Rodgers And Hammerstein

Rodgers and Hammerstein's made-for-television Cinderella won't ever be confused with Oklahoma or Carousel as a classic of the musical stage. But a bright, attractive retelling of the fairy tale it is, and one can hardly keep from humming along with the breezy score which contains tunes such as "In My Own Little Corner," "It's Possible," "Ten Minutes Ago," and "Do I Love You?" Having opened Cinderella on Sunday afternoon, Children's Theatre of Annapolis is poised for a four-performance run this weekend, and families looking for a pre-Christmas treat would do well to seek it out. For starters, the show is exceptionally well-cast.

Not only did guest director Cindy Bauchspies help the Arundel Vocal Arts Society bring a warm joyous sound to its spring concert, but her regular job provided the choristers access to a performance venue. The concert was held May 7 at the new Center for the Arts at Severn Run, at least in part thanks to Bauchspies, director of the Annapolis Area Christian School choirs. The Arundel Vocal Arts chorus provided a decidedly festive atmosphere that was enhanced by an appreciative audience.

In its 1994 Tony Award-winning revival, Britain's Royal National Theatre unearthed a deeper, darker dimension in Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic "Carousel."You won't find that darker sensibility in Cockpit in Court's rendition, but you will find strong performances, dramatically and especially vocally.Beginning with the opening image of a revolving carousel and continuing with the sideshow acts that are announced during the overture, director Braxton Peters sticks to a more traditionally bright approach.

As the king himself might put it, there's a lot of "etc., etc., etc." in The King and I. Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical works best when it's showcased with all the trimmings. It demands opulence and splendor. And Kenneth Foy's red, gold and black set and Roger Kirk's glittery, silk, Tony Award-winning costumes meet those demands. But at its core, as the title indicates, The King and I is the story of two people - the headstrong king of 1860s Siam (now Thailand) and the equally headstrong British teacher he hires to instruct his children.

That the musical State Fair gets lost in the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon is hardly a shock, since it's surrounded by the likes of Oklahoma!, Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific and The Sound of Music. But despite being one of the runts of the Rodgers and Hammerstein litter, the musical tale of the Frake family's visit to the Iowa State Fair of 1946 - being presented at the Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park in a Merely Players production - is not without its charms. The well-scrubbed, all-American story of blue-ribbon boars, liquor-filled mincemeat and love lost and found on the midway by the two Frake siblings is serviceable enough, and the songs, including "It's a Grand Night for Singing," "It Might As Well Be Spring" and "Isn't It Kinda' Fun" aren't slouchy in the least.

A bevy of musicals and the Broadway tryout of a new one-woman show about Tallulah Bankhead, starring Kathleen Turner, will highlight the 2000-2001 Mechanic Theatre season. "What I'm really trying to do is get us back into pre-Broadway, back into the incubation process," said Michael J. Brand, executive director of the Mechanic. With six shows, the season will have one less subscription offering than the current season, which opened with the unconventional "Tony n' Tina's Wedding," presented at Scarlett Place, where it is now in its fifth month (see below)

A Rodgers and Hammerstein chestnut might seem an unlikely choice for Washington's Arena Stage, but South Pacific isn't merely a romantic musical comedy. Thematically, it deals with racial prejudice, imperiled freedom and war - weighty issues that are disturbingly timely today. Admittedly, this 1949 musical showcases one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's plummiest scores ("Some Enchanted Evening," "Younger Than Springtime" and "A Wonderful Guy" are just three of its gems). And it takes place in the type of lush island setting for which the term "tropical splendor" was coined.

OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II was born a century ago this summer, but the idyllic America that he and Richard Rodgers celebrated in the Broadway musicals of my childhood sometimes seems to belong to an even more distant past."

Midway through its second season, Standing O announced Altar Boyz had to be replaced because of casting problems, leading artistic director Ron Giddings to substitute it with the humorously (and redundantly) titled The Musical of Musicals: The Musical. Having premiered off-Broadway in 2005, Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart's parody of five major Broadway composers met Standing O's criteria of introducing recent exceptional theater works to this area. This choice qualified as its funniest show yet - a musical comedy that evokes laughs laced with nostalgia.

From a controversial performance artist to Rodgers and Hammerstein, from the gritty sensibility of Eric Bogosian to a hit musical about a sinking ship, area theaters will usher in the new century with a little of everything this season.Musical lovers have a mix of old and new to choose from, starting at the Lyric Opera House on Sept. 21, when Richard Chamberlain plays Captain von Trapp in the Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music." In December, Maury Yeston and Peter Stone's 1997 Tony Award-winning musical, "Titanic," sails into the Mechanic Theatre, which will also present the 1998 Tony-winning revival of Kander and Ebb's "Cabaret" next June.