Reminiscences of Richard Rodgers

Abstract The longest selection in the Reader is excerpted from an extended interview with Kenneth Leish, arranged in twelve parts (392 double-spaced pages of typescript and a two-page index of names). Although only the first four parts include dates, It is clear from references to current productions at places like the Music Theater at Lincoln Center that the final portions of the interview did not extend much beyond Summer and Fall 1968.* In a portion of the Reminiscences not reprinted here readers learn that the press suppressed Hart’s excessive drinking as well as his homosexuality, not because Rodgers threatened the publisher of a scandal rag when confronted with questions about Hart’s sexuality, but “because the newspaper people were all crazy about him” (p. 200}. Also in this section Rodgers discloses that For the archivally curious this footnote offers topics, dates (when provided in the interviews), and page numbers for each section: (I) Rodgers’s current activities (December I4, I967), I-39; (2) Background (December I9, I967), 40-84; (3) Producing Avanti and The Garrick Gaieties through A Connecticut Yankee (February 2I, I968), 85-u8; (4) I927-I932 (March I, I968), II9-43; (5) I932-I936, I44-67; (6) Working with Hart, I68-203 [marked on the title page “closed during lifetime”]; (7) Pal Joey and Oklahoma!, 204-46; (8) State Fair and Carousel, 247-78; (9) Allegro and South Pacific, 279-307; (IO) The King and I, Victory at Sea, and Me and Juliet, 308-36; (II) Pipe Dream and The Sound of Music, 337-62; (I2) After Hammerstein, 363-92.