The Sound of Music Traveling Troupe performance, Oklahoma History Center

The Oklahoma History Center will host a performance from a traveling theatrical troupe currently touring with a production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein hit The Sound of Music on Thursday, November 1, at 9 am. Cast members will perform various selections on the stage in the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!: The Birth of Modern Musical Theatre and a New Image for the State exhibit in the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation Gallery at the History Center. This event is free and open to the public.

The troupe, representing NETworks Presentations®, will be in the metro area with two performances at Oklahoma City Community College on November 2 and 3. “Rodgers and Hammerstein and the state of Oklahoma have enjoyed a long and prosperous relationship, which continues to this day,” said Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. “Having both the extraordinary exhibit on the musical that bears the state’s name—which includes Oscar Hammerstein’s standing desk, at which he wrote all his shows, exhibited for the first time—and the start of the new tour of The Sound of Music just continues the collaboration. There is no reason why the lasting impact of the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein won’t continue—especially in the wonderful state of Oklahoma.”

The Oklahoma History Center’s exhibit Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!: The Birth of Modern Musical Theatre and a New Image for the State celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Broadway production’s debut. The title of the exhibit makes reference to a “New Image for the State.” In 1939 John Steinbeck published his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, a fictional account of the mass migration of thousands of “Okies” from Oklahoma to California in search of jobs, land, dignity and a future in the shadow of the Great Depression. The novel cast an image of hopelessness, bank foreclosures and economic hardship on Oklahoma. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! counteracted this image with its lively musical comedy that, despite a few fight scenes that include an accidental death, portrayed romance, laughter and a spirit of joy in direct contrast to the storyline of The Grapes of Wrath.

NETworks Presentations® is a theatrical production company with more than 20 years of experience in road productions of Broadway and West End musicals, offering financially sustainable shows in any size market to ensure that audiences anywhere may experience a night of Broadway theatre. For more information about this event please call 405-522-0765.