“What is the place of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, in the history of the American theatre? The easiest answer is to paraphrase the reply Jerome Kern gave to the question, ‘What place does Irving Berlin have in American music?’ Kern said, ‘Berlin doesn’t have any place in American music. He is American music.’ Certainly, from Oklahoma in 1943 to The Sound of Music in 1959, Rodgers and Hammerstein were the American musical theatre. And their success was, and still is, one that is unmatched by any other creators of American musical plays.” —Tony Thomas, 1987
Interviews conducted for a radio documentary on the radio network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, February 1960.
