Overview

Readers learn how Hammerstein and composer Richard Rodgers first wrote musicals together as undergraduates at Columbia University, then parted company for 20 years before reuniting to produce one smash hit after another. We also discover that the Loewe-Lerner team almost never made it past Brigadoon, due in part to Loewe's aspirations to become a serious composer and Lerner's chronic insecurities about his own talent. Along the way, we meet the century's greatest composers and actors – including George Gershwin and Kurt Weill, Mary Martin and Rex Harrison – whose transcendent melodies and showstopping performances combined with Hammerstein's and Lerner's words to leave an indelible mark on musical theater.

Not only does Citron offer consummate analyses of his subjects' lyrics and probing insights into their plots and dialogue, he also provides a mini-reference packed with photographs of notable productions and of the artists themselves. The book also includes a complete list of works, an extensive bibliography, and a quintuple chronology of Hammerstein's and Lerner's lives in relation to events in the world and musical theater.