The strategy, if that’s what it was, worked. Nine months ago, Broadway’s line-up for the season looked like a “Back to the Sixties” nostalgia fest: Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly! By the end of the season, at least for press agents, it was the Sixties: a rock musical was on the cover of Newsweek, Miss Andrews was on the front pages of the tabloids day after day (“MARY POPPINS HOPPIN’ MAD!” —New York Post), and even David Merrick emerged from his long, silent twilight existence to run one of those whimsical New York Times ads he was once famous for. The Tony committee had ruled that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair, which uses some old movie numbers and four discarded trunk songs cut from other shows, was eligible for Best Original Score, but only for the quartet of trunk songs. It was a fatuous decision, and Merrick gleefully mocked i ...

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