It is a story of simple people, living and loving and quarrelling against the background of the birth of a State...Oklahoma. There were two factions, the farmers and the cowboys and they did not live in complete harmony. Curly, a cowboy, loves Laurey, the niece of Aunt Eller, who is a farmer. But Laurey cannot make up her mind - she has a bit of the coquette in her and rather encourages the attentions of Jud, the hired hand of the farm. Jud is a loutish fellow with a very shady past and a depraved nature which is evident from the pictures on the wall of his Smoke House. An argument between Curly and Jud as to who takes Laurey to a "box" social ends with guns, but no harm done. It frightens Laurey into the knowledge that she loves Curly, but is in fear of Jud. Her fear is increased by her dream when the ballet dances her fate - a tragic wedding scene in which Jud overthrows Curly, the bridegroom, and carries Laurey off as his prize. She accepts Jud's escort to the "box" social. The "box" is the supper hamper which each girl supplies; these are auctioned to the men who thus win the girl for supper partners. Curly only succeeds in out-bidding Jud for Laurey's hamper by selling all his worldly possessions - saddle, gun, and finally his horse. The magnificence of it brings Laurey to her senses - her fear of Jud vanishes and she orders him off Aunt Eller's farm. She consents to marry Curly and their happiness seems assured. Meanwhile others are falling in and out of love. Ado Annie, who just can't say "No" to any man, has become involved with a pedlar man, Ali Hakim, although she was more or less promised to Will Parker, who returns from Kansas City with loads of presents for her. Her father has a nasty habit of pointing a gun at reluctant suitors and Ali - a real philanderer - find himself "hooked" by that simple ruse. He manages to slide out of it by helping Will to win Ado Annie back to his side. But in doing so Ali bounces into the arms of Gertie, whose father uses the same gun barrel tactics to better effect than Ado Annie's had done.

Aunt Eller, the moving spirit of the community, gives Laurey a lovely wedding. They are leaving for a honeymoon in the "Surrey with the Fringe on the Top" when Jud comes out of hiding. He is desperate, and goes berserk with a knife for Curly. In a grim fight Jud falls on his own knife, fatally wounded. A Federal Marshal who is present says Curly must give himself up, but Aunt Eller has other ideas. With womanly sagacity she forces old man Carnes, who is the local judge, to hold an improvised Court on the spot. A verdict of "Accidental Death" is given. Curly and Laurey depart in the Surrey to the rousing cheers and strains of "Oklahoma," which has at last emerged as a State with fanners and cowboys united as "friends."

First staged on Broadway in 1943 and then at Drury Lane in 1947, the show was subsequently filmed with great success in 1955 featuring an "all-star" cast headed by Shirley Jones, Gordon MacRae, Charlotte Greenwood and Rod Steiger.

In 1943 when "Oklahoma" was first staged by the once affluent American Theatre Guild in a last desperate bid to remain in business, they never expected the show would revolutionise musical theatre and become one of the world's most successful shows.