A Grand Night for Singing

Taste and imagination, the two key ingredients for a first-rate revue, abound in this fresh take on the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon, conceived by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie. Over three decades after the duo’s final collaboration, The Sound of Music, took Broadway by storm, this new R&H musical opened the 1994 Broadway season with flair and distinction, garnering wildly enthusiastic notices and earning two Tony nominations, including Best Musical.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein may never have imagined “Shall We Dance?” as a comic pas de deux for a towering beauty and her diminutive admirer, nor might they have suspected that one day a lovelorn young lad might pose the musical question, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” But that’s precisely the kind of invention lavished upon this new revue, with innovative musical arrangements, including a sultry Andrews Sisters-esque “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” a swingin’ “Honeybun” worthy of the Modernaires, and a jazzy “Kansas City,” proving how terrifically up-to-date the remarkable songs of R&H remain.