Rodgers & Hammerstein
The Creation of "Oklahoma!"
How a lyricist without a composer and a composer without a lyricist found each other and created the musical that defined the modern American musical play.
America's Musical Theatre Historian
Over 60 multimedia presentations on the creation of America's most beloved musicals, combining original graphics, archival audio, and scripted narrative into an experience "Talkin' Broadway" called absolute magic.
About Charles Troy
"Absolute magic." — Talkin' Broadway, on a presentation at the York Theatre Company
Charles Troy is a retired graphic designer, former theatre lyricist, and one of America's most acclaimed musical theatre historians. He has developed more than fifty multimedia presentations on the great works of the American musical stage.
His presentations weave original graphics, historic photographs, edited audio tracks with onscreen lyrics, and illustrative video clips into a thoroughly researched narrative, transforming facts into a compelling dramatic story.
Based in the Chicago area, Charles appears regularly at the York Theatre Company in New York City, the Cole Porter Festival in Peru, Indiana, and venues throughout the Midwest and Florida.
The Programs
Each presentation follows the creation story of a landmark musical, from blank page to opening night, with audio clips, photos, and the dramatic turns that shaped theatre history.
Rodgers & Hammerstein
How a lyricist without a composer and a composer without a lyricist found each other and created the musical that defined the modern American musical play.
Lerner & Loewe
Shaw's "Pygmalion" to the most beloved musical of its era: the long and surprising journey of the show that almost never was.
Bock & Harnick
How Jerome Robbins guided his team to find universal truth in Sholom Aleichem's Yiddish stories and built one of the world's most produced musicals.
Stephen Sondheim
Bernstein, Robbins, Laurents, and an unknown 25-year-old Sondheim: the daring collaboration behind Broadway's boldest musical tragedy.
Kander & Ebb
America's first concept musical, and how Bob Fosse's film perfected what Harold Prince began, six years and a transformation later.
MGM / Harold Arlen
Studio intrigue, reversed decisions, and one brilliant uncredited choice: the real story behind the most-watched movie of all time.
Cole Porter
What is a List Song? Troy's selection of Porter's Top Ten, chosen for wit, popularity, and significance, played chronologically with biographical context.
Cole Porter
Porter's love ballads, "Lust Songs," with the story of his secret private life woven through his greatest standards.
George & Ira Gershwin
From "Rhapsody in Blue" in January to "Lady Be Good!" in December: the year that catapulted the brothers to the top of American popular culture.
4-Part Series
Irving Berlin's extraordinary 101-year journey, told across four multimedia programs. Premiered at the York Theatre Company.
2-Part Series
On the Town and Wonderful Town — the two shows that made Bernstein, Comden, and Green legends of the New York musical stage.
Cole Porter
Five songs, five stories: a richly illustrated journey through Porter's Parisian years and the songs that defined sophisticated American wit.
Press & Reviews
"Absolute magic."
Talkin' Broadway, York Theatre Company, NYC
"A historian who shares his astounding knowledge — Troy makes the facts into a compelling story."
Roy Leonard, WGN Radio, Chicago
"These visually seamless presentations combine original graphics, edited audio tracks, illustrative video clips and live performers, all into a dramatic tale."
Elkhart Jazz Festival
"America's most acclaimed dramatic musical theatre historian."
Elkhart Jazz Festival Program Notes
Watch Online
Watch free preview clips of Charles's presentations on YouTube. Each full program runs 60–90 minutes and is available for live or virtual booking.
Charles is available for in-person engagements across the US and virtually via Zoom. Reaches audiences of all ages who love the American musical theatre.
All Programs
Each 60–90 minute program combines original graphics, archival audio and video, and a thoroughly researched narrative into a coherent dramatic story about the making of a landmark musical.
Long Programs
Programs are 60–90 minutes and available for in-person or virtual presentation. (Length is shown at the bottom of each program.) Previews are coming attractions made for previous appearances.
R & H
How a lyricist without a composer and a composer without a lyricist found each other and created the show that defined the musical play. Illustrated by scenes from the 1999 Hugh Jackman revival.
R & H
Their follow-up to Oklahoma! is considered to have the most beautiful score Richard Rodgers ever wrote, and was named by Time magazine as the greatest musical of the 20th century.
R & H
How they adapted an obscure first novel by James Michener — which subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize, and so did their show, becoming a massive popular and critical success.
R & H
Written as a vehicle for its female star, it ended up as the star-making vehicle for its unknown opposite lead: the last of four landmark shows that drained Rodgers & Hammerstein in eight years.
R & H
Their last show became, in its film version, bigger than the rest. We'll learn the absurd way they became involved, and speculate how Hammerstein might have written "Do-Re-Mi."
Lerner & Loewe
From Shaw's 1912 intellectual drawing room comedy Pygmalion and its 1938 film version to a universally beloved musical triumph: their most difficult and most stunning achievement.
Lerner & Loewe
Their last great musical almost killed two great talents. Lerner and director Moss Hart were both hospitalized during the tryout period. It took two events, one unlikely, one tragic, to make it a legend.
Bock & Harnick
Jerome Robbins guided his creative team to find universality in the stories of Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem, resulting in a new opening number and one of the world's most beloved musicals.
Bock & Harnick
An under-appreciated Bock & Harnick masterpiece: the perfect musical, adapted from the Ernst Lubitsch-Jimmy Stewart 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner (later You've Got Mail).
Kander & Ebb
America's first successful concept musical. Director Harold Prince led his writers into uncharted Broadway territory in 1966 and Bob Fosse's 1972 film dramatically revised and perfected the hit musical.
Kander & Ebb
Bob Fosse's 1975 "Musical Vaudeville" — you'll hear the historic originals that inspired each pastiche number, learn about 1920s Chicago, plus the novice playwright who supplied the musical's source.
Bernstein / Sondheim
Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and an unknown 25-year-old Sondheim: the daring collaboration behind Broadway's boldest musical tragedy, which almost didn't reach the stage.
Sondheim / Styne
Sondheim and veteran tunesmith Jule Styne were forced to pair up by the dictates of star Ethel Merman and went on to write one of the most memorable scores in Broadway history.
Stephen Sondheim
Sondheim's first show with both his lyrics and music, based on the works of an ancient Roman playwright, turned from a disaster to a hit with one new song that he wrote out of town.
Sondheim
Sondheim's most delightful and approachable show of his mature period, based on a rare Ingmar Bergman comedy, and featuring his most popular song ever, "Send in the Clowns."
Arlen / Fleming
Studio intrigue, bad decisions reversed, a brilliant choice by "the man behind the curtain" and the struggle to write and retain "Over the Rainbow": the real story behind the most-watched film of all time.
Nacio Herb Brown / Arthur Freed
Believed by many people to be the greatest movie musical ever. When Gene Kelly signed on and cast Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds, it was on its way to becoming a beloved classic!
Sherman Edwards
How a former schoolteacher turned the Continental Congress into a gripping Broadway musical, dramatizing the most consequential three months in American history with song and historical fidelity.
Andrew Lloyd Webber / Tim Rice
The unlikely journey from a concept album to a global phenomenon: how Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice dramatized the life of Eva Perón and invented the modern sung-through mega-musical.
Jule Styne / Comden & Green
The turbulent creation of the show that made Barbra Streisand a star: the true story of Fanny Brice, Ziegfeld Follies sensation, told against the backdrop of Broadway's most demanding production.
Frank Loesser
Frank Loesser's adaptation of Damon Runyon's Broadway low-lifes became one of the most beloved American musicals: a show built on comic gamblers and some of the wittiest songs ever written.