The King and I
Shows · The King and I
The King and I . Anna (Gertrude Lawrence) asks the King (Yul Brynner). “Shall We Dance?” The King and I . “Shall We Dance?” Anna (Gertrude Lawrence) asks the King (Yul Brynner). Based on the diaries of an adventurous Englishwoman, Anna Leonowens, the story of The King and I (a title Miss Lawrence never liked) is set in Bangkok in the early 1860s. Anna, the new governess and teacher to King Mongkut’s many children, ha…
- Opened
- 1951
- Performances
- 1,246
- Type
- Musical
- Era
- Golden Age
Won the Tony Award for Best Musical, 1952.
Productions8 on Broadway
| 1951 | St. James Theatre Original. March 29, 1951 · John van Druten | 1,246 performances · 5 Tony wins |
| 1977 | Uris Theatre Revival. May 2, 1977 · Yuriko | 695 performances |
| 1985 | Broadway Theatre Revival. January 7, 1985 · Mitch Leigh | 191 performances |
| 1996 | Neil Simon Theatre Revival. April 11, 1996 · Christopher Renshaw | 780 performances |
| 2000 | London Palladium Original. | |
| 2015 | Revival Theatre unknown. · Bartlett Sher | 538 performances |
| 2018 | London Palladium Transfer. | |
| 2024 | Dominion Theatre Original. |
Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.
Recordings 23 albums held
Licensing 2 entries
| US | 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.
52 passages naming The King and I, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.
“Getting to Know You” was added during the tryout for Anna and the royal wives and children. As “Suddenly Lucky,” it had been intended for Cable to sing to Liat in South Pacific, but was dropped in favor of “Younger Than Springtime.” With a revised lyric, the song became one of the hit songs from The King and I. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p140
As of this writing, The King and I has been revived in New York eight times for a total of 3,052 performances. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p141
among the chorus singers was Marni Nixon, who became famous when her singing voice dubbed various actresses who appeared in film musicals (Deborah Kerr for The King and I ; Natalie Wood for West Side Story ; and Audrey Hepburn for My Fair Lady ). book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p368
The revival of The King and I was the musical’s first since the original Broadway production had closed two years earlier. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p533
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
On March 29, 1951, Rodgers and Hammerstein presented their latest creation, The King and I, directed by playwright John Van Druten and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. With Gertrude Lawrence and a practically unknown actor, Yul Brynner, in the leads, the romantic musical based on the popular novel Anna and the King of… book:at-this-theatre-100-years-of-broadway-shows-stories-and-botto-louis-viagas-rober#p279
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