Lorenz Hart was approached to work with Richard Rodgers on the show but was not interested in working on what he called a "cowboy opera."
It is sometimes stated that Oscar Hammerstein II wrote six flops in a row before writing Oklahoma! This is perhaps a bit confusing since his Broadway record does not reflect this. Music in the Air was a huge success in 1932, the longest-running musical of the 1932-1933 season. Hammerstein's next Broadway show was May Wine in 1935. At 213 performances, it was not a huge success, but it had a respectable run. Variety included the show in its list of hits for the 1935-1936 seson. In 1938, Gentlemen Unafraid never made it to Broadway after an initial run at the St. Louis Municipal Opera, but the reviews in St. Louis seem to have been good for the huge show Very Warm for May in 1939 was a failure, as was Sunny River in 1941.
During this time period, Hammerstein also had two shows in London. The first, Ball at the Savoy, ran 148 peformances at the Drury Lane, opening in September 1933. This was a Viennese operetta for which Hammerstein wrote the English lyrics and adapted the book into English. It was followed in April 1934 by an original titled Three Sisters. Unrelated to Chekhov's play, this was an original with book and lyrics by Hammerstein, and music by Jerome Kern. It ran only 45 performances.
