I wonder if anyone has published a study of how this was done. From the level of detail in the script, I would say that Rodgers and Hammerstein were very heavily involved in almost every aspect of their shows--as they should have been as highly competent professionals. I instictively doubt that they simply told their choreographers to "put something good in here, whatever you feel like." After all, while Rodgers may not have done his own orchestrations, I suspect that he wrote the piano score in very great detail. Robert Russell Bennett is credited for "orchestrations," not "arrangements." Of course it's also quite true that there was often an additional credit in the Playbill to someone for "Additional dance orchestrations."
Here's a quote, directly from Richard Rodgers: "If an orchestrator changed one of my voicings, I would kill him!" I think you are right, that Rodgers handed over VERY detailed sketches to his orchestrators.
While accurately used in the case we are talking about, the term "orchestrator" has been taken over in recent years to mean anything from a real orchestrator to a full arranger, or even a co-composer working off the "real" composer's basic materials. I am ashamed to say that I have been one of the latter on occasion. On the other hand, I tell myself "what's in a name or program credit? *I* know what I did, and so does everyone involved in the project whose opinion I value.
I suspect that dances were worked out in rather close collaboration between R&H and their choreographers--whom they had picked in the first place as creative people who were capable of creating what they wanted in their shows.
You are certainly right about that. In other productions, it most likely varies.
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