team

The achievements of Rodger and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (1943) are well known: since the musical opened, critics have proclaimed it a new version of the genre, distinguished by its “integrated” form, in which all aspects of the production—score, script, costume, set, and choreography—are interrelated and inseparable. Although today many scholars acknowledge that Oklahoma! was not the first musical to implement the concept of integration, the musical is often considered revolutionary. Building on the work of Tim Carter, I use the correspondence and press materials in the Theatre Guild Collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University to situate the idea of integration into two intimately related discourses: contemporary notions of aesthetic prestige and World War II-era politics. By comparing the advertising of Oklahoma! to the Guild’s publicity for its previous musical productions (especially Porgy and Bess, which was labeled integrated in 1935), I demonstrate that press releases from the show’s creative team strategically deployed rhetoric and vocabulary that variously depicted the show as both highbrow and lowbrow, while distancing it from middlebrow entertainment. I then describe how the aesthetic register implied by this tiered rhetoric carried political overtones, connotations that are lost to us today because the word “integration” has become reified as a purely formal concept.

Rotational Form in the Opening Scene of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW DAVIS ◽  
HOWARD POLLACK
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Organizational Strategy ◽  
Opening Scene ◽  
Porgy And Bess ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Theatre Guild ◽  
Genesis A

Although George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess has the reputation of being casually constructed and amenable to cuts, a close look at the unexpurgated opera—including its first scene, the focus of this essay—reveals a through-composed work of considerable architectural complexity. Specifically, the opening scene may be understood as a rotational form—a large-scale organizational strategy in which thematic materials are restated cyclically—exhibiting teleological genesis—a procedure by which the form leads the listener gradually toward a goal-point or climax. In this particular case, two alternating themes eventually conjoin to form the subject of a climactic fugue, thereby closely tracing the scene's dramatic design, in which a craps game degenerates into violence and murder. The presence of rotational form in this scene, among other criteria, suggests that abridged versions of the opera, including the one premiered by New York's Theatre Guild in 1935, need to be reconsidered, especially with regard to the work's motivic, tonal, and formal coherence as well as its proportion and pacing.

From Stage to Screen

Oklahoma! ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 213-253
Author(s):  
Tim Carter
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
Subsequent Stage ◽  
World War ◽  
Location Shooting ◽  
Rodgers And Hammerstein ◽  
Theatre Guild

Oklahoma! was a surprising success on Broadway, and although the Theatre Guild considered other possible creative teams for new musicals, the now-sealed Rodgers and Hammerstein partnership proved hard to resist. A touring company was in place by late summer 1943, and Oklahoma! traveled internationally after the end of World War II (not least, to London’s West End in 1947); meanwhile, the Guild needed to replace cast members leaving one or other productions of the show. In 1953, Rodgers and Hammerstein bought the Guild’s rights to all three of the shows they had done under its auspices (including Carousel and Allegro). In part, this was to maximize their profits from intended film versions. The 1955 film of Oklahoma! took advantage of the new Todd-AO wide-screen process and location shooting to produce a vivid rendition of the show that, however, also needed to be followed, or resisted, in subsequent stage versions.

The Theatre Guild Production of Porgy and Bess

1987 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Hamm
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Porgy And Bess ◽  
Complete Form ◽  
First Time ◽  
Theatre Guild

Recent performances of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess have been based on the uncut score as published by the Gershwin Publishing Corporation, on the assumption that the composer intended it to be played in this "complete" form. Gershwin sent his score to the publisher some months before the New York premiere, mounted by the Theatre Guild on 10 October 1935 after a tryout performance in Boston. Extensive cuts and other changes were made during rehearsals and after Boston, all initiated or approved by Gershwin, who was intimately involved in the production; none of this is reflected in the published score, which was never revised. Five scores used in the Theatre Guild production enable us to reconstruct the opera as it was staged for the first time, in the form in which the composer "intended it to be played" on this occasion, and it is argued that consideration should be given to performing it this way today.

