Typed Letter Signed to Johnny Green

Typed letter signed ("Dick") from the important American composer to fellow songwriter Johnny Green, mentioning A Connecticut Yankee, Oklahoma, and State Fair, as well as reporting on family news and hinting at the next project of Carousel. May 12, 1944; 2 pp. 2 sheets hole-punched at the head, in fine condition. 7.25 x 10.5 inches (18.3 x 26.7 cm).

Rodgers thanks Green for his letter and congratulates him on "the number of pictures you seem to be working on consecutively and simultaneously. I wouldn't mind what you call a 'dash up to San Francisco' myself but I'll have to be content with a dash out to Milwaukee to see A CONNECTICUT YANKEE and a dash to Chicago from there to see OKLAHOMA. This is by no means a complaint. Things are going very well hereabouts. The Pulitzer people made us pretty happy and the YANKEE is doing very well on tour. About OKLAHOMA there is nothing new to report whatsoever." He goes on to give family news, including that his daughter Linda "has moved on to the Bach Two Part Inventions and that is a major gratification to me." and continues: "Due to Oscar's operation, from which he is now fully recovered, STATE FAIR has been delayed once more and at this point there is no way of telling when I'll be going to the coast. As you probably know we are producing a dramatization of 'Mama's Bank Account' which Johnny van Druten's doing for us. Following that we will do a musical version of LILIOM. That will be a tough problem, of course, but it should be fun at the same time."

Carousel, based on Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, with the setting transplanted from Budapest to the coast of Maine, opened on Broadway in 1945. The adaptation of the play Mama's Bank Account was not to come to fruition until 1979, just at the end of Rodger's life, as the unsuccessful musical I Remember Mama. (17424)

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