Musicals, Actors, and Audiences in the Seoul-Tokyo Musical Theatre Exchange
Laura MacDonald*
Abstract
Despite their proximity and complicated shared history, Japan and South Korea’s commercial musical theatre industries have developed along very different lines and thus prompting unique opportunities for transnational engagement. Drawing on a range of twenty-first century trends and events, supported by personal interviews with stakeholders and analysis of performances and media coverage, this article examines the two musical theatre industries’ symbiotic relationship, whereby performers, musicals, and audiences shuttle across the East Sea/Sea of Japan. While acknowledging the complexities of Korean and Japanese interactions with Western musical theatre, the two countries’ proximity and knowledge of one another have supported a range of different collaborations and exchanges. The multi-vectoral impact of this relationship requires an expansion of musical theatre and East Asian theatre historiography. Many Japanese theatregoers travel to Seoul and become ardent fans of original Korean musicals such as Gone Tomorrow (2016), recounting the events of the failed Gapsin Coup of 1894 in which Korean activist Kim Ok-kyun, with Japanese support, attempted to overthrow the Korean government. Korean musical theatre actors, admired for their powerful voices and high-stakes, emotional acting, also attract theatregoers from Japan, in addition to interest from the Japanese industry. Yang Joon-mo was an established star in Korea when he auditioned in 2014 for the newest Japanese production of Les Misérables in Japan and was offered the role of Jean Valjean. He and other Koreans have navigated careers in both countries and thereby contributed to each industry’s prosperity. Toho and other Japanese producers also license original Korean musicals such as Mata Hari (2016), Maybe Happy Ending (2016), and Marie Curie (2016) for Japanese premieres, and recordings of Korean musical theatre productions are screened in Japan. While the two countries manage a strained relationship based on historical conflicts, musical theatre has (profitably) collapsed distance and transcended uncomfortable feelings.
Keywords: musical theatre, Japan, South Korea, Seoul, Tokyo, transnational theatre history, Korean wave, K-Pop
When theatregoers sat down to watch the new musical Itaewon Class[1] in Tokyo in 2025, they were faced with a photograph of Seoul on the cover of the souvenir program. Based on the popular webtoon and Netflix series from South Korea, the musical theatre adaptation of Itaewon Class was created by an international creative team of Japanese, Koreans, and Americans, and produced by the Japanese producer Toho. The K-drama gained popularity in Japan during the global pandemic, inspiring Japanese producer Mariko Kojima to pursue the rights and lead the musical’s development and premiere.The Netflix series “was a bigger hit here in Japan than in Korea,” Kojima explains in an interview. “The story is about love, friendship, revenge, and a father-son relationship. It’s perfect. I wanted to turn it into a musical like Rent.” The original Korean webtoon series was also reminiscent of the stories in the Japanese manga Weekly Jump, enhancing the potential for a musical theatre adaptation.
Making a musical that appeals to the Japanese audience was key for Kojima. It was challenging for the international creative team to assess what might succeed better in Japan than in Korea or the United States. A series of big songs and limited dialogue “was better in Korea because they are better singers. We don’t really have the greatest singers,” Kojima acknowledges. “But when the show goes to other countries, the artists there can localize it and then make the show into something better fit to the culture.” Itaewon Class is the culmination of decades of musical theatre circulation between Japan and South Korea. Despite the two countries’ geographic proximity and complicated shared history, including but not limited to Japan’s colonization of Korea between 1910-1945, Japan and South Korea’s commercial musical theatre industries have developed along very different lines and thus provide unique opportunities for each to engage with the other.[2]
Commercial musical theatre productions tour to many cities in Japan and South Korea, but the industries are largely based in Tokyo and Seoul which is where much of the research for this article was conducted. Their geography, and especially the neighborhoods and venues where each industry is based, can be understood as an exchange – a transnational marketplace where musicals, actors, and audiences are exchanged. Both industries are also connected in different ways with other Asian musical theatre industries including those in China, Taiwan, and the Philippines, in addition to Australia’s industry, and such relationships are worthy of scholarly attention though they are not consistently present in the Seoul-Tokyo exchange or entwined in the history this article charts.
