I never knew Rodgers or Hammerstein, but I've had wonderful interactions with former President Ted Chapin, and with longtime R&H music director Bruce Pomahac, one of the true sages and keepers of the flame of the R&H legacy. We lost Bruce in 2022. Here's a lovely elegy for him written by Ted: https://www.americantheatre.org/2022/05/10/bruce-pomahac-attention-to-detail-and-to-good-stories/

I've also always felt a deep affinity for Trude Rittmann, who was Richard Rodgers' secret weapon -- she was the dance and sometimes vocal arranger on every R&H show except Oklahoma and Flower Drum Song. More on her when I have time!

And finally, to me, Oscar Hammerstein was perhaps the truest example of craft and grace. He lived and breathed the theater. He was also astonishingly progressive in his worldview and politics. I know that there are those that consider his work "old-fashioned". They fail to look at the world through the lens of the moment in which he existed, which is the only way we can understand a person and their life and work. Is there anything more beautifully crafted than "Shall We Dance?". It is theater at its finest.

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