LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill.—“The Sound of Music” first played in New Haven, Connecticut, as a pre-Broadway tryout on Oct. 3, 1959. After the show, its composer Richard Rodgers, its lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, and the show’s performers waited for the town’s critical reviews to come in.
When the newspapers came out with bad reviews, everyone was crestfallen, believing that after all their hard work the show was a flop. Everyone, that is, except for Hammerstein. He dismissed the critics and predicted that the musical would become the biggest hit on Broadway.
