 The original Broadway production opened at the Majestic Theatre on April 19 , 1945 . The dress rehearsal the day before had gone badly , and the pair feared the new work would not be well received . One successful last @-@ minute change was to have de Mille choreograph the pantomime . The movement of the carnival crowd in the pantomime had been entrusted to Mamoulian , and his version was not working . Rodgers had injured his back the previous week , and he watched the opening from a stretcher propped in a box behind the curtain . Sedated with morphine , he could see only part of the stage . As he could not hear the audience 's applause and laughter , he assumed the show was a failure . It was not until friends congratulated him later that evening that he realized that the curtain had been met by wild applause . Bambi Linn , who played Louise , was so enthusiastically received by the audience during her ballet that she was forced to break character , when she next appeared , and bow . Rodgers ' daughter Mary caught sight of her friend , Stephen Sondheim , both teenagers then , across several rows ; both had eyes wet with tears . 
