On November 9, 1961, the musical event of the season took place at New York’s historic Radio City Musical Hall: the highly anticipated big-screen premiere of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song starring Nancy Kwan and James Shigeta. A week later, a three-day festival in the film’s honor was held in San Francisco’s Chinatown. At the festival, San Francisco Mayor … Read More

With its original Broadway run underway at the St. James, Flower Drum Song made its London debut at the illustrious Palace Theatre on the West End on March 24, 1960 where the show would go on to run 464 performances. This was the first time Rodgers & Hammerstein ever opened a show at the Palace Theatre together, having made the … Read More

In the summer of 1957, Oscar Hammerstein II found delight in a new novel suggested to him by longtime family friend Joseph Fields. The Flower Drum Song by Chinese American writer C.Y. Lee had been released earlier that year. Newly inspired after wrapping the filming of the motion picture adaptation of South Pacific, Rodgers & Hammerstein quickly got to work … Read More