SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2:00 PM & 8:00 PM
Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre

Christopher Wilkins, conductor  & Frank McClain, director

Featuring
Michelle Knight as Julie Jordan
Shawn Kilgore as Billy Bigelow

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 TIME magazine named it the best musical of the 20th Century!

In a Maine coastal village toward the end of the 19^th century, the swaggering, carefree carnival barker Billy Bigelow captivates and marries the naïve mill worker Julie Jordan.  Billy loses his job just as he learns that Julie is pregnant and, desperately intent upon providing a decent life for his family, he is coerced into being an accomplice to a robbery.  Caught in the act and facing the certainty of prison, he takes his own life and is sent “up there.”  Billy is allowed to return to earth for one day.  Time being what it is “up there,” 15 years have passed, and he now encounters the teenage daughter he never knew.  She is a lonely, friendless child, her father’s reputation as a thief and bully having haunted her throughout her young life.  How Billy instills in both the child and her mother a sense of hope and dignity is a dramatic testimony to the power of love.

Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár’s 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He attempts a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; when it goes wrong, he has a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs “If I Loved You”, “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite among all his musicals.

Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on another piece, knowing that any resulting work would be compared with Oklahoma!, most likely unfavorably. They were initially reluctant to seek the rights to Liliom; Molnár had refused permission for the work to be adapted in the past, and the original ending was considered too depressing for the musical theatre. After acquiring the rights, the team created a work with lengthy sequences of music and made the ending more hopeful.

The musical required considerable modification during out-of-town tryouts, but once it opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, it was an immediate hit with both critics and audiences. Carousel initially ran for 890 performances and duplicated its success in the West End in 1950. Though it has never achieved as much commercial success as Oklahoma!, the piece has been repeatedly revived, and has been recorded several times. A production by Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in 1992 in London, in 1994 in New York and on tour. In 1999, Time magazine named Carousel the best musical of the 20th century.

You’ll hear songs like “If I Loved You”  &  “You’ll Never Walk Alone”

New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award
Best Musical, 1945–1946

• Best Play of the 1944–45 Season
• Male Lead Performance (Musical) – John Raitt
• Direction (Musical) – Rouben Mamoulian
• Supporting Performance (Dance) – Bambi Linn
• Supporting Performance (Dance) – Peter Birch
• Book, Lyrics and Score – Carousel
• Choreography – Agnes DeMille
• Costume Design – Miles White

– Wikipedia

 Listen to these most beloved songs from Carousel.

Shirley Jones sings “If I Loved You.”             

End of the movie Carousel – cast sings “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

SHOW SYNOPSIS:
Music by RICHARD RODGERS
Lyrics and Book by OSCAR HAMMERTEIN II
Based on FERENC MOLNAR’S Play “Liliom,” as adapted by Benjamin F. Glazier
www.rnhtheatricals.com

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