The 2008 Broadway revival, a critical success, ran for 996 performances and won seven Tonys, including Best Musical Revival.Īlthough book editor and university instructor James Michener could have avoided military service in World War II as a birthright Quaker, he enlisted in the U.S. The show has enjoyed many successful revivals and tours, spawning a 1958 film and television adaptations. Its original cast album was the bestselling record of the 1940s, and other recordings of the show have also been popular. The production won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Libretto, and it is the only musical production to win Tony Awards in all four acting categories. Several of its songs, including ' Bali Ha'i', ' I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair', ' Some Enchanted Evening', ' There Is Nothing Like a Dame', ' Happy Talk', ' Younger Than Springtime', and ' I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy', have become popular standards. Especially in the Southern U.S., its racial theme provoked controversy, for which its authors were unapologetic. The piece won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950.

After they signed Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin as the leads, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote several of the songs with the particular talents of their stars in mind. The original Broadway production enjoyed immense critical and box-office success, became the second-longest running Broadway musical to that point (behind Rodgers and Hammerstein's earlier Oklahoma! (1943)), and has remained popular ever since. The director of the original production, Logan, assisted him and received credit as co-writer of the book. Because he lacked military knowledge, Hammerstein had difficulty writing that part of the script. Supporting characters, including a comic petty officer and the Tonkinese girl's mother, help to tie the stories together. The issue of racial prejudice is candidly explored throughout the musical, most controversially in the lieutenant's song, ' You've Got to Be Carefully Taught'. Marine lieutenant and a young Tonkinese woman, explores his fears of the social consequences should he marry his Asian sweetheart. The plot centers on an American nurse stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II, who falls in love with a middle-aged expatriate French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed-race children. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed they could write a musical based on Michener's work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, send a strong progressive message on racism. Michener's Pulitzer Prize–winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific and combines elements of several of those stories. The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway and was an immediate hit, running for 1,925 performances. South Pacific is a musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. Today it has become important to remind people of the message of this song once again, and you sure getting the chance to carry that message.2008 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical While the show was on a tour of the Southern United States, lawmakers in Georgia introduced a bill outlawing entertainment containing 'an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow.' One legislator said that 'a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life.' Rodgers and Hammerstein defended their work strongly. James Michener, upon whose stories South Pacific was based, recalled, 'The authors replied stubbornly that this number represented why they had wanted to do this play, and that even if it meant the failure of the production, it was going to stay in.' In particular, 'You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught' was subject to widespread criticism, judged by some to be too controversial or downright inappropriate for the musical stage.Sung by the character Lieutenant Cable, the song is preceded by a line saying racism is 'not born in you! It happens after you’re born.' Rodgers and Hammerstein risked the entire South Pacific venture in light of legislative challenges to its decency or supposed Communist agenda. South Pacific received scrutiny for its commentary regarding relationships between different races and ethnic groups. Congratulations! South Pacific won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950, and one of the songs Cable sings is one of the main reasons, and one of the most important songs in the history of musical theater - You've Got To Be Carefully Taught:

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