Drawing on a range of twenty-first century trends and events, supported by personal interviews with industry stakeholders and analysis of media coverage and performances, this article examines the two musical theatre industries’ symbiotic relationship, whereby performers, musicals, and audiences shuttle across the East Sea/Sea of Japan. I acknowledge the complexities of Korean and Japanese interactions with Western musical theatre, whereby each industry received and learned from different sequences of imported American, British, and European musicals. These included touring companies; Japanese and Korean premieres of licensed, replica productions that preserve original staging and design; as well as non-replica licensed productions of Western musicals, staged and designed by Japanese and Korean creative teams. Building on this engagement with Western imports, Japan and South Korea’s proximity and knowledge of one another have supported a range of different collaborations and exchanges. These have not always been easy, straightforward, or harmonious, but a history of sustained transnational activity has accumulated and merits evaluation. The multi-vectoral impact of this relationship requires an expansion of musical theatre and East Asian theatre historiography.
Hallyu, or the Korean wave, dates to the late 1990s and has intersected in important ways with a longer-standing trajectory of growth and expansion in musical theatre. The Korean wave describes the international spread and popularity of a wide range of South Korean popular culture, including television dramas (K-dramas) distributed on streaming platforms, K-Pop music, and K-films, but also consumer products such as cosmetics, electronics, and food. This distribution beyond South Korea coalesced with pathways already circulating actors, audiences, and musicals, and synergies between musical theatre and other K-cultures have been mutually beneficial. As South Korea’s nearest neighbor, Japan was often an early adopter, helping to popularize K-culture globally.
Korean musical theatre actors, admired for their powerful voices and high-stakes, emotional acting, attract theatregoers from Japan, in addition to interest from the Japanese industry. Yang Joon-mo was an established star in Korea when he auditioned in 2014 for the newest Japanese production of Les Misérables in Japan and was offered the role of Jean Valjean. Matsuda Kazuhiko, a Toho producer, explains: “When we looked for a new Jean Valjean, we didn’t really have any singers in Japan that could play that role. So we had to depend on the talents in Korea…Yang Joon-mo is kind of like a hero for us.” Whether inspired by a broader fandom of Korean culture or introduced to a Korean performing in Japan, many Japanese theatregoers travel to Seoul and become ardent fans of original Korean musicals such as Gone Tomorrow (2016),[3] based on Korean playwright Oh Taeseok’s 1994 play Toraji (A Chinese Balloon Flower) (1994), recounting the events of the failed Gapsin Coup of 1894 in which Korean activist Kim Ok-kyun, with Japanese support, attempted to overthrow the Korean government. Toho and other Japanese producers also license original Korean musicals such as Mata Hari (2016),[4] Maybe Happy Ending (2016),[5] and Marie Curie (2018)[6] for Japanese premieres, and filmed live recordings of Korean musical theatre productions are screened in Japan. As the two countries continue to manage a strained relationship based on historical conflicts, musical theatre has (profitably) collapsed distance and transcended uncomfortable feelings. The positive, productive Seoul-Tokyo musical theatre exchange may even be supplanting an earlier infusion of Western musical theatre in East Asia.
Receiving and Producing Western Musicals
Prior to Japan’s 1910 annexation of Korea, historian Alexis Dudden explains, “Meiji officials in Korea vied doggedly with Europe and the United States over strategic privileges, mining and railroad rights, and souls to proselytize” (2). Japan, South Korea, Europe and the US remain entwined in the contemporary musical theatre industry, as producers and creatives conceive potentially lucrative transnational partnerships that bear some resemblance to the nineteenth century negotiations. Premiering new musicals engenders status for producers and nations, and both performers and the musicals themselves are the sought after commodities of the 21st century. The growth in audiences is evidence of the successful conversion of East Asians into musical theatregoers.
