November 7, 2026

The Worlds of Rodgers and Hammerstein

Class Details

The Worlds of Rodgers and Hammerstein

The works of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein course through the bloodstream of America. From their first collaboration, Oklahoma! in 1943, until Oscar Hammerstein’s death during the creation of The Sound of Music in 1959, this duo shaped American culture in dynamic ways and, in turn, those works were molded into form through the crucible of mid-century America. For better and for worse, America continues to sound and act a lot like a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
Which is why a class like this offers a special opportunity to understand America better through these very musicals. This class will spend focused energy on several representative musicals, including Oklahoma!, Carousel, The King and I, and South Pacific, as well as musicals created before and since the Rodgers and Hammerstein era. Through close readings on religion, politics, belief, and theatricality, we will attempt to come to a better understanding of how musicals work and, in turn, the work musicals do in the world.

Enrollment

  • Enrollment through your home campus; contact your OSLEP campus coordinator for information
  • OSLEP provides all required reading materials at no additional cost-NO books to buy!
  • Housing and meals provided
  • In-person residential seminar
APPLication details
Start Date
November 7, 2026
End Date
November 11, 2026
Location
Norman, OK
Course Credits
3
Application Deadline
August 15, 2026
Dr. Jake Johnson

Scholar

Jake Johnson, Ph.D

Oklahoma City University

Jake Johnson serves as Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Musicology at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University. He holds degrees in musicology from the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Oklahoma.

An established scholar of American musical theater, Jake has written several books on musicals in everyday life, including Mormons, Musical Theater, and Belonging in America (2019), Lying in the Middle: Musical Theater and Belief at the Heart of America (2021), and Unstaged Grief: Musicals and Mourning in Midcentury America (2025). These three books make the case for musical theater as a widespread, everywhere practice that spills far outside Times Square and whose indelible power to shape life in America is often overlooked. His edited volume, The Possibility Machine: Music and Myth in Las Vegas (2023), extends his work on the American musical to explore the city of second chances as a central engine running American views on the not-yet and more possible worlds of our imaginations. And Harline and Washington’s When You Wish Upon a Star (2026) is a biography of the song that originated with Pinocchio in 1940 but has since become an anthem of American values and a meditation on the boundaries of both belief and deceit.

Jake is also the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society.

In addition to his scholarly work, Jake is an active and sought-after musical collaborator. He has worked as a vocal coach, pianist, and musical director for DePaul University, Chicago Opera Theater, AMDA, Music Theatre of Wichita, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Ballet, and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, among others.

Class Prep

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