ON THE STAGE On My Way: The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and Porgy and Bess. By Joseph Horowitz. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013. [xvi, 282 p. ISBN 9780393240139. $26.95.] Illustrations, appendices, bibliographic references, index.For better or worse, the history of musical theater has been written chiefly from the standpoint of the composer, approach that acknowledges both the primacy of the printed score and the power of music to enhance a story. A handful of librettists-Lorenzo da Ponte and Hugo von Hofmannsthal in the house, and perhaps only Oscar Hammerstein II on Broadway-have garnered equal standing with their musical partners, but almost every other creative contributor, ranging from book authors and choreographers through scenic designers and costumers to lighting designers and sound engineers, has remained anonymous to all but the most dedicated students of the theater. Even directors, whose job it is to bring the work of all of these collaborators together, tend to toil in relative obscurity, with only a handful-for instance, Gower Champion, Harold Prince, Trevor Nunn, and a few others-ever developing public identities. Against this background, Joseph Horowitz's book about director Rouben Mamoulian's contributions to Porgy and Bess is a notable addition to the literature on musical theater.The book's subtitle, The Untold Story . . . , which suggests a revelation of major dimensions, is something of overstatement. In fact, Mamoulian, whose work on Broadway included directing the premiere productions of both South Pacific and Carousel in addition to that of Porgy and Bess, is well known to film historians, with several books on his time in Hollywood already in print. His work on the stage has attracted less attention among music historians, however, and Horowitz's interest in the subject began with an educated guess . . . that Mamoulian had to have been a major creative force in fashioning Gershwin's opera (p. xv). The opening of the Mamoulian archive at the Library of Congress in 2009 gave Horowitz access to the evidence that confirmed his hunch. Among the director's papers was a draftof the script for the 1927 play Porgy, which contained numerous changes made by Mamoulian as director of that premiere. The most notable of these, found in the final scene, were Porgy's heartrending line Bring m' goat and the lyrics to Oh Lawd, I'm on My Way, both of which would be central to the finale of Gershwin's eight years later. Around that discovery, Horowitz weaves abridged story of Mamoulian's career, intertwined with a detailed history of three productions of DuBose Heyward's novella.Horowitz waits until chapter 2 to discuss Mamoulian's training in Russia under Yevgeny Yakhtangov at Konstantin Stanis - lavski's Moscow Art Theatre. From these teachers Mamoulian learned the importance of details, how to handle crowd scenes, and how to break a script down into beats. These would become the trademarks of Mamoulian's directorial style, with the rhythmical organization of sound and movement being especially important. Mamoulian brought his ideas to Rochester, New York, where he worked as a director and teacher for the American Opera Com - pany and the Eastman School of Drama and Dramatic Design. His efforts to develop a quasi-Wagnerian synthesis of all theatrical arts resulted in Sister Beatrice, described as a Rhythmic Drama to Music on its February 1926 program. Less than four months later, Mamoulian resigned his Rochester appointments and moved to New York to work with the Theatre Guild. He also began working in motion pictures at that time, and Horowitz gives twenty pages to Mamoulian's early directorial innovations in the new medium of sound films, especially Love Me Tonight (1932) (pp. 84-103).Prior to that, Horowitz devotes his first chapter to the Theatre Guild's production of Porgy. He emphasizes how Mamoulian's direction shaped the play that would be the basis for Gershwin's opera. …