The all-female Takarazuka Revue began performing in 1914, four years after Japan’s annexation of Korea, and germinated many aspects of the wider Japanese musical theatre industry, including engagement with South Korea, so there is a logic in studying the two countries’ relationship through the lens of musical theatre. Takarazuka’s consistent privileging of musicals with western settings, in addition to its collaborations with Americans from Broadway since the 1960s, may have modelled for Koreans how to create musical theatre with an American influence. Dudden observes how “Japan’s opening of Korea in 1876…self-consciously mimicked the U.S. opening of Japan in 1853” (2), and to an extent, about a century later, musical theatre industries in both countries similarly opened up in the 20th century, one of the other. The post-World War II American military presence throughout Asia, expanded by the U.S.A.’s involvement in the Korean War, facilitated the circulation of commercial, popular culture like musicals. Japanese popular culture remained taboo in South Korea for decades after liberation, though it certainly circulated underground. The South Korean musical theatre industry began developing shortly after the Japanese industry flourished in the mid-1960s, but any initial international influence on Korean musical theatre was Western, rather than Japanese.
Tokyo and Seoul have a shared history of receiving Western musical theatre since the late 1950s, when American university students began performing Broadway musicals such as Wonderful Town (1953)[7] and Brigadoon (1947)[8] for local audiences while they toured Asia with the United Service Organizations (USO) to entertain American military personnel. A professional American tour of Hello, Dolly! starring Mary Martin also visited both cities in 1965. Japanese productions of Western musicals began in 1963 with My Fair Lady and Broadway musicals became regular fare in Tokyo. Shiki Theatre Company founder Asari Keita created a Kabuki adaptation of the British rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar (1971) that opened in Tokyo in 1973, and more Japanese productions of the musical followed. Kim Eui Kyung, co-founder of South Korea’s Hyundai Theatre, directed the musical’s Korean premiere in 1980, and in 1984 visited Japan with Korean actor Kwak Eun Tae to see a Japanese production of Superstar, before Kwak was promoted from playing the disciple Thomas to playing Jesus in Hyundai’s next season (극단 현대극장 30주년 기념사업 [Hyundai Theatre 30 Years Anniversary Commemoration Foundation] 127–28).
Western musicals continued to arrive in Tokyo through the 1980s and 1990s, and later Seoul, including a suite of musicals from British producer Cameron Mackintosh: Cats (1981), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of the Opera (1986),and Miss Saigon (1989). These were typically replica productions that were created by Western staff dispatched from New York City or London to replicate original productions for Japanese or South Korean producers. Even so, the Seoul-Tokyo channel has sometimes facilitated the preparation of these Japanese and South Korean premieres, with staff from one city traveling to the other city to learn from a replica before producing a new replica in their own city. Sets and costumes are sometimes rented and shipped across the sea between the cities, capitalizing on their proximity to reduce budget costs.
International studies scholar Quansheng Zhao investigates regional integration in East Asia and in 2004 observed that while the region is one of the three major economic zones in the world, “East Asia has failed to develop” a regional structure like the European Union or the North American Free Trade Area. “In East Asia, the process of regional integration did not gain real momentum until the post-Cold War era,” Zhao writes, and the regional integration of East Asian musical theatre industries also gained momentum in this period (114). A Shiki production of Superstar directed by Asari visited the National Theatre in Seoul for performances from September 25-28, 1994, as part of official Japanese cultural presentations in South Korea following a summit between the two countries. 48 percent of members of the Federation of Artistic and Cultural Organizations of Korea believed “Korea’s opening to Japanese cultural products is inevitable, but 33 percent maintain it is still premature to accommodate them” (“First Official Presentation of Japanese Culture in Seoul Set”). The visit was remembered when a Japanese play toured to Seoul in 1995, in a Korea Times article entitled “Japan Theatre Making Low-Profile, Smooth Entry Into Domestic Scene.” Reporter Lee Hee-soon observed that the Superstar performances had signalled “a gradual easing of the ban on Japanese culture.” Lee acknowledged the positive critical response to the Shiki production but noted, “the general response toward the introduction of the Japanese version was mixed.” With the government’s liberalization program, Lee expected culture exchange to widen and concluded that any barrier to Japanese theatre, “seems to have already collapsed.” Lee points to the power of live theatre to cause change, and the Korean wave disseminating a wide range of cultural products would gradually pull musicals into its change-making flows.
Japan was not only a partner for exchange with South Korea; it was also a measuring stick for the still-developing industry in Seoul. In 2004, original Korean musicals were doing well at the box office and some were approaching their tenth anniversaries, including The Last Empress (1995) (about Queen Min, later known as Empress Myeonseong, who was assassinated by Japanese agents in 1895).[9] South Korean producer Seol Do-yun, who earlier in his career had performed in Shiki musicals in Japan, lamented the low grosses of imported musicals in Korea. “The musical ‘Cats’ has earned over 500 billion won in Japan, but 19.8 billion won in ticket sales for ‘Phantom of the Opera’ in Korea is embarrassing,” he told the Korea Times (qtd. in Y. Lee). Though audiences were growing and corporate investors were supporting the industry, a seminar, “The Global Strategies on the Korean Musical Industry,” gathered industry leaders for discussions on new musical development and the infrastructure needed to support it. Shiki tried to enter the growing South Korean musical theatre market in 2004 as a commercial producer rather than an official cultural exchange partner, but cancelled plans “because of strong opposition from Korean musical companies” (Park and Choi). Koreans remained cautious and continued to more warmly receive Western musical theatre industry partners.
Disney Theatrical Group began licensing its musicals to Shiki with Beauty and the Beast (1994) in 1995, followed by The Lion King (1997) in 1998, with Japanese premieres by Shiki of most other Disney musicals following. Beauty and the Beast opened in Seoul in 2004,[10] and Aida followed in 2005.[11] Unlike these early Korean-produced Disney premieres in South Korea, when The Lion King opened in Seoul in 2006, it was produced by Shiki (rather than a South Korean producer), at the new Charlotte Theatre, a purpose-built theatre for musicals constructed and operated by the Lotte Corporation (Group).[12] Shin Kyuk-ho, a Korean who immigrated to Japan in 1941, took the name Shigemitsu Takeo and was part of the Zainichi community of Koreans in Japan, “colonial-era Korean migrants to Japan and their descendants” (Lie xi). In 1948 in Tokyo, he founded the Lotte Corporation and established the corporation in Seoul in 1967. The corporation became the fifth largest South Korean chaebol (a business conglomerate, typically run by a family), after Samsung, Hyundai, SK Group, and LG Group. Lotte’s Japanese origins, and Shin’s decades-long friendship with Asari at Shiki, undoubtedly contributed to the collaboration that launched the new theatre, though different accounts of the partnership behind The Lion King were reported on by the Korean press, and contributed to the Disney musical’s struggle to find an audience in Seoul.
The Lion King is an American musical but Korean producers were angry that a Japanese producer was chosen to inaugurate the new theatre in Seoul in 2006. Lotte officials insisted that Korean proposals were also considered, and at a press conference in Seoul, Asari himself declared “that Shiki was entering Korea in order to boost cultural exchanges between Korea and Japan, and to return what his home nation had received culturally from Korea for thousands of years” (Park and Choi). Asari stated that he had been involved in diplomatic negotiations between the two countries 40 years earlier, “I know how much Koreans hate Japanese,” and he affirmed the positive impact of cultural exchange (qtd. in Bae). Shiki also promised to reinvest profits in Seoul, by establishing a training center for actors, rather than transferring profits to Japan.
Members of the Musical Theatre Association of Korea (MTAK), including local producers who had in 2005 proposed a co-production to the Charlotte Theatre, countered by noting, “it is hard to call it cultural exchange when a Japanese troupe stages a simple reproduction of a large-scale Broadway show here” (Bae). MTAK’s statement describes the kind of musical theatre replicas that scholar Dan Rebellato labels McTheatre “These are not new productions,” he explains. “They are franchises” (41). Rebellato compares the preparation of musical theatre replicas to the spread of McDonald’s restaurants and hamburgers around the world, noting “the workers have little or no control over their conditions of work; all the creative decisions were taken years ago and are locked down” (44). What Rebellato labels franchises are more commonly known as replicas, which feature the same staging and design as an original New York or London production, typically overseen by an overseas team working in collaboration with local theatre professionals.
The rightsholders of American musicals including Wicked and Chicago often support the celebration of distinct local performers in licensed replicas, and production staff are able to make space for their creativity in the rehearsal process. In contrast, Cameron Mackintosh-produced and licensed musicals such as Les Misérables are more rigidly preserved. Though such replicas have indeed been produced in collaboration with local Japanese and South Korean producers, a lack of control and creativity has not, however, defined musical theatre production in these two industries, where non-replica productions and original musicals also proliferate, and are often the result of transnational collaborations that can be called cultural exchange. Asari and Shiki, however, were leading a replica based on Shiki’s own replica, making the Japanese producer an intermediary between the American original and the new replica in South Korea.
Weeks after MTAK’s statement, Asari held a press conference at Shiki headquarters in Yokohama and told Korean journalists that the Charlotte, “wouldn’t have been constructed if Shiki didn’t request [that Lotte do so]” (qtd. in Park and Choi). Asari claimed that 15 years earlier, Shin had made it a condition of the new theatre’s construction that it be opened and stabilized with a Shiki production for a three-year run. Asari also claimed that Disney did not have confidence in the Korean musical theatre market. “Korean producers should take responsibility for such comments,” Asari suggested, and Korean producers took the statement as evidence of a secret arrangement between Shiki and Lotte (qtd. in Park and Choi). While the production ran for a year, it did not recoup its investment. Critics of the venture with Shiki attributed the failure to high ticket prices without discounts (unlike the standard of discounting practiced by Korean producers); the lack of star casting; and the focus on marketing The Lion King as a family show which signaled to many Koreans that it was for children and would not appeal to adults. Disney musicals did not gain traction in South Korea as they had in Japan, where Shiki is able to rotate multiple productions of Disney musicals around the country and sustain long runs.
In addition to producing British and American musicals, Japanese and Korean producers partnered with Europeans to produce musicals including Elisabeth (1992), Mozart! (1999) and Jack the Ripper (2006). Takarazuka[13] and Toho[14] produced Elisabeth in Japan in 1996 and 2000, respectively. Unlike Mackintosh’s careful reproduction of musicals in replica productions, the Austrian licensor, Vereignigte Bühnen Wien, “lets the productions be adapted to the individual culture(s) such as the mentality, the audience, the uniqueness of the actor or the actress by the local theatres,” Japanese musical theatre scholar Rina Tanaka explains. “This enables the VBW productions to be distinguished from conventional Anglo-Saxon musicals.” South Korean producers who subsequently licensed European musicals followed the Japanese approach. The Czech musical, Jack the Ripper, “was reworked by the Korean M Musical Company for a Korean premiere,” and ran for three hundred performances in Seoul between 2009 and 2013 (MacDonald, “A New Path to the Future” 71). K-pop idols including Super Junior’s Sungmin were cast, and this helped make the Korean production attractive to the Japanese market. It premiered in Tokyo in 2012 and returned the following year for a run in Yokohama.[15]
Sophy Kim, a co-founder of the Korea musical theatre producer EMK, licensed the Korean rights for Jack the Ripper and learned from the success of the M Musical production.[16]
[H]aving studied in Japan, she used her knowledge of cultural differences and similarities between Japanese and Koreans to evaluate her options, noticing that the Austrian musicals Elisabeth (1992) and Mozart! (1999) were more successful in Japan than The Phantom of the Opera (1986) or Miss Saigon (1989) from London (MacDonald, “A New Path to the Future” 72).
She campaigned VBW for the rights to produce Mozart! in Seoul, even travelling to Japan to approach VBW leaders and the musical’s European authors, Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay. Kim prevailed and the K-pop idol Kim Junsu opened in the South Korean premiere of Mozart! in 2010.[17] Korean premieres of Elisabeth[18] and Rebecca [19] followed, and the relationships Kim developed with Western licensors and creative teams helped her to collaborate with them on original Korean musicals set in Europe, including Mata Hari (2015), The Man Who Laughs (2018), and Beethoven (2025). Her “enthusiasm for European musicals helped them circulate within East Asia and helped develop Japanese fandom for a Korean wave of transcultural musicals” (MacDonald, “A New Path to the Future” 71). Toho had also attempted a transnational collaboration with