Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-249) and index.
The American idea : George M. Cohan -- Oh, boy! Oh, lady! : Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse -- High jinks and pipe dreams : Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II -- Strike up the band : George S. Kaufman and fellow wits -- Blossom time : Dorothy Donnelly and other early librettists -- Hooray for anything red, hot and blue! : Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse -- Charley, Flora, Fiorello, and the Yankees : George Abbott and company -- The New Yorkers : the Fields family -- Flahooley's rainbow : E.Y. Harburg and fellow conspirators -- Applause on the town : Betty Comden and Adolph Green -- On a clear day : Alan Jay Lerner -- Flying high, taking a chance : B.G. De Sylva and others in the 1930s and 1940s -- Hallelujah, Gypsy! : Arthur Laurents -- Guys and dolls and stockings : Abe Burrows and others in the 1950s -- To the forum, in the park, into the woods : Stephen Sondheim's collaborators -- Carnival on the roof : Michael Stewart, Joseph Stein, and Peter Stone -- Getting an act together : Gretchen Cryer and others in the 1960s and 1970s -- The kiss of ragtime : Terrence McNally -- The producers : the 1980s, 1990s and beyond