AS CLOSE TO PERFECTION AS MUSICAL THEATRE GETS

Music by Richard Rodgers,
Book & Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein ll
Based on Ferenc Molnar’s play Liliom as
adapted by Benjamin F. Glazer

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s own favourite musical, Carousel is set in a Maine coastal village, where the swaggering, carefree carnival barker, Billy Bigelow, captivates and marries naive millworker, Julie Jordan. After losing his job, Billy 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 to heaven. Bill is allowed to return to earth for one day to meet the daughter he never knew.

Carousel is the most poetic of all Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musicals, the score includes the popular songs If I loved You, June is Bustin’ Out all Over, Soliloquy and the inspirational You’ll Never Walk Alone.