Hammerstein was initially unenthusiastic, thinking the subject matter trivial, but Rodgers pressed the matter. It was Hammerstein's turn to give in to his partner; Rodgers had agreed to the project that became the 1947 musical "Allegro", their initial failure, under pressure from Hammerstein, who had long dreamed of doing a serious musical about an ordinary man. According to Stephen Sondheim, a protégé of Hammerstein, "Oscar was able to keep the partnership together by taking Dick's suggestion a backstage musical, which he did not want to take." As the two discussed the backstage idea, Hammerstein became more enthusiastic, suggesting that the show start with the stage entirely bare, as if the audience had come in not at performance time but at another time during the day. Such effects are today well known following the success of other "backstagers" such as "A Chorus Line"; in the early 1950s they were unrealized and novel.