The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific opened on Broadway; it would run for 1,925 performances and win ten Tony Awards.
Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theatre-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popular Broadway productions in the 1940s and 1950s initiated what is considered the "golden age" of musical theatre. Five of their Broadway shows, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music, were outstanding successes, as was the television broadcast of Cinderella (1957). Of the other four shows that the team produced on Broadway during their lifetimes, Flower Drum Song was well-received, and none was an outright flop. Most of their shows have received frequent revivals around the world, both professional and amateur. Among the many accolades their shows (and film versions) garnered were thirty-four Tony Awards, fifteen Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes (for Oklahoma!, 1944, and South Pacific, 1950) and two Grammy Awards.
Their musical theatre writing partnership has been called the greatest of the 20th century.