Baayork Lee Set to Direct China-Bound FLOWER DRUM SONG

The Center for the Asian Arts and Media at Columbia College in Chicago has announced that Baayork Lee will direct and choreograph their new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song next August. The production, which will begin as a concert in Washington D.C. in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in collaboration with the U.S.-Asia Institute in May of 2010, will run for one month in Chicago. The show will ultimately make a transfer to Shanghai in the late fall of 2010.

The production features top Asian American talents from Broadway and Hollywood, led by Tony-Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), who adapted the musical book for the recent Broadway revival, and veteran Broadway director/choreographer Baayork Lee (A Chorus Line). 

Casting has yet to be announced.

Lee made her big stage debut in 1973 when she appeared in Bennett's Seesaw and was featured opposite Tommy Tune. She originated the role of "Connie Wong" in A Chorus Line Along with the cast, she won the 1976 Theatre World Award for Ensemble Performance for the show. Over the years she has directed or choreographed more than thirty-five international productions of the musical, including the most recent Broadway revival in 2006. Fifteen years later, along with cast member Thommie Walsh and Robert Viagas, she documented the evolution of A Chorus Line in the book On the Line: the Creation of A Chorus Line, published in 1990. The 2008 feature documentary "Every Little Step" chronicles the casting process of A Chorus Line's 2006 revival, which was choreographed by Lee. She has directed national and international tours of The King & I, Bombay Dreams, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, Barnum, Porgy and Bess, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Carmen Jones. She was Associate Choreographer for Tommy Tune. She also has choreographed several productions for the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. Other projects include becoming a talent scout for Tokyo Disneyland, opening a musical theater school in Seoul, South Korea, and producing.

Lee was the recipient of the 2003 Lifetime Achievement Asian Woman Warrior Award from Columbia College Chicago.

For further information on the production, visit: www.colum.edu/asianartsandmedia.

The Center for Asian Arts and Media is a multidisciplinary arts center, dedicated to supporting, promoting and presenting arts and media programs by and about Asians and Asian Americans. As the first Asian arts center founded by a college or university in the Midwest, the Center for Asian Arts and Media places Columbia College Chicago at the forefront of the heightened awareness of Asian and Asian American culture.