Rodgers and Hammerstein still enchant
Heather Kopp gets a special tingle when she hears “People Will Say We’re In Love” — the great Rodgers and Hammerstein duet from “Oklahoma!”
“It resonates with me because that’s where I met my husband,” the Sarasotabased actress says brightly. It was during a 2008 production at a theater in Bradenton. Kopp was playing Laurey, the heroine; her future husband played her love interest, Curly.
“We were the couple making a big deal about ‘kissing day’” — the occasionally awkward first time two performers kiss in rehearsal — says Kopp, rolling her eyes at the memory.
Actor Dustin Cunningham has his own Rodgers and Hammerstein love story. “My wife and I co-directed a production of ‘South Pacific’ in college so it has always been special to me,” he says.
But the glory of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II is that you don’t need such personal stories to feel a connection to their great works: “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
Kopp and Cunningham are among the performers saluting the musical-theater legends in “Some Enchanted Evening,” a revue opening today at Winter Park Playhouse.
“For most people, they are the very foundation of musical theater,” says Kopp of the men who also created songs for such classics as “The King & I,” “Carousel” and “The Sound of Music.”
“I’ve been in love with Rodgers and Hammerstein since I was a young boy,” says Cunningham, of Windermere. His first musical role was as leading man Emile De Becque’s son in “South Pacific.” Years later, he would play Emile.
“Yes, I’ve actually played my own father onstage,” he laughs.
Most musical-theater actors will at some point in their career end up singing Rodgers and Hammerstein — because their works, written in the 1940s and ’50s, endure.
Hammerstein died in 1960; Rodgers in 1979.
“I think thematically they were ahead of their time,” says Cunningham, referencing 1949’s “South Pacific,” which overtly urges racial tolerance.
“That storyline was very touchy at the time,” he says, “and it still strikes a chord in the pulse of America.”
The Playhouse’s revue, conceived in the 1980s by Jeffrey B. Moss, presents beloved songs in a new way — perhaps a man singing something written for a woman.
“You get a lot of these songs that find new life when sung by a different character,” Cunningham says. “And you can find new uses for songs that got overshadowed by the bigger hits.”
The show also features Natalie Cordone, Kevin Kelly and Monica Titus. Roy Alan will direct.
There is one danger to hearing songs so ingrained in the American psyche, says Kopp: “They’ll probably have to make an announcement before the show and ask people, ‘For the love of your neighbor, please don’t sing along.’”