Carousel

"Carousel" opened on april 19th, 1945. It was based on Ferenc Molnar's "Liliom," which had had its original American production in 1921, and had been revived twice. Theresa Helburn of the New Nork Theater Guild thought it would make a good musical but Molnar wouldn't agree to any changes. Finally, after seeing "OKLAHOMA!" he said he'd allow it only if Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote it. So they did.

"Carousel" ran 890 performances here and 566 in London with a different cast. It was made into a movie starring Gordon Macrae, and was revived very successfully in 1965 at Lincoln Center.