But Flower Drum Song, which ran for over a year and a half on Broadway, had a few things on its side. It was based on a best-selling novel by pioneering Chinese American author C.Y. Lee. It was directed by Gene Kelly, the dancer-actor-choreographer who delighted millions in Singin' in the Rain and other toe-tapping blockbusters. And its book and music were by the unparalleled team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Whose classic canon already included Oklahoma!, Carousel, and two earlier East meets West hits, South Pacific and The King and I.

For the Asian American community, Flower Drum Song represented something more than just a harmonic convergence of behind-the-scenes creative talent. As the first musical to present Asians as English-speaking, acculturated Americans-who dance, sang, live, and love in a recognizable and contemporary setting-Flower Drum was a true cultural milestone. And for Asian American performers, it represented a matchless opportunity to strut their stuff.

Yet, as Oscar Hammerstein himself noted, Flower Drum was not without its problems (he called it the duo's "lucky hit"); after successful productions on Broadway and in London, and a 1961 movie version that was nominated for five Academy Awards, the musical gradually faded from memory.

Asian Americans, however, didn't forget--couldn't forget-this watershed achievement in showbiz history. Even though its earnest portrayals seem somewhat out of place in today's multicultural and globalist society, generations of Asian American audiences have continued to rediscover it, recognizing Flower Drum Song's unique significance for our community.

One person who admits to being profoundly touched by the musical was David Henry Hwang-Asian America's foremost dramatist, and the author of such award-winning plays as F.O.B., M. Butterfly, and Golden Child. Like many of us, Hwang embraced Flower Drum for its passion, its glamour, and its pioneering cast and setting-yet felt the book was bound up in historical sensitivities that didn't do justice to the musical's incredible score.

"In the 1970s and '80s, Flower Drum Song became a work Asian Americans protested as being full of stereotypes," says Hwang. "Asian Americans were beginning to write about ourselves, and we felt the need to repudiate the ways non-Asians had written about us. But even back then, people would in private admit they liked the show. How could they not? For us boomers, it was our first opportunity as kids to see Asian Americans singing and dancing in a Broadway play and Hollywood musical."

Hwang decided to do something about it.

reviving, revising, reinventing
IN 1996, HWANG contacted the keepers of the Rodgers and Hammerstein legacy, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, with an audacious idea in mind. "I told them I wanted to write a whole new book for the musical-new storyline, new characters, new everything," says Hwang. "I thought, 'here's an opportunity to tell a story about assimilation and immigration, but do it in collaboration with Rodgers and Hammerstein, who created this wonderful score around those themes. It meant working with great music that already existed, and trying to make that music flower around a story that would thematically bear out some of their own initial ideas."

The task was a daunting one, akin to "uncooking" a dish, taking its ingredients, and making a brand new one. Even Hwang was surprised at the R&H Organization's positive response to his proposal. "Rodgers and Hammerstein were risk-takers," explains Ted Chapin, president of the organization. "To have done a show about the Asian American community and cast it with as many Asian Americans as possible was, at that time, very risky. If we were going to go ahead with this new experiment, we had to remain open to change."

a fresh start
AND CHANGES-BIG CHANGES-were at the heart of Hwang's ideas. He wanted to bring the story in line with the deeper, more realistic tone of C.Y. Lee's original, enriching the plot with such historically accurate themes as the Communist Revolution, the desperate, often dangerous journey of the refugee, the conflicting impulses of assimilation and tradition. He wanted to streamline a plot that occasionally stumbled over its multiple intertwined romances. He wanted to reinvent the character of Mei Li, portrayed in the original as a soft-spoken, wide-eyed innocent, giving her strength and will to match the her more flamboyant opposite-the brash and brassy showgirl Linda Low.

In the service of Hwang's ambitious goals, characters were dropped, added, or reinvented in their entirety; songs were reassigned to new voices, and in the process given fresh and different meanings; and the location of the storyline was shifted to a small and struggling Beijing opera stage, whose proprietor, a stern traditionalist, recoils at his American-born son's idea to turn the theater into a jazzy, modern cabaret.

