Refining the tastes of broadway audiences: The theatre guild and American musical theatre

Abstract

Founded in 1919, the Theatre Guild promoted challenging theatre, including musical theatre. Their first musical production, The Garrick Gaieties (1925), introduced the music of Rodgers and Hart to Broadway. The Guild produced Porgy and Bess (1935), several Rodgers and Hammerstein shows in the 1940s (Oklahoma!, Carousel, and Allegro), and a handful of successful musicals in the 1950s and 1960s, including Bells are Ringing and The Unsinkable Molly Brown.