Ok!: The Story of Oklahoma!

The first pairing of Richard Rodgers's music and Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics, along with Agnes de Mille's choreography, turned the sentimental Green Grow the Lilacs , written by a playwright named Lynn Riggs, into a phenomenon that was to set the standard for musical theater. And few first-nighters attending the 1943 Broadway opening of Oklahoma! could have known that they were witnessing the genesis of modern musical comedy. Conveying a ``Hey, I was there'' ambience, Wilk ( Don't Raise the Bridge Lower the River ), author of 20 books, many of them on the performing arts, here recounts the arduous odyssey of the Theatre Guild-Shubert undertaking from conception to SRO box-office success. Readers are made privy to the joys and sorrows of struggling for theatrical perfection while romancing investors, battling auditors, overcoming cynical critics--and coping with a measles-ridden cast. The book, which combines scores of black-and-white illustrations with Wilk's delightful text, has the mark of a hit, or, to paraphrase Agnes de Mille's unabated enthusiasm for the show: ``My God, this is put together with real skill.'' (Mar.)