No Strings
Original London Cast Recording
Music	Richard Rodgers
Lyrics	Richard Rodgers
Book	Samuel A. Taylor
Productions	1962Broadway 1963West End 2003Concert Production
Awards	Tony Award for Best Composer

No Strings is amusical drama with book bySamuel A. Taylor and words and music byRichard Rodgers.No Strings is the onlyBroadway score for which Rodgers wrote both lyrics and music, and the first musical he composed after the death of his long-time collaborator,Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical opened on Broadway in 1962 and ran for 580 performances. It received sixTony Award nominations, winning three, for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, Best Original Score and Best Choreography.

The world premiere ofNo Strings was at the O'Keefe Centre (nowMeridian Hall) in Toronto. The U.S. premiere was at theFisher Theater in Detroit, where the show ran from January 15 to February 3, 1962.

The musical opened on March 15, 1962, at the54th Street Theatre in New York. It ran for slightly more than six months before transferring to theBroadhurst Theatre, where it continued until August of the following year, for a total of 580 performances and one preview.Joe Layton was both director and choreographer, withDiahann Carroll andRichard Kiley starring. Carroll won aTony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, a first for an African-American.Barbara McNair andHoward Keel replaced them later in the run.

In December 1963, an equally successful production in London, starringArt Lund andBeverly Todd, opened atHer Majesty's Theatre.

In 2003, a staged concert production was held atNew York City Center as a part of itsEncores! series. This production starredJames Naughton andMaya Days and was directed and choreographed byAnn Reinking.^[1]

Thecivil rights movement — voter registration for Black people, integration, and fairness and equality in the workplace — was starting to gain momentum in the United States in the early 1960s, but it was a topic largely absent on Broadway. Neither the book nor score make specific mention of race, nor does it impact upon any decisions made by the couple, but Rodgers has addressed the issue.^[2] Other than the model’s reference to growing up north ofCentral Park (seemingly an allusion toHarlem), there is nothing in the script to suggest she is African-American. It was only in the casting of Carroll and Richard Kiley as the star-crossed lovers that the subject of interracial romance surfaced. Any production of the show easily could be cast with two leads of the same race without changing the content in any significant way.^{[original research?]} Nevertheless, the casting was socially progressive at the time.^[3]

Rodgers got the idea for casting a Black actress in the star role after viewing Diahann Carroll onThe Tonight Show.

He felt that the casting spoke for itself and any specific references to race in the play were unnecessary. Rodgers said: "Rather than shrinking from the issue of race, such an approach would demonstrate our respect for the audience's ability to accept our theme free from rhetoric or sermons."^[2]

However, the characters' reluctance to discuss race was controversial.^[2]

Fashion model Barbara Woodruff, living inParis, meets and falls in love withexpatriate American, David Jordan, aPulitzer Prize-winning novelist who has suffered from an intense case ofwriter's block since his arrival in France. She attempts to restore his confidence in his creativity, but the easy life he's enjoying, flitting aboutMonte Carlo,Honfleur,Deauville, andSt. Tropez, is too much of a distraction. Concluding that he can work only if he returns home toMaine, he invites her to go with him; but, realizing they have no future together, they part with "no strings" attached.^[4]

The score was arranged and orchestrated without string instruments to underscore the show's title.^[5]

The success of the Broadway production led to three album versions released in 1962. In a year when musical theater recordings proved to be commercially unsuccessful,No Strings recordings were among the few that did well.^[6]

The Broadway cast recording was released in March byCapitol Records and reached fifth place on the charts during its year-long run and won theBest Original Cast Show AlbumGrammy Award.^[7]Billboard recommended the album to work to retailers as a "delightful score" that deserved "equal acclaim" to the stage production^[8] and Editors atAllMusic rated this album 3.5 out of 5 stars, with critic William Ruhlmann writing that this is a "strong cast".^[7]

All songs written by Richard Rodgers.

