Their first collaboration (followed by such hits as South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music) is considered the first modern musical with the way the dancing and the lyrics propel the story along. Those lyrics, chock full of great comedy, belong to many of the most beloved songs in Broadway history including Oh What a Beautiful Morning, People Will Say We’re in Love, Surrey With the Fringe On Top, The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends, and its show-stopping title song – a song that, in this Youth Summerstock production, you get to sing along to with the cast (although you don’t have to!).

Travis Heath, in his last of many memorable performances in Youth Summerstock and Granite Hills Acting Workshop, leads the cast as cowboy Curly. Usually the bad guy, here we get to see Travis’s more folksy side as he and farmer’s daughter Laurey Williams (Jenn Volker or Aimee Dotts) try to fall in love, but keep stumbling over their own pride in the process. Jenn’s sauciness is amusingly rich as she purposely dishes out the sarcasm on the wooing Curly, the two seeming to have a natural way of friendly flirting and fighting with one another as in the People Will Say We’re in Love scene, and Aimee’s voice is always a pleasure, here especially in the singing of Many a New Day where she pretends that she doesn’t care if Curly falls for someone else.

Most of the comedy comes in the form of a little Oklahoma love triangle between not-too-bright cowboy Will Parker (Nick Bonnell or Matt Lopez), very bright peddler and player Ali Hakim (Jarryd Davis or Jason Araujo), and the Girl Who Cain’t Say No to either of them – Ado Annie (Tashya Garoutte or Katelyn Bruggema). Both Nick Bonnell and Matt Lopez have the head-scratchin’, not-too-bright thing down perfectly as they bid to marry Ado Annie. Katelyn has a nice, innocent voice for Ado Annie, and Tashya Garoutte is a riot as she thoroughly enjoys all the attention she’s been getting from boys. Tashya and Nick create one of the best scenes with their banter in All Er Nuthin’ during which both try to make sure the other will be true – er else! But the side of the love triangle that began earning a laugh every time he walked on stage was Ali Hakim. Both Jarryd and Jason have the audience in the palm of their hands with their concerted efforts to get Ado Annie, followed by their even more concerted efforts to lose her after Ado and her Pa (Dirk Stenger) make it clear that they be expectin’ a wedding out of this. Jarryd’s and Jason’s thick Persian accents (or perhaps Indian accents – but no one in these ‘ere parts of the Oklahoma Territory are likely to have heard the difference), along with their slick orange suits and bright yellow ties, charm us “to the ends of the earth.”

Another excellent performance included Austin Thorpe as Jud Fry, Laurey’s hired hand who has decided he wants a lot more than money, room, and board for his services. Austin has both the darkest song of the show singing of his disturbing sense of isolation and desperation in Alone in a Lonely Room, as well as the funniest song in a fantastic duet with Travis Heath that has Curly encouraging Jud to kill himself so that he can see how much people (especially the women folk) really took a shine to him – people who didn’t want to admit it while Jud was alive, but would let their hearts pour out at his funeral – in the classic Pore Jud is Daid.

The rest of the cast turned in some good singin’ and dancin’ (choreographed by Monica Thurman), with the Male Ensemble hoofin’ it in (Everything’s Up to Date in) Kansas City wherein Will tells of the wonders to come that he saw on a trip to the big city, and the entire ensemble puttin’ on a hearty Oklahoma! and a lively rendition of The Cowman and the Farmer Should be Friends (a lesson that Aunt Eller (Marla Worm or Elizabeth Klueck) aims to make sure they all learn – even if it takes a little aiming with a gun).