Creating a Show
This image shows Richard Rodgers and his partner Lorenz Hart collaborating with producer Dwight Deere Wiman on the music for By Jupiter. Unless producers are putting on a variety show or a jukebox musical where the show is based on pre-existing songs, shows will start with a story that unfolds over multiple acts, interspersed with songs audience members continue to hum long after the show is over.
While some shows come from original ideas, many are loosely based on existing material. Some of the most popular musicals are based on existing enduring stories. My Fair Lady retells the Pygmalion myth. Into the Woods combines fairy tales into a musical comedy. The Sound of Music is one of the best-known musicals and based on a real family under European political strife during Nazi rule in 1930s Austria. And Richard Rodgers is one of the best-known composers of these musicals.
