Problem: A friend asked me to answer this question: What is the last name of the man who wrote in his autobiography that the show that opened on Broadway on May 28, 1953 was a success?, using the article: The musical opened on Broadway on May 28, 1953 at the Majestic Theatre. Large advance sales guaranteed a considerable run; by the start of November, it had paid back its advance, and closed after 358 performances, paying a small profit to RCA. Thomas Hischak, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, suggests that business fell off after the advance sales were exhausted "because audiences had come to expect more from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical". According to Frederick W. Nolan in his book about the duo's works, "despite a $500,000 advance sale, despite a ten-month run (which, for anyone except Rodgers and Hammerstein, would have represented a major success), and despite an eventual profit in excess of $100,000, Me and Juliet has to be classed as a failure".The backstage drama portrayed in the musical was matched by actual difficulties among the cast. McCracken, who played Betty, was the wife of choreographer Bob Fosse and became pregnant during the run. Bill Hayes later wrote that she lost her baby through miscarriage about the same time she lost her husband to Gwen Verdon. The baby was in fact aborted, because the pregnancy would have endangered McCracken's health as a result of her diabetes. Hayes noted that in the fifteen months he played Larry, he did not recall ever having a conversation with Isabel Bigley, who was supposedly his love interest and wife: "I doubt that the audience ever believed we were deeply in love." The show received no Tony Award nominations. During the run, Hammerstein followed his usual practice of visiting the theatre now and again to ensure that the performers were not taking liberties with his book. Upon his return, Hammerstein's secretary asked him how the show was going. The lyricist thought for a second, then said "I hate that show." According to Bill Hayes in his autobiography Like Sands Through the Hourglass published in 2005 he states We played nearly five hundred performances, however, all to full houses. Production costs were paid off and substantial profits..., what would be the answer ?

A: Hayes


Problem: A friend asked me to answer this question: What is the full name of the person that wrote "In this beautiful poem one really heard something of the sound of the Aegean Sea and of Homer"?, using the article: Critical opinion as to the merit of The Oceanides has been overwhelmingly positive, and today the piece is counted among Sibelius's masterpieces. Following the 1914 premiere, Olin Downes, the American music critic and Sibelius devotee, described the new work as "the finest evocation of the sea which has ever been produced in music", praising the composer for his "extraordinarily developed feeling for form, proportion and continuity". Downes furthermore assessed Sibelius's Norfolk concert as just the third time since 1900 that he had "felt himself in the presence of a genius of world class" (the other two being Richard Strauss in 1904 and Arturo Toscanini in 1910). An unsigned review in the New York Tribune (almost certainly penned by critic Henry Krehbiel) found the new work "fresh and vital, full of imagination and strong in climax". He continues: Extremists will probably deplore the fact that the composer is still a respecter of form, still a devotee of beauty, still a believer in the potency of melody; but this is rather a matter for congratulation than regret ... Mr. Sibelius is a fine musical constructionist, an eloquent harmonist and a fine colorist despite his fondness for dark tints. The influential Swedish critic Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, always a thorn in Sibelius's side and whom the composer had once mocked as "his lordship", required some three encounters with The Oceanides before warming to the new symphonic poem: after hearing the Stockholm Concert Society under Sibelius in 1923, Peterson-Berger at last embraced the piece. "The Oceanides was totally and completely different from three years ago under Schnéevoigt", he wrote. "In this beautiful poem one really heard something of the sound of the Aegean Sea and of Homer"., what would be the answer ?

A: Wilhelm Peterson-Berger


Problem: A friend asked me to answer this question: Who did Santa Anna demand the executions of?, using the article: The Runaway Scrape events took place mainly between September 1835 and April 1836, and were the evacuations by Texas residents fleeing the Mexican Army of Operations during the Texas Revolution, from the Battle of the Alamo through the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. The ad interim government of the new Republic of Texas and much of the civilian population fled eastward ahead of the Mexican forces. The conflict arose after Antonio López de Santa Anna abrogated the 1824 constitution of Mexico and established martial law in Coahuila y Tejas. The Texians resisted and declared their independence. It was Sam Houston's responsibility, as the appointed commander-in-chief of the Provisional Army of Texas (before such an army actually existed), to recruit and train a military force to defend the population against troops led by Santa Anna. Residents on the Gulf Coast and at San Antonio de Béxar began evacuating in January upon learning of the Mexican army's troop movements into their area, an event that was ultimately replayed across Texas. During early skirmishes, some Texian soldiers surrendered, believing that they would become prisoners of war — but Santa Anna demanded their executions. The news of the Battle of the Alamo and the Goliad massacre instilled fear in the population and resulted in the mass exodus of the civilian population of Gonzales, where the opening battle of the Texian revolution had begun and where, only days before the fall of the Alamo, they had sent a militia to reinforce the defenders at the mission. The civilian refugees were accompanied by the newly forming provisional army, as Houston bought time to train soldiers and create a military structure that could oppose Santa Anna's greater forces. Houston's actions were viewed as cowardice by the ad interim government, as well as by some of his own troops. As he and the refugees from Gonzales escaped first to the Colorado River and then to the Brazos, evacuees from other areas trickled in and new militia groups arrived to join with Houston's..., what would be the answer ?

A:
Texian soldiers