As Hwang's ideas evolved and gained momentum, other creative talents were brought into the mix. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization recruited Robert Longbottom, director/choreographer of the Tony-nominated Side Show and the off-Broadway musical Pageant, to assist in the fusion of Hwang's novel dialogue with Rodgers's classic music and Hammerstein's whip-smart lyrics. Longbottom, in turn, called in David Chase, music director for the 1994 revival of Damn Yankees and dance arranger for the 1999 revival of Kiss Me Kate, to adapt and arrange the score. "I had a lot to learn about musical theater," admitted Hwang, acknowledging that his first take on the reenvisioned book was unproduceable. "If you saw my original draft, you'd really appreciate how crucial Bobby is to the current script. And David Chase-David is some kind of genius."

the debut
ON OCTOBER 2, 2001, the results of their collaboration were put on display at the 750-seat Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. The production featured a diverse cross-section of Asian American theater performers: veterans like Jodi Long, newer talents like Jose Llana, and-as Mei Li, now the show's unquestioned heart-Lea Salonga, Asian America's greatest star of the musical stage.

The show was a blockbuster hit. Extended for six weeks beyond its original two-month run, it was embraced by fans and critics of the original alike, and received some of the most laudatory notices of David Henry Hwang's career. Reviews called it "exhilarating," "fresh and sassy," and a "compelling artistic success"-with "all the earmarks of a Broadway crowd-pleaser."

Prophetic words. Flower Drum's West Coast coup motivated producers Benjamin Mordecai, Michael Jenkins, Waxman/Williams Entertainment, and Center Theater Group (Gordon Davidson, artistic director, and Charles Dillingham, managing director) to begin the arduous yet rewarding process of bringing the musical to the biggest theatrical market in the world: New York, New York.

In November 2001, the announcement went out: Flower Drum Song would come to Broadway in the Fall of 2002-coincidentally, bringing the production back to the scene of its original triumph during Richard Rodgers' Centennial Year. The opportunity to showcase the reenvisioned Drum on a new and magnificent scale has instilled in its cast and creators a sense of anticipation, of celebration-and revolution. "It's about proving to the world we can do this," says Hwang. "Someday, it might mean something to say: 'I was in this original production of Flower Drum Song.'"

For Asian Americans-who have long sought images that reflect our lives and our history with dignity, respect, and imagination-someday is today.

behind the music
AFTER LONG AND HIGHLY DISTINGUISHED CAREERS with other collaborators, Richard Rodgers (composer, 1902-79) and Oscar Hammerstin II (librettist/lyricist, 1895-1960) joined forces in 1943 to create the most consistently fruitful and successful partnership in the American musical theatre. Oklahoma!, the first Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, was also the first of a new genre, the musical play, blending Rodger's sophisticated style of musical comedy (which he perfected in a 25-year partnership with lyricist Lorenz Hart) with Hammerstein's innovations in operetta (conceived in collaboration with such composers as Sigmund Romberg, Vincent Yeomans, Rudolf Friml and Jerome Kern.)

Oklahoma! was followed by Carousel (1945), Allegro (1947), South Pacific (1949), The King & I (1951), Me and Juliet (1953), Pipe Dream (1955), Flower Drum Song (1958) and The Sound of Music (1959). Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote one musical specifically for the big screen, State Fair (1945; remade 1962; Broadway premiere, 1996), and one for television, Cinderella (1957; remade 1965, 1997).

Collectively, the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals earned 34 Tony Awards, 14 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards and two Emmy Awards. In 1998 Rodgers and Hammerstein were cited by Time magazine/CBS News as "Showmen of the 20th Century", and in 1999 they were jointly commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp. The year 2002 marks the centennial of Richard Rodgers, and it will see Flower Drum Song joined on Broadway by new productions of The Boys from Syracuse and Oklahoma!.

JOSEPH FIELDS (1895-1966), CO-AUTHOR OF THE ORIGINAL BOOK of Flower Drum Song, entered show business when his perfume company folded soon after the 1929 stock market crash. He then took off to Hollywood, where he applied his hitherto amateur writing skills to such films as Annie Oakley and the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca. In addition to collaborating with Oscar Hammerstein II on Flower Drum Song, Fields also co-authored the stage hits My Sister Eileen, Junior Miss, Anniversary Waltz, and Wonderful Town with Jerome Chodorov; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Anita Loos; and Tunnel of Love with Peter DeVries.