South Pacific Musical History

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South Pacific by Hammerstein the second and Joshua Logan is generally considered to be one of the greatest musicals in history, but this musical wasn’t always a Broadway hit! It first started out as the story line of two short stories by James A. Michener from his Pulitzer prize-winning 1948 book, Tales of the South Pacific. When Director Joshua Logan, a World War two veteran, read Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific he decided what a sensation it would be to adapt it for the stage. He and producer Leland Hayward purchased the rights for the work from Michener; they also asked Richard Rodgers to do the honors of to compose the music and Hammerstein the second to write lyrics and the Libretto of the upcoming musical. Both Rodgers and Hammerstein accepted the job and they began transforming the short, but detailed stories “Fo Dolla” and…show more content…
Being produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein in association with Leland Hayward and Joshua Logan, the production ran for more than five years. At the time it closed on January 16,1954, after 1,925 performances making South Pacific the fifth-longest running show in Broadway history. South Pacific over all won ten Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Libretto, Best Director, and all four acting awards. Being so acclaimed for the musical production, South Pacific was made into a 1958 film by the same name that topped the box office that year, which was nominated for an Academy Award, but also nominated for and won the music-adaption-and-sound award. South Pacific was not only a must see musical, but brought in $2,635,000 and $400,000 in advanced seats. So considering everything that South Pacific had gone through and experienced in its time, I’m sure no matter who you asked to summarize it up in two words they would say its just simply “South

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