With Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza in the lead roles, the musical South Pacific opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York on April 7, 1949, and ran for 1,925 performances. It was the fifth collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), following Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel and State Fair (1945), and Allegro (1947). The phenomenal success of Oklahoma! and Carousel had made Rodgers and Hammerstein the dominant figures in American musical theater; South Pacific only added to their stature and reputation. Director Josh Logan suggested that Rodgers and Hammerstein base a musical theater production on one of the short stories from James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, winner of a 1948 Pulitzer Prize. They decided to combine two stories, "Fo' Dolla"' and "Our Heroine," and the resulting musical went on to win Rodgers and Hammerstein their second Pulitzer Prize in a decade (the first was...