Oklahoma at Orpheum Theatre
Cradle to grave. You gotta be hearty. You gotta be tough. Because the sweet and tender things in life happen to those who are tough, because the sweet and tender things in life can happen and they’re too wonderful to miss.
“The hottest ticket in town.” – Adam Rathe, Town & Country
“A revelation. A bold reimagining you might almost mistake this for a new work.” – David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
“Grade: A. A stunning and radical theatrical experience.” – Tom Gliatto, Entertainment Weekly
Tony Award Winner for Best Revival of a Musical and Critically Acclaimed Smash-Hit, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oaklahoma! Comes to the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. This is OKLAHOMA! as you’ve never seen or heard it before, reimagined for the 21st century, it looks and sounds like America today. It’s funny and sexy, provocative and probing, “A smashing Oklahoma! is reborn. Daniel Fish’s wide-awake and altogether wonderful production is thrilling!” Says, The New York Times. Recommended for children ages 12 and up. This production contains fog, loud gunshot effects, moments of darkness and violence.
“Daniel Fish’s wide-awake and altogether wonderful production of OKLAHOMA! is as stimulating—and as fresh—as last night’s fever dream. This is Oklahoma! for an era in which longstanding American legacies are being examined with newly skeptical eyes. This isn’t an act of plunder, but of reclamation. Astonishing.” – Ben Brantley, The New York Times
Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, Oklahoma! tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie. A story of a community circling its wagons against an outsider, and the violence of the frontier that shaped America. Upending the sunny romance of a farmer and a cowpoke, this is Oklahoma!
The Bard Summerscape production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! With music by Richard Rodgers, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, original choreography by Agnes De Mille, orchestrations and arrangements and music supervision Daniel Kluger, choreography by John Heginbotham, scenic design by Laura Jellinek, costume design by Terese Wadden, lighting design by Scott Zielinski, sound design by Drew Levy, projection design by Joshua Thorson, music direction and additional vocal arrangements Nathan Koci, directed by Daniel Fish.
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs’ 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs and was originally choreographed by Agnes de Mille. The original production, which premiered on Broadway at the St. James Theatre, New York in March 1943 during WWII, and is largely credited with being the first musical to fully integrate its book, score, and choreography towards advancing the plot. In 1944, the Broadway production won a special Pulitzer Prize, and in 1955 Oklahoma was adapted into an Oscar winning film.
This production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! was originally developed, produced, and premiered at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in July 2015. It was subsequently developed and produced by St. Ann’s Warehouse and Eva Price at the Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Theater, Brooklyn, NY, Fall 2018.
