Speaker: Steve Abramowitz

This event is open to the public. For more information about the Lifelong Learning Institute, Manassas, visit lli-manassas.org

Many critics and Broadway historians consider music composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II the greatest team to grace Broadway. This presentation will examine their early careers before they were a team, their rise to success on the Broadway stage, and how they ultimately came to be partners. With that partnership came a whole new approach to Broadway musicals where song and dance were no longer just entertaining but used to advance the story line and plot. It will also look at how Rodgers & Hammerstein used their musical plays to project and comment on serious social issues. In this class you will see numerous film clips with popular songs from their plays, including Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, and others, plus facts about the actors and actresses appearing in the plays and movies. The end result: an informational and entertaining look at Rodgers & Hammerstein: The Kings of Broadway.

Bristow, Virginia, resident Steve Abramowitz grew up in Queens, New York, and after graduating from C.W Post College of Long Island University, he became an officer in the United States Navy, serving for four years on aircraft carriers and a destroyer escort. On the destroyer escort, he was a navigator and intelligence officer. Following his time in the Navy, Steve and his wife settled in New Rochelle, New York, a northern suburb of New York City. In New York, he worked in advertising and marketing for advertising agencies. For the last 16 years of his career, he worked for USA Today in advertising sales. Upon retiring in 2013, Steve and his wife moved to Amherst, New Hampshire, where they lived for nine years before moving to Bristow in December 2023.