Thesp and France's main female novelist getting Oscar for musicals (11)
I believe the answer is:
hammerstein
'novelist getting oscar for musicals' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this definition defines the answer.
'thesp and france's main female' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'and' could be 'n' (common abbreviation for 'and') and 'n' is found within the answer.
'france's main' could be 'mer' ('sea' in French - the main can mean the sea) and 'mer' is found in the answer.
'female' could be 'ms' (Ms. is an example) and 'ms' is present in the remaining letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hammerstein that I've seen before include "Rodgers and --, musical team" , "Lyricist" , "Oscar" , "Musical partner of Rodgers" .)