Research Catalog

Title

[Interview with Mary Rodgers : raw footage] [videorecording] / [directed by Michael Kantor]

Publication

New York, 1998.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Rodgers, Mary, 1931-2014
• Kantor, Michael, 1961-
• Squires, Buddy
• Broadway Film Project, Inc, donor.
• Thirteen/WNET, donor.

Description

3 videocassettes (VHS) (88 min.) : sd., col. SP; 1/2 in.

Summary

• Raw interview footage used for the documentary Broadway, the American musical. Mary Rodgers, composer of musicals, author of children's books, and daughter of composer Richard Rodgers, discusses her life and career. She begins with her childhood impressions of her father's songwriting partner Lorenz Hart; seeing her first Broadway show Jumbo, starring Jimmy Durante; what Broadway meant to her as a child and what it connotes now; what the musical signifies to her; her father's upbringing in a dysfunctional family in Manhattan's Morris Park neigborhood; Jewish immigrants and their descendents as contributors to the American musical; her father's neuroses; her parent's relationship; her father's atheism; listening to music in their home; her father's unhappiness, which she feels he tried to alleviate by composing music; his dislike of working in Hollywood; his working methods; his three-pack-a-day smoking habit, and his drinking, which she feels was connected with his depression; Hammerstein's nickname "Ockie," by which his wife Dorothy and the Rodgers family referred to him; Rodgers' and Hammerstein's personal relationship, and the relationship between their two families; her father's friendship with his employee Jerry Whyte; her attendance at the girl's school Brearley, which Irving Berlin's daughters also attended, which engendered feelings of rivalry in her.
• Discussion continues on videocassette two with her love of the scores of Rodgers & Hart; her early desire to be a chorus girl; her family's move to Connecticut in 1941, where her father began his collaboration with Hammerstein on the musical Oklahoma!; the show's choreographer Agnes DeMille, whose work featured a realism about sex and life; the nuanced quality of Oklahoma!, and its expression of American patriotism, which she feels resonated with its wartime audience; Rodgers & Hammerstein's decision to write the musical Carousel, after being presented with the idea by Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Theatre Guild; the pathos in DeMille's choreography; the ending of Carousel; the Rodgers & Hammerstein show The king and I, and the evolution of the romance between the King and Anna in the show; her feelings about the Rodgers & Hammerstein show South Pacific, which excited controversy over the song You've got to be carefully taught; her views on the musical West Side story and its score by Leonard Bernstein; her father's unabashed love of sentiment; hearing of Hammerstein's death while in London, and how the British press responded; her experience writing the musical Once upon a mattress, starring Carol Burnett, which she developed at Camp Tamiment, a summer resort near Bushkill, Pennsylvania. The camp was home to the Tamiment Playhouse, which became a major creative outlet for film, stage and television performing artists in the United States, nurturing her artistic work, and that of major entertainment figures like Jerome Robbins, Carol Burnett and Woody Allen. Rodgers then discusses Stephen Sondheim's relationship with her father in comparison with Sondheim's relationship with his mentor Oscar Hammerstein; mentoring and the teaching of theater; the qualities which make the musical an American art form. Lastly, she provides an overview of the musical's evolution since the 1930s musicals of Rodgers & Hart, and discusses the artistry of Sondheim.

Alternative Title

• Broadway, the American musical
• Rodgers interview : Broadway film project
• Harnick/Rodgers interview : Broadway film project
• Mary Rodgers, Comden & Green : Broadway film project

Subjects

• Musical theater > Production and direction
• Sondheim, Stephen
• Rodgers, Mary, 1931-2014 > Family
• Broadway (New York, N.Y.)
• Musical theater > New York (State) > New York
• Hammerstein, Oscar, II, 1895-1960
• Musicals
• Documentaries and factual works
• Composers > Interviews
• Rodgers, Richard, 1902-1979 > Oklahoma!
• Composers > United States
• Unedited footage
• Rodgers, Mary, 1931-2014 > Interviews
• Rodgers, Richard, 1902-1979 > Carousel
• Rodgers, Mary, 1931-2014 > Once upon a mattress
• Theater > New York (State) > New York
• Rodgers, Richard, 1902-1979 > Family

Genre/Form

• Documentaries and factual works.
• Musicals.
• Unedited footage.

Note

• Interview begins at ca. 6 min. on videocassette one.
• This interview is one of a group of interviews with 90 individuals used in making the documentary Broadway, the American musical. The completed production is available on NCOX 2058.
• Credits for completed production from pbs.org: A film by Michael Kantor ; produced by Jeff Dupre, Michael Kantor and Sally Rosenthal ; written by Marc Fields, Michael Kantor, Laurence Maslon, and JoAnne Young ; directed by Michael Kantor.
• Time code on frame.
• Contains various takes, at occasional brief intervals, audio continues without sound.

Credits (note)

• Cameraman: Buddy Squires.

Performer (note)

• Interviewer: Michael Kantor. Interviewee: Mary Rodgers.

Event (note)

• Videotaped in New York, N.Y. on August 6, 1998.

Biography (note)

• Broadway, the American musical, which aired on PBS in October 2004, is a documentary chronicling the entire history of a unique American art form, the Broadway musical. Each of its six episodes covers a different era in American theater history, and features the Broadway shows and songs which defined the period. The series draws on feature films, television broadcasts, archival news footage, original cast recordings, still photos, diaries, journals, first-person accounts, and on-camera interviews with many of the principals involved in the development of the genre.

Call Number

NCOX 2101

OCLC

163165949

Title

[Interview with Mary Rodgers : raw footage] [videorecording] / [directed by Michael Kantor]

Imprint

New York, 1998.

Credits

Cameraman: Buddy Squires.

Performer

Interviewer: Michael Kantor. Interviewee: Mary Rodgers.

Event

Videotaped in New York, N.Y. on August 6, 1998.

Biography

Broadway, the American musical, which aired on PBS in October 2004, is a documentary chronicling the entire history of a unique American art form, the Broadway musical. Each of its six episodes covers a different era in American theater history, and features the Broadway shows and songs which defined the period. The series draws on feature films, television broadcasts, archival news footage, original cast recordings, still photos, diaries, journals, first-person accounts, and on-camera interviews with many of the principals involved in the development of the genre.

Local Note

Gift of Broadway Film Project, Inc. and Thirteen/WNET, 2005.

Connect to:

Request Access to Theatre on Film and Tape Archive Special Collections material

Added Author

Rodgers, Mary, 1931-2014, interviewee.

Kantor, Michael, 1961- interviewer.

Kantor, Michael, 1961- director.

Squires, Buddy, cameraman.

Broadway Film Project, Inc, donor.

Thirteen/WNET, donor.

Research Call Number

NCOX 2101