Theatre Register
Flower Drum Song

Flower Drum Song

Shows · Flower Drum Song

Flower Drum Song was the eighth musical by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is based on the 1957 novel, The Flower Drum Song, by Chinese-American author C.

Opened
1958
Performances
600
Type
Musical
Era
Golden Age
Music: Richard RodgersLyrics: Oscar Hammerstein IIBook: Oscar Hammerstein II & Joseph Fields

Productions3 on Broadway

1958 St. James Theatre Original. December 1, 1958 · Gene Kelly 600 performances
1960 Palace Theatre Transfer. March 24, 1960
2002 Virginia Theatre Revival. October 17, 2002 · Robert Longbottom 169 performances

Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.

Licensing 4 entries

US Concord Theatricals R&H Theatricals available
US Concord Theatricals R&H Theatricals available
UK Concord Theatricals R&H Theatricals available
UK Concord Theatricals R&H Theatricals available

Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.

In the literature47 passages

Like The King and I and Flower Drum Song, the musical seemed to shortchange its major character. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p842

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. book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p535

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. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p81

The world of woozy song” was how critic Kenneth Tynan summed up Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p234

even Flower Drum Song) included a lengthy ballet, usually psychological in nature and always heavily metaphoric. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p242

In the ‘90s the Dodgers produced a series of revivals that included Guys and Dolls, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Once Upon a Mattress (1997), starring a vocally undercast Sarah Jessica Parker, and How to Succeed starring her husband, Matthew Broderick. Other revivals of the ‘90s included Fiddler on t… book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p263

Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.

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