Maria (Rodgers and Hammerstein song) his London revival of "The Sound of Music." Connie Fisher won the TV series and was cast as Maria in the London revival of the show that opened in November 2006 at the London Palladium. When Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the lyric for this song, he followed the lead from a line in the dialogue that Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse wrote in their script, describing Maria's flighty ways in the Abbey. In particular, he was taken by the detail of her wearing curlers in her hair under her wimple. Hammerstein asked if he could incorporate their dialogue into the
Oscar Hammerstein II Kern, with whom Hammerstein enjoyed a highly successful collaboration. In 1927, Kern and Hammerstein had their biggest hit, "Show Boat", which is often revived and is still considered one of the masterpieces of the American musical theatre. "Here we come to a completely new genre — the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... the play was the thing, and everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." Many years later, Hammerstein's wife Dorothy bristled when she heard a remark that