The run closed May 7, 1960
- Opened
- December 1, 1958
- Closed
- May 7, 1960
- Performances
- 600
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- St. James Theatre
Of the 705 productions we hold that opened in the 1950s and record a performance count, this is the 37th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Other stagings of Flower Drum Song 2 more that season
| 1960 | Palace Theatre Transfer | |
| 2002 | Virginia Theatre Revival · Robert Longbottom | 169 perf. |
Who was in it57 named
Patrick Adiarte
Jose Ahumada
Fumi Akimoto
Peter Chan
Paula Chin
Victor Duntiere
Helen Funai
Pat Griffith
Luis Robert Hernandez
Mary Huie
Marion Jim
Betty Kawamura
Susan Lynn Kikuchi
Jon Lee
Chao Li
George Li
David Lober
Robert Lorca
Harry Shaw Lowe
Wonci Lui
George Minami
Jo Anne Miya
Eileen Nakamura
Denise Quan
Vicki Racimo
Linda Ribuca
Yvonne Ribuca
Shawnee Smith
Maureen Tiongco
David Toguri
Mabel Wing
Conrad Yama
George Young
Yuriko
Anita Darian
Larry Leung
Gene Castle
El Gabriel
Herb Giron
Bessie Huang
Robert Ito
Finis Jhung
Yoshiko Kuzutani
Carolyn Okada
Arno Selco
Yin Sun
11 of these 57 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 46 are set from the identifier in the cast list, which is a slug of the name — so hyphens and full stops are lost and a few come out wrong. We hold nothing else about them. Nobody here is matched to a character: the cast list records who was in the company and not what they played.
Creative team
- Director
- Gene Kelly
- Choreographer
- Carol Haney
- Producer
- Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II & Joseph Fields
- Orchestrations
- by
A producer is one string on this record, however many people or companies it names. Directors and choreographers are held both as text and as identifiers; where an identifier exists the name links to a page.
Tony Awards 0 from 1 nomination
| Best Musical | Nominated |
Around this production
Flower Drum Song (1958). He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for Anchors Aweigh (1945). The Golden Age of American Musical Theatre 1943 1965 Naden Corinne J Rowman Litt, p. 194
- Like The King and I and Flower Drum Song, the musical seemed to shortchange its major character. Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 842
- When Merrick’s production of The World of Suzi Wong and the RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN musical Flower Drum Song were both about to open in 1958, Merrick sent Asian-Americans to picket the Flower Drum Song box office with signs proclaiming Wong as “the only authentic Chinese show.” Richard Rodgers was not amused. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 535
- Fields’s third child was playwright Joseph Fields, best remembered for teaming with Jerome Chodorov on a series of plays and the librettos to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Wonderful Town, and Flower Drum Song. Broadway Musicals the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time Bloom Ken 1949 Vlastnik Fra, p. 81
- The world of woozy song” was how critic Kenneth Tynan summed up Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song. Broadway Musicals the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time Bloom Ken 1949 Vlastnik Fra, p. 234
- even Flower Drum Song) included a lengthy ballet, usually psychological in nature and always heavily metaphoric. Broadway Musicals the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time Bloom Ken 1949 Vlastnik Fra, p. 242
Passages naming this production, found by keyword across 178 books. Where it turns up in the literature, not curated notes about it.
What this page does not know
- No photograph of this staging. 48 of 13,459 productions hold one.
- No character names. We can say who was in the company and not who they played.
- No recording is held for Flower Drum Song at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.