East West Players & Japanese American Cultural & Community Center Present
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song
Saturday, April 18 – Sunday, May 31, 2026
Opening Night: April 23, 2026
Aratani Theatre
244 S. San Pedro Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
$49.00-255.00 (+ $5.00 fee)
About: The enchanting golden era musical Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song, directed by East West Players (EWP) Artistic Director Lily Tung Crystal, will serve as the grand finale for EWP’s Diamond Legacy season.
This captivating tale will receive a newly updated book for 2026 by the Tony Award-winning playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and EWP theater namesake David Henry Hwang. At a time when conversations about identity and cultural preservation are more important than ever, Hwang’s reworking of the book for the Spring 2026 production allows Asian Americans to reclaim this cherished story in a meaningful way, illuminating the complexities and richness of the community’s continuous evolution.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song pulls back the curtain on themes of assimilation and tradition in 1960’s San Francisco Chinatown as Mei-Li, a young Chinese opera artist fleeing communism, arrives in America, where she is immediately drawn into the dazzling world of the Grant Avenue nightclubs.
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Book by David Henry Hwang
Based on the original book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joseph Fields
Based on the novel by C.Y. Lee
Directed by Lily Tung Crystal
FLOWER DRUM SONG is sponsored in part by The David Lee Foundation, as well as Henry & Denise Byun, Caplin Foundation, Ruth Eliel & Bill Cooney, Curtis C. Jung & Lynn Hatashita-Jung, Brenda S. Miyamoto, Mercy & Howard Steenwyk, Randall & Mari Tamura, and Ji-young Yoo, with additional support from the Chinese American Museum, Employees Community Fund of Boeing, Japanese American National Museum, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture. East West Players is a recipient of the 2026 THRIVE! Grant, funded by the Mark Edelman Theater Fund and administered by Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for theatre leading for a just and thriving theatre ecology.
Opening Night and Artist Mixer events are sponsored by Far Bar.