A scene from Act I of the original production of South Pacific with Bali Ha’i looming in the background.

Look out for news of our forthcoming production ‘South Pacific’. Rehearsals have started and we are looking forward to staging one of most ambitious productions yet.

South Pacific is a musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway and was an immediate hit. The story is based on James A. Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific.

Set on an island paradise during World War II, South Pacific is a story of American sailors and naval nurses who were stationed there. The plot centres on a nurse who falls in love with a Middle-age French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed race children.

Rodgers and Hammerstein give us so many lovely songs. Bali Ha’I sung by Bloody Mary, a Tonkinese grass skirt seller who has a beautiful daughter called Liat, Nothing Like a Dame sung by Billis, and the men, Some Enchanted Evening, In Love with a Wonderful Guy and many more.

Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) were an influential, innovative and successful American musical theatre writing team, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, initiating what is considered the “golden age” of musical theatre.

With Rodgers composing the music and Hammerstein writing the lyrics, five of their Broadway shows, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music, were outstanding successes.