Performers in Catfish Row

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwynne Kuhner Brown
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Porgy And Bess ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theatre Guild ◽  
Successful Production

This chapter challenges the assumption that George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is something done by whites to blacks by highlighting the indispensable, active role played by African American performers in every critically successful production of the opera. Porgy and Bess has been the subject of controversy for decades owing to its depiction of African Americans. Many of the arguments against Gershwin's work casts African Americans as the victims of malevolent or thoughtless white actions. This chapter examines how Porgy and Bess came into being as an opportunity for productive interracial collaboration by focusing on the Theatre Guild production of 1935, one of several postwar productions of Porgy and Bess that have managed to bring performers and the director together. It also considers Gershwin's respect for his cast members as individuals and concludes with a discussion of five case studies that speak of the tension in the relationship between white directorial staff and black performers in Porgy and Bess, including the production of Samuel Goldwyn's 1959 Technicolor film about Catfish Row.

Finding the Right Problems: Some HREM Applications to Interfaces

1984 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 376-379
Author(s):  
D. Cherns
Keyword(s):  
Grain Boundaries ◽  
High Resolution Electron Microscopy ◽  
Boundary Structure ◽  
Atomic Structures ◽  
Grain Boundary Structure ◽  
Resolution Electron ◽  
Point To Point ◽  
The Right ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Better Than

The use of high resolution electron microscopy (HREM) to determine the atomic structure of grain boundaries and interfaces is a topic of great current interest. Grain boundary structure has been considered for many years as central to an understanding of the mechanical and transport properties of materials. Some more recent attention has focussed on the atomic structures of metalsemiconductor interfaces which are believed to control electrical properties of contacts. The atomic structures of interfaces in semiconductor or metal multilayers is an area of growing interest for understanding the unusual electrical or mechanical properties which these new materials possess. However, although the point-to-point resolutions of currently available HREMs, ∼2-3Å, appear sufficient to solve many of these problems, few atomic models of grain boundaries and interfaces have been derived. Moreover, with a new generation of 300-400kV instruments promising resolutions in the 1.6-2.0 Å range, and resolutions better than 1.5Å expected from specialist instruments, it is an appropriate time to consider the usefulness of HREM for interface studies.

Total etch dentin bonding systems: scanning electron microscopy of the resin-dentin hybrid layer

1992 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 1092-1093
Author(s):  
Jorge Perdigao
Keyword(s):  
Composite Resin ◽  
Mechanical Interlocking ◽  
Hybrid Layer ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Dentin Bonding ◽  
Acid Agent ◽  
Bond Strengths ◽  
Main Component ◽  
Bonding Systems ◽  
New Generation

In 1955, Buonocore introduced the etching of enamel with phosphoric acid. Bonding to enamel was created by mechanical interlocking of resin tags with enamel prisms. Enamel is an inert tissue whose main component is hydroxyapatite (98% by weight). Conversely, dentin is a wet living tissue crossed by tubules containing cellular extensions of the dental pulp. Dentin consists of 18% of organic material, primarily collagen. Several generations of dentin bonding systems (DBS) have been studied in the last 20 years. The dentin bond strengths associated with these DBS have been constantly lower than the enamel bond strengths. Recently, a new generation of DBS has been described. They are applied in three steps: an acid agent on enamel and dentin (total etch technique), two mixed primers and a bonding agent based on a methacrylate resin. They are supposed to bond composite resin to wet dentin through dentin organic component, forming a peculiar blended structure that is part tooth and part resin: the hybrid layer.

Low-voltage, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy of polymers

1987 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 466-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Krause ◽  
W.W. Adams ◽  
S. Kumar ◽  
T. Reilly ◽  
T. Suziki
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscopy ◽  
Low Voltage ◽  
Chromatic Aberration ◽  
Image Resolution ◽  
Resolution Limit ◽  
Crossover Point ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Beam Damage ◽  
Scanning Electron

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of polymers at routine operating voltages of 15 to 25 keV can lead to beam damage and sample image distortion due to charging. Imaging polymer samples with low accelerating voltages (0.1 to 2.0 keV), at or near the “crossover point”, can reduce beam damage, eliminate charging, and improve contrast of surface detail. However, at low voltage, beam brightness is reduced and image resolution is degraded due to chromatic aberration. A new generation of instruments has improved brightness at low voltages, but a typical SEM with a tungsten hairpin filament will have a resolution limit of about 100nm at 1keV. Recently, a new field emission gun (FEG) SEM, the Hitachi S900, was introduced with a reported resolution of 0.8nm at 30keV and 5nm at 1keV. In this research we are reporting the results of imaging coated and uncoated polymer samples at accelerating voltages between 1keV and 30keV in a tungsten hairpin SEM and in the Hitachi S900 FEG SEM.

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