Accounts differ a bit on the genesis.
The idea for doing the show came from Vincent J. Donehue, who had first worked with Martin on the television adaptation of the revival of The Skin of Our Teeth that Alan Schneider had directed onstage. Martin liked working with Donehue on the production. He then directed her in the West Coast revival of Annie Get Your Gun that was also televised.
He was working at Paramount. Paramount thought it might be a good idea to adapt the German film about the Trapps, which had not been released in the U.S., as a film for Audrey Hepburn. They showed Donehue the film with that idea in mind. He thought it would make a good show for Martin. He showed it to Martin and Halliday. They wanted to do it.
There was a lot of difficulty obtaining the rights to the story because every member of the family had to sign off on it. Leland Hayward was brought in as co-producer, perhaps in part because he would be good at helping to obtain the rights.
Along the way, and before anyone spoke to Rodgers and Hammerstein about the project, Lindsay and Crouse contacted Martin, Halliday and Hayward. They wanted to write it.
This is where accounts start to differ. According to some accounts, the idea was that it would be a play with a few songs, which would be chosen from Austrian folk songs that the Trapps had sung. In this version of the story, at some point Rodgers and Hammerstein were contacted to perhaps write an additional, original song or two.
At the time, Flower Drum Song was on its way toward production, and Hammerstein was in the hospital. Rodgers said that he thought it would be a bad idea for there to be one or two R and H songs mixed in with real folk songs, but if they could wait till FDS was finished, he and Hammerstein would like to write a complete score for a musical of the story.
According to other accounts, everyone always thought it would be a musical, but Lindsay and Crouse had contacted Martin and company first and were hired to write the book.
In either version, given the combination of Hammerstein's poor health and the delay necessitated by having to wait until FDS was finished, it made sense for Lindsay and Crouse to remain as the book-writers.
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