"Following the success of their first collaboration, Oklahoma! (1943), composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II worked again with producers Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner, director Rouben Mamoulian, and choreographer Agnes de Mille to put on a very different kind of show. Based on the play Liliom (1909) by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár, Carousel (1945) took Broadway musical theater in a far darker direction than it had gone before with its gritty plot, anti-hero protagonist, and extensive music that critics claimed came close to opera. Carousel transplants the themes of Molná's play into a new setting on the New England coast, telling the story of two social misfits struggling to survive harsh economic times : Julie Jordan defies the conventions of small-town America in her choice of a husband, and Billy Bigelow--unemployed and prone to domestic violence--dies in the course of committing a robbery. Author Tim Carter examines how this troubling subject matter fits into the context of a country moving through the end of World War II to an uncertain future, and how Carousel transformed the American musical on stage and screen." -- Back cover.