Lorenz Hart in the context of The Lady Is a Tramp

Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership between composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and the lyricist Lorenz Hart (1895–1943). They worked together on 28 stage musicals and more than 500 songs from 1919 until Hart's death in 1943. Many of their songs are classics of the Great American Songbook.

Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the best-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music.

Rodgers is known for his songwriting partnerships, first with lyricist Lorenz Hart and then with Oscar Hammerstein II. With Hart he wrote musicals throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including Pal Joey, A Connecticut Yankee, On Your Toes and Babes in Arms. With Hammerstein he wrote musicals through the 1940s and 1950s, such as Oklahoma!, Flower Drum Song, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. His collaborations with Hammerstein, in particular, are celebrated for bringing the Broadway musical to a new maturity by telling stories that were focused on characters and drama rather than the earlier light-hearted entertainment of the genre.

Pal Joey is a 1940 musical with a book by John O'Hara and music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The musical is based on a character and situations O'Hara created in a series of short stories published in The New Yorker, which he later published in novel form. The title character, Joey Evans, is a manipulative small-time nightclub performer whose ambitions lead him into an affair with the wealthy, middle-aged and married Vera Simpson. It includes two songs that have become standards: "I Could Write a Book" and "Bewitched (Bothered And Bewildered)".

The original 1940 Broadway production was directed by George Abbott and starred Vivienne Segal and Gene Kelly. Though it received mixed reviews, the show ran for 10 months, the third-longest run of any Rodgers and Hart musical. There have been several revivals since, including a 2008–09 Broadway run, and a 1957 film adaptation starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak.