Portland Ovations to Present Rodgers & Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC, 3/17 & 18

Portland Ovations brings NETworks Presentations new production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, to Merrill Auditorium on March 17th and 18th for its' Portland, Maine debut.  

This new production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC is based on the 2008 Tony Award® winning Lincoln Center Theater production, which won seven Tony Awards® including Best Direction of a Musical by Bartlett Sher, Best Lighting Design of a Musical by Portland Stages' Donald Holder and Best Revival of a Musical. Based on James Michener's Pulitzer Prize winning book Tales of the South Pacific, Rodgers & Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC has music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan.

Set on a tropical island during World War II, the musical tells "the sweeping romantic story of two couples -- US Navy nurse Nellie Forbush and French plantation owner Emile de Becque and Navy Airman Joe Cable and a young local native girl Liat -- and how their happiness is threatened by the realities of war and by their own prejudices." The score's songs include such classics as "Some Enchanted Evening," "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair," "Younger Than Springtime," "Bali Ha'i," "There is Nothin' Like A Dame," "This Nearly Was Mine" and "A Wonderful Guy."

Ovations Offstage offers a pre-performance lecture, "Issues of Race in Musical Theater" on March 17 at 1 pm in Room 24 at Merrill Auditorium. Gretchen Berg,