Cowboy Safety Design Process by Richard Rodgers

Cowboy Safety Design Process by Richard Rodgers? Do you mean the Richard Rodgers of Rodgers and Hammerstein? Yep!

Here it is.

"Our first meeting on the project that eventually became known as OKLAHOMA! took place at my home in Connecticut. We sat under the huge oak tree and tossed ideas around. What kind of songs were we going to write? Where would they go? Who would sing them? What special texture and mood should the show have?

We had many such sessions until we became thoroughly familiar
not only with every aspect of the play but with each other's outlook and approach as well. Fortunately we were in agreement on all major issues, so that when we finally did begin putting words and notes on paper - which didn't occur until we'd gone through weeks of discussions - we each were able to move ahead at a steady pace.

The first problem was, appropriately, how to open the show. We didn't want to begin with anything obvious, such as a barn dance with everyone a-whoopin and a-hollerin'. After much thought and talk, we simply went to the way Lynn Riggs had opened his play, with a woman seated alone on the stage churning butter. For the lyric of the first song, Oscar developed his theme from the description that Riggs had written as an introduction to the scene.

This was all Oscar's poetic imagination needed to produce his lines about cattle standing like statues, the corn as high as an elephant's eye, and the bright golden haze on the meadow. When I read them for the first time I could see those cattle and that corn and bright golden haze vividly. How prophetic were Oscar's words I've got a beautiful feelin'/Everything's goin' my way.

By opening the show with the woman alone onstage and the cowboy beginning his song offstage, we did more than set a mood, we were in fact, warning the audience, 'Watch out! This is a different kind of musical.'"

I cannot imagine what the play would have been like if Rodgers and Hammerstein had used the technical approach used by most safety plan designers.

David Sneed