Rodgers and Hammerstein to the musical-play form – with such masterworks as "Carousel", "The King and I" and "South Pacific". 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." In 1950, the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York." They were also honored in 1999 with a United States Postal Service stamp commemorating their partnership. The Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City is
Carousel (musical) out of that parlor". When Hammerstein inquired where he should put the deity, Rodgers replied, "I don't care where you put Him. Put Him on a ladder for all I care, only get Him out of that parlor!" Hammerstein duly put Mr. God (renamed the Starkeeper) atop a ladder, and Mrs. God was removed from the show. Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest terms this change a mistake, leading to a more fantastic afterlife, which was later criticized by "The New Republic" as "a Rotarian atmosphere congenial to audiences who seek not reality but escape from reality, not truth but escape from