Oklahoma!

February 8-10 and 15-17 |7:30
February 11 and 18 | 2:00

Music by Richard Rodgers
Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Based on the play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs
Directed by Meaghan Deiter

Eight decades ago, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II ushered in the golden age of musical theatre with their first collaboration on Broadway.  Oklahoma! has permeated popular culture over and over again in the years since.  Set early in the twentieth century, when Oklahoma was a still a territory on the brink of statehood, with as yet unresolved tensions between cowboys representing the remnants of the rambunctious Wild West and ranchers embracing the virtues of settling down to a more conventional future, the musical parallels Oklahoma’s growth into an exciting new melded identity with the coming of age of four young people trying to work out who they are.  Meaghan Deiter’s dynamic production will embrace the original story while balancing the time period with a modern feminist perspective.

The Department of Theatre and Dance