Who doesn’t love Oklahoma! , the 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein extravaganza that kicked off what’s often called the golden age of musical theater? If you don’t find your toes a-tapping to jaunty little numbers about courting your sweetie in a humble, fringe-draped carriage or using pachyderm metrics to determine the height of certain cornstalks, you just might be dead. That, or you’re the spiritual kin of Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers’ first—and, to some of us, finest—writing partner. Hart, who died in 1943 at age 48, was the lyricist behind standards like “My Funny Valentine,” “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was,” and “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” songs dappled with every color of elation or heartbreak, even as they glittered with self-deprecating humor. He was the thinking, feelin

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