1. "The Sweetest Sounds" by Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley – 5:02
2. "How Sad" by Richard Kiley – 2:35
3. "Loads of Love" by Diahann Carroll – 3:20
4. "The Man Who Has Everything" by Mitchell Gregg – 4:14
5. "Be My Host" by Don Chastain, Al Epstein, Ann Hodges, and Richard Kiley – 2:41
6. "La-La-La" by Noelle Adam and Al Epstein – 2:34
7. "You Don't Tell Me" by Diahann Carroll – 1:54
8. "Love Makes the World Go" – 2:40
9. "Nobody Told Me" by Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley – 4:02
10. "Look No Further" by Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley – 3:18
11. "Maine" by Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley – 3:02
12. "An Orthodox Fool" by Diahann Carroll – 3:09
13. "Eager Beaver" by Don Chastain – 4:27
14. "No Strings" by Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley – 4:27
15. "Finale: The Sweetest Sounds (Reprise)" by Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley – 1:29

Personnel include:

• Noelle Adam – vocals
• Ronnie Bedford – drums
• Ralph Burns – orchestration
• Diahann Carroll – vocals
• Terri Castillo Chapin – liner notes
• Don Chastain – vocals
• Jim Dahl – trombone
• Al Epstein – vocals
• David Foil – liner notes
• Friedman-Abeles – production photography
• Mitchell Gregg – vocals
• Ann Hodges – vocals
• Richard Jones –production
• Walter Kane – bassoon
• Richard Kiley – vocals
• Joe Layton – direction
• Peter Matz – musical direction
• Bob Norberg –remastering (CD re-release)
• Dan O'Leary – reissue production (CD re-release)
• Aaron Sachs – clarinet
• James Sedlar – trumpet
• Alan Silverman – mastering
• Andy Wiswell – production

Richard Rodgers’ No Strings. An After‐Theatre Version is a jazz album with tracks byLaVern Baker,Chris Connor,Herbie Mann, andBobby Short released in April^[9] and promoted it with several singles.^[10]Billboard reviewed this album as a "strong sales potential" release with "interesting versions" of the songs that they recommend for younger record buyers.^[9] Editors atAllMusic rated this album 3.5 out of 5 stars, with critic William Ruhlmann writing it was appropriate forAtlantic Records to adapt thebig band sound to that of several jazz performers at a night club.^[11]

All songs written by Richard Rodgers.

1. "The Sweetest Sounds" by Chris Connor – 2:34
2. "Be My Host" by Bobby Short – 2:26
3. "You Don't Tell Me" by LaVern Baker – 2:56
4. "The Man Who Has Everything" by Bobby Short – 2:21
5. "Look No Further" by Chris Connor – 3:42
6. "Eager Beaver" by LaVern Baker – 2:10
7. "Loads of Love" by LaVern Baker – 2:25
8. "La La La" by Herbie Mann – 2:36
9. "An Orthodox Fool" by Bobby Short – 2:36
10. "Nobody Told Me" by Chris Connor – 3:19
11. "Love Makes the World Go" by Bobby Short – 2:31
12. "No Strings" by Chris Connor – 2:37

Personnel include:

• LaVern Baker – vocals
• Al Cohn –arrangement
• Chris Connor – vocals
• Tom Dowd –engineering
• Nesuhi Ertegun – supervision of analog tape transfers
• Loring Eutemey – artwork
• Stanley Green –liner notes
• Phil Iehle – engineering
• Herbie Mann – flute
• Bobby Short – piano, vocals

A third album was released in May by Capitol, recorded by big band trumpeterBilly May.^[12][13]Billboard speculated that it would be a "potent seller" that was "full of the wit and beat" that characterized May's work^[12] and the album was re-released on CD in 1999 in a package with the albumThe Girls and Boys on Broadway; editors atAllMusic scored this compilation 4 out of 5 stars.^[14]

All songs written by Richard Rodgers.

1. "No Strings" – 1:59
2. "The Sweetest Sounds" – 1:47
3. "Love Makes the World Go" – 1:45
4. "Nobody Told Me" – 2:05
5. "Loads of Love" – 2:15
6. "Maine" – 2:13
7. "Eager Beaver" – 2:20
8. "Look No Further" – 2:02
9. "An Orthodox Fool" – 1:30
10. "La La La" – 2:23
11. "The Man Who Has Everything" – 2:15
12. "Be My Host" – 2:09

• ​No Strings​ at theInternet Broadway Database
• Broadway: The American Musical
• RNH Theatricals site forNo Strings
• No Strings plot, history, song list at guidetomusicaltheatre.com

• 1962 musicals
• Broadway musicals
• Original musicals
• Compositions by Richard Rodgers
• Musicals set in Paris
• Tony Award–winning musicals

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• All articles that may contain original research
• Articles that may contain original research from October 2020