Music by Richard RodgersBook and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Based on the Play Liliom by Ferenc Molnar as adapted by Benjamin F. GlazerOriginal Choreography by Agnes de Mille
In a Maine coastal village toward the end of the 19th century, a swaggering, carefree carnival barker, Billy Bigelow, captivates and marries a gentle millworker, Julie Jordan. Billy loses his job just as he learns that Julie is pregnant and, desperately intent upon providing a decent life for his family, he is coerced into being an accomplice to a robbery. Caught in the act and facing the certainty of prison, he takes his own life and is sent ‘up there.’ Billy is allowed to return to earth for one day 15 years later, and he encounters the daughter he never knew. She is a lonely, friendless teenager, her father's reputation as a thief and bully having haunted her throughout her young life. Billy instills a sense of hope and dignity in both the child and her mother in a dramatic testimony to the power of love.
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Richard Rodgers' contribution to the musical theatre of his day was extraordinary, and his influence on the musical theatre of today and tomorrow is legendary. His career spanned more than six decades, his hits ranging from the silver screens of Hollywood to the bright light ...
Oscar Hammerstein II was born on July 12, 1895 in New York City. His father, William, was a theatre manager and for many years director of Hammerstein's Victoria, the most popular vaudeville theatre of its day. His uncle, Arthur Hammerstein, was a successful Broadway producer ...
Ferenc Molnar (1878-1952), Hungarian playwright and novelist, was born in Budapest. Several of his plays were presented on the New York City stage, and all were successes, including The Guardsman, Lilliom, The Swan, The Glass Slipper and The Play's the Thing. In 1928, English ...
Benjamin Glazer (1888 - 1956) won two Oscars for his screenplays Seventh Heaven and Arise My Love. One of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a lifetime member, Glazer was once a producer of early Bing Crosby musicals at Paramount Studios incl ...
Although Agnes de Mille (1905-1993) seemed destined to perform on Broadway, since her paternal grandfather, father, and uncle, Cecil B. de Mille, were all successful writers and actors involved in the theater, she avoided the easy path to Great White Way. Instead, she struggl ...
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