With their first collaboration Oklahoma!, Rodgers and Hammerstein created a new model for musical theatre that integrated score, plot, character and dance into a tightly-woven theatrical experience that was all of one piece. If they secured this evolving style with Oklahoma!, they cemented it with the far more compelling, and ultimately more satisfying, Carousel. For many, Carousel was (and continues to be) a hard pill to swallow, with it themes of domestic violence and of enduring abuse, imperfect characters who make bad choices, and generally for its hopeful, if not exactly happy, ending.