By Kenneth Jones
18 Dec 2008

A lifelong fan of musical theatre, and familiar with Hammerstein's major titles, Asch was excited to make "discoveries" along the way.

"My favorite discoveries are mostly songs whose long absence was hardly noticed," she said. "But when I get into my archaeology mode, there is a definite thrill in discovery. For instance, Hammerstein wrote student shows at Columbia. Many of them have elaborate program books and even published scores. But there was no program for the 1918 show. By reading articles in the Columbia College newspaper, I learned that in the spirit of war-time conservation, the lyrics for Ten for Five were folded into the spring issue of the campus humor magazine — the Jester. The first copy of the Jester I called up was missing those pages! But the kind librarians brought in another copy from off site, and there they were!"

Rooting around and making multiple requests ended up paying off.

"At the last stages of my research, when I was scouting photographs, I found a leadsheet and lyric for a dropped song from the 1922 show Queen o' Hearts, in a box of photocopies at the Museum of the City of New York, apparently left over from a past exhibit on 'The Hammersteins of New York,'" Asch said.

(The first Oscar Hammerstein had built theatres and produced opera in New York City; Hammerstein's father ran the leading variety theatre; his Uncle Arthur produced operettas and musical comedies.)

Asch continued, "Early on in my research, I had sent Tams-Witmark a list of the shows I was interested in. For this one, Free For All, they had only a box of orchestra parts. Well, on my third or fourth visit to Tams, I asked to see that box — and to my delight, inside there were piano-vocal scores for some songs for which I had words but not music, and also some lyrics I couldn't find anywhere else. I don't expect that Free For All will be revived anytime soon, but it was an exciting find."

To hear an interview with Amy Asch, visit www.PlaybillRadio.com.

Asch, an archivist and researcher, worked on "The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin" and an expanded edition of "The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart." She contributed to the PBS documentary "Broadway: The American Musical" and prepared the catalog of works for the estate of the composer Jonathan Larson (Rent). Currently an editor of the Playbill Broadway Yearbook, she lives in New York City.

For more information about Asch's work, visit AmyAsch.com.

Signed copies of the book are on sale through the Playbill Store.

This is this sixth book in Knopf's "Complete Lyrics" series after the lyrics of Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Frank Loesser. A book of Johnny Mercer's lyrics will be published in 2009.

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Hammerstein's musical shows include operettas Rose-Marie (music by Rudolf Friml), The Desert Song (Sigmund Romberg), The New Moon (Romberg) and Song of the Flame (George Gershwin), and eight musicals with Kern, including Sweet Adeline, Music in the Air and their masterpiece, Show Boat, plus Carmen Jones (an all-black adaptation of the tragic opera by Georges Bizet), and (with Rodgers) Oklahoma!, Carousel, Allegro, South Pacific, The King and I, Me and Juliet, Pipe Dream, Flower Drum Song and The Sound of Music. Rodgers and Hammerstein also wrote a movie musical ("State Fair") and one for television ("Cinderella"). Both of those shows were later adapted into stage versions.

Collectively R&H's works have earned dozens of awards, including Pulitzers, Tonys, Oscars, Grammys and Emmys.