Bio
Suzanne Carbonneau
A critic, essayist, and historian, Suzanne Carbonneau's writings have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other publications. She is Director of the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Dance, and she is Critic-in-Residence at the American Dance Festival. Ms. Carbonneau is Scholar-in-Residence at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and the Bates Dance Festival and she lectures and writes for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Ms. Carbonneau holds a Ph.D. from New York University and is Professor of Performance at George Mason University. Her biography of choreographer Paul Taylor will be published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Carbonneau is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Theodore S. Chapin
President and Executive Director of Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization: An Imagem Company, Theodore S. Chapin is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors for the American Theater Wing. Mr. Chapin has also been Chairman of the Advisory Committee for New York City Center's Encores! series since its inception, and serves on several boards including Goodspeed Musicals, Connecticut College, and City Center. He served as a Tony Awards nominator for two seasons, and is currently a member of the Tony Administration Committee. His career began as production or directorial assistant for the Broadway productions of Follies, The Rothschilds and The Unknown Soldier and His Wife, as well as Bernstein's Mass at the Kennedy Center, and Candide in San Francisco.
As Associate to Alan Arkin, he worked on the original Broadway production of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, Twigs starring Carol Burnett (CBS); and Neil Cuthbert's The Soft Touch. He was Musical Director for the National Theatre of the Deaf's production of Four Saints in Three Acts, and Producer of the Musical Theatre Lab. His book
Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical "Follies," was published by Alfred A. Knopf (fall 2003), and in paperback by Applause Books (spring 2005).
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Encyclopædia Britannica Articles
- Hammerstein, Oscar, II
(born July 12, 1895, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Aug. 23, 1960, Doylestown, Pa.) U.S. lyricist, musical-comedy author, and producer. Grandson of the opera impresario Oscar Hammerstein (1846–1919), he studied law at Columbia University before beginning his theatre career. Among his early musicals are Rose Marie (1924; music by Rudolf Friml), The Desert Song (1925; music by Sigmund Romberg), and the Jerome Kern musicals Sunny (1925) and Show Boat (1927), the latter a musical theatre landmark. In the early 1940s he began a famous collaboration with Richard Rodgers; the two soon became the preeminent figures in the American musical theatre, creating among others Oklahoma! (1943, Pulitzer Prize), Carousel (1945), State Fair (1945), South Pacific (1949, Pulitzer Prize), The King and I (1951), and The Sound of Music (1959). They formed the publishing firm Williamson Music, and from 1949 were theatrical producers as well.
- Hammerstein, Oscar, II on britannica.com
- Rodgers, Richard
(born June 28, 1902, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Dec. 30, 1979, New York City) U.S. composer. Rodgers studied at Columbia University, where he met his future collaborator Lorenz Hart, and he later studied composition at the Institute of Musical Art. His first success with Hart (who wrote lyrics) was a revue, The Garrick Gaieties (1925). Their comedy On Your Toes (1936), with the jazz ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, established serious dance as a permanent part of musical comedy. Among their other collaborations were Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys from Syracuse (1938), and Pal Joey (1940), which was revived in 1952 with great success. After Hart's death, Rodgers worked with librettist Oscar Hammerstein. Their Oklahoma! (1943, Pulitzer Prize) enjoyed a then-unprecedented Broadway run of 2,248 performances; their 17-year partnership produced successes such as South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951), and The Sound of Music (1959) and made them the foremost team in the history of the American musical.
- Rodgers, Richard on britannica.com
© 2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
