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Sophie Dewey

Clairnet

This is Sophie’s first show with the Goochland Drama Department! She is very excited to be playing in the pit! She is a part of the GHS concert and jazz band and also participates in marching band! Outside of school, she likes to read and bake! She hopes you enjoy the show!

Richard Rodgers

Composer

Richard Rodgers'  career spanned more than six decades. He wrote more than 900 published songs and 40 Broadway musicals.

Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and Lorenz Hart (1895-1943) wrote their first shows together when both were still students attending Columbia University. Their breakthrough came with the score for a 1925 charity show, The Garrick Gaieties, which introduced "Manhattan."

For the next two decades Richard Rodgers collaborated exclusively with Oscar Hammerstein II on such musicals as Carousel, South Pacific, The King And I, and The Sound of Music.

After Hammerstein's death in 1960, Rodgers continued to write for the musical stage, including No Strings, and collaborations with Martin Charnin, Stephen Sondheim and Sheldon Harnick. His fortieth, and final, Broadway musical, I Remember Mama, opened on Broadway less than eight months before his death on December 30, 1979.

The Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway was renamed in his honor.

Oscar Hammerstein II

Lyricist and Playwright

Oscar Hammerstein II was born on July 12, 1895 in New York City. His father, William, was a theatre manager and his grandfather, Oscar Hammerstein, a famous opera impresario. Hammerstein started writing lyrics for the Columbia University Varsity shows while studying law. 

Hammerstein found his niche with some of the greatest composers of his day, including Jerome Kern, with whom he wrote Show Boat. The Rodgers & Hammerstein partnership began with Oklahoma! (1943). Oklahoma! was also the start of the most successful partnership in Broadway history and was followed by Carousel, South Pacific, The King And I, and The Sound of Music.

He received many personal honors and awards including two Pulitzer Prizes, two Academy Awards and five Tony Awards. Oscar Hammerstein II died at his farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on the morning of August 23, 1960.