Flower Drum Song is a musical written by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein, based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Chinese American author C. Y. Lee. The Broadway production opened in 1958 featuring, for the first time in Broadway history, a mostly Asian cast. The musical was successful (as the novel had been), garnering six Tony Award nominations and spawning a London production, national tours and a 1961 musical film, but the musical and...
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Flower Drum Song is a musical written by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein, based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Chinese American author C. Y. Lee. The Broadway production opened in 1958 featuring, for the first time in Broadway history, a mostly Asian cast. The musical was successful (as the novel had been), garnering six Tony Award nominations and spawning a London production, national tours and a 1961 musical film, but the musical and movie would fall out of favor as the civil rights era re-defined how minorities should be portrayed on film. The film was added to the National Film Registry in 2008.
Asian American playwright David Henry Hwang reworked the story and music for a 2002 Broadway revival.
After World War II, Americans began to show an interest in the Far East, and Rodgers and Hammerstein had explored this interest in South Pacific and The King and I. The novel Flower Drum Song was written while Lee was a journalist working for two San Francisco Chinatown...
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