The Rodgers & Hammerstein was founded by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II more than half a century ago to supervise their own productions, including Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. The organization branched out into producing plays and musicals by others, including Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, John Van Druten's I Remember Mama (later musicalized with a Rodgers score), and the 1947 revival of Hammerstein and Jerome Kern's Show Boat.
Today, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization represents a wide variety of entertainment copyrights through its theatrical, concert and music publishing divisions. R&H is proud not only to represent the words of Rodgers & Hammerstein, but also Irving Berlin and works by Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, Kurt Weil, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Leiber & Stoller, Randy Newman, Harry Chapin, Michael Legrand, Duke Ellington and others. Among its recent Broadway productions are Tony Award winning Best Musical Revivals of Carousel (1994) - which is currently in another revival on Broadway, Show Boat (1995), The King and I (1996), and Annie Get Your Gun (1999). Recent TV and film projects have included the ABC/Disney remake of Cinderella (1997), the film of the National Theatre of Great Britain's award-winning Oklahoma! (1999, and on Broadway in 2002), and South Pacific starring Glenn Close for ABC (2001). The R&H Organization has also overseen milestone commemorations including 50th Anniversary celebrations for Oklahoma! (1993) and South Pacific (1999), and Centennial campaigns for Lorenz Hart (1995), Oscar Hammerstein II (1995), and Richard Rodgers (2002).
The Character of Cinderella
The character of Cinderella has sometimes been criticized as a poor role model for young woman: a limp, passive figure, waiting for her prince to carry her off into happily-ever-after. However, in contrast to other fairy tale heroines like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, who literally sleep through much of the action, Cinderella is a very dynamic character. She possesses strong, positive qualities such as optimism, patience, imagination and strength of character. In Rodgers & Hammerstein’s version of the story, Cinderella is, admittedly, a daydreamer, escaping from the reality of her dreary life into the “pale, pink mist of a foolish dream,” as her Godmother says. Yet her dreams don’t involve being rescued by a handsome prince, nor are they limited by her own experience. She imagines herself not only as a princess, but as a milkmaid, an opera singer, a fashionable heiress, a slave, a queen, a mermaid, and a hunter on a safari (without a gun) in such places as Norway, Italy, Peru and Africa. Her imagination ranges freely, taking her around the world and then allowing her to gladly return to her real, if imperfect, life. Cinderella is confident of finding a life for herself that is more fulfilling than the one she has. Sure, she gets a makeover and encouragment from her Godmother, but int he end it is Cinderella herself who determines her own destiny.
