Editing Oklahoma! (section)

==Antecedents and influence==
According to playwright and theatre writer Thomas Hischak, "Not only is ''Oklahoma!'' the most important of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, it is also the single most influential work in the American musical theatre. ...  It is the first fully integrated musical play and its blending of song, character, plot and even dance would serve as the model for Broadway shows for decades."<ref>Hischak, p. 201</ref>  William Zinsser observed that ''Oklahoma!'' broke the old "musical comedy conventions", with the songs "delving into character" and advancing the plot.<ref>Zinsser, William.  ''Easy to Remember:The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs'', David R. Godine Publisher, 2006, {{ISBN|1-56792-325-9}}, p. 180</ref>  The show "became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to ''Oklahoma!''"<ref>Everett, p. 124.</ref>  ''Oklahoma!'' made Rodgers and Hammerstein "the most important contributors to the musical-play form. ... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided the necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own".<ref>Lubbock, Mark. [http://www.theatrehistory.com/american/musical030.html "American musical theatre: an introduction"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221095758/http://www.theatrehistory.com/american/musical030.html |date=February 21, 2009 }} excerpted from ''The Complete Book of Light Opera'', London: Putnam, 1962, pp. 753–56</ref>

Theater historian [[Ethan Mordden]] points out that, although ''Oklahoma!'' has been called "the first integrated musical, the first American folk musical", ''[[Show Boat]]'' "got there first on both counts."<ref name=Mordden140>Mordden (1988), p. 140</ref>  Even earlier, the [[Princess Theatre, New York City|Princess Theatre]] musicals, following [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] and French ''[[opéra bouffe]]'', began the reintegration of song and story after decades of thinly plotted British and American musicals, paving the way for ''Show Boat'' and ''Oklahoma!'' by showing that a musical could combine popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs.<ref>Jones 2003, pp. 10–11</ref>  These Princess Theatre shows, which featured modern American settings, "built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ...  The characters and situations were, within the limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. [[Jerome Kern|Kern's]] exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization."<ref>Bordman, Gerald and Thomas Hischak, eds. [http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t149.e1700 "Kern, Jerome (David)"]. ''The Oxford Companion to American Theatre'', third edition, Oxford University Press 2004. Oxford Reference Online, accessed May 15, 2010 (requires subscription)</ref><ref name=Kenrick>Kenrick, John. [http://www.musicals101.com/1910bway.htm ''History of The Musical Stage 1910–1919: Part I''], accessed May 11, 2010</ref> Mordden also notes that ''Oklahoma!'' was called the first great dance musical, but other musicals had earlier focused on dance, among them ''[[Gay Divorce]]'' and ''[[On Your Toes]]''.  He concludes: "But ''Oklahoma!'' was the first American musical with an ethnic sound, words and music entirely in the folk idiom."<ref name=Mordden140/>

Critic Andrea Most argues that the musical reflected its author's and composer's Jewish heritage and desires for Jewish Americans. Most asserts that the musical was written at a time when America presented Jews with an opportunity to gain privileged status by assimilating into mainstream American culture and passing as white Americans. Most claims that although there were rarely any identifiably Jewish characters in plays of this time period, characters such as Ali and Jud allowed for subtle Jewish representation, Ali embodying an accepted and friendly ideal for Jewish-Americans and Jud embodying Jewish-Americans' fear of becoming a marginalized minority like black Americans.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Most|first=Andrea|date=1998|title='We Know We Belong to the Land': The Theatricality of Assimilation in Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Oklahoma!''|journal=PMLA|volume=113|issue=1|pages=77–89|doi=10.2307/463410|jstor=463410|s2cid=163715873 |issn=0030-8129}}</ref>