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Broadway Guy

"Carousel" is on tomorrow night! Get ready. The stats:

*Unlike "South Pacific," "Sound of Music," and "Oklahoma!" .... "Carousel" has a plot in which the two leads don't happily skip off together. They marry too soon, and the guy becomes abusive (and this is a thing that sometimes shows a correlation with marrying very young) .....and the guy dies in a foolish way. And all of this happens well before the story ends!

*"Carousel" is based on a play, and in that play, blossoms fall from a tree. The characters attribute this to the wind. But Oscar Hammerstein had a better idea. He had one character say: "Actually, there isn't any wind tonight." And a famous response: "I guess it's just their time." Cosmic mysteries! Goosebumps!

*The famous "Carousel Waltz" that opens the show came from some scraps that Richard Rodgers had sitting around. Aha! I'll just paste these together and make the "Carousel Waltz"--!

*This was Rodgers's favorite of all his works. A young Stephen Sondheim saw the show in New Haven, and he cried so much on Mrs. Hammerstein's shoulder, he ruined Mrs. Hammerstein's fur coat.

*Let's be clear: This is a show about oppression, poverty, human frailty, anger, confusion, community, work, regret, deep sadness, and solitude. And it's a musical! It's an old musical! Happening at the right time. Tomorrow night -- from those good folks at the New York Philharmonic. Tune in!

https://www.playbill.com/article/lincoln-center-will-stream-kelli-ohara-and-jessie-mueller-in-carousel-nathan-lane-in-the-nance-santino-fontana-in-act-one
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