They Call Us Flower Drum Song

Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America.

What's up, podcast listeners? We've got another episode of our podcast They Call Us Bruce. (Almost) each week, my good friend, writer/columnist Jeff Yang and I host an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America, with a strong focus on media, entertainment and popular culture.

In this episode, we welcome back acclaimed legendary playwright David Henry Hwang, who talks about his new take on the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song, now playing at East West Players in Los Angeles. He talks about rewriting and re-contextualizing the book for this beloved show (still only one of the few Broadway musicals to center Asian Americans); refreshing some of the more outdated and regressive elements of the story -- including a few of the cringe-inducing lines from David's own 2002 revisal -- for contemporary times; and how this staging of Flower Drum Song represents a full-circle moment for David's life and career.

C.Y. Lee, author of 'Flower Drum Song,' dies at 102

C.Y. Lee in 2016 (Los Angeles Times)
C.Y. Lee, the Chinese American author whose best-selling 1957 novel The Flower Drum Song provided the source material for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and feature film, died November 8 at his daughter's home in Los Angeles. He was 102. The family did not publicly announce the death at the time.

Over a career spanning seven decades, Mr. Lee wrote nearly a dozen volumes of historical fiction, but his best-known work was his debut novel, The Flower Drum Song, explored conflict among first- and second-generation immigrants in San Francisco's Chinatown. The novel brought instant literary stardom upon its release.

More here: C.Y. Lee, author of the best-selling novel 'The Flower Drum Song,' dies at 102