| agreed, Flower Drum Song should have won |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 04:20 pm EST 02/03/21 |
| In reply to: re: REDHEAD - WaymanWong 04:47 pm EST 01/31/21 |
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Not only is it a better score, but it would have been a cultural milestone for diversity in the stories told and the casts who deliver them.
I have to assume that the fresh Fosse staging and the star power of Verdon wowed people, and perhaps also since R&H already had TWO musicals that won Best Musical (South Pacific 9 years earlier, and The King & I 7 years earlier) may have had voters leaning toward giving it to a musical by less awarded creators? However they did lose the award for their flop Pipe Dream just 3 years earlier... but maybe voters felt Flower Drum Song wasn't the return to top form writing like South Pacific and King & I (and their pre-Tonys shinning gems, Oklahoma and Carousel) that they'd have hoped for from R&H after Pipe Dream was their first big misfire.
I also can't help but wonder (or just assume) that racism was very present at the time and part of how people voter (and probably how audiences decided what to buy tickets for). Does anyone have insight or research based knowledge about the potential racism at play? Obviously it can also be true that more voters liked Redhead more, and we'll never know, but there's no question that 1950s America was plenty racist. |
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