The King and I Fifty years after its premiere, Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest summed up the musical: The King and I The King and I is the fifth musical by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Margaret Landon's novel, "Anna and the King of Siam" (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. The musical's plot relates the experiences of Anna, a British schoolteacher hired as part of the King's drive to modernize his country. The relationship between
Robert Anderson (playwright) took an undergraduate as well as a master's degree. He may be best-remembered as the author of "Tea and Sympathy". The play made its Broadway debut in 1953 and was made into an Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film in 1956; both starred Deborah Kerr and John Kerr. "You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running", a collection of four one-act comedies, opened in New York in 1967 and ran for more than 700 performances. His other successful Broadway plays were "Silent Night, Lonely Night" (1959) and "I Never Sang for My Father" (1968). He wrote the screenplays for "Until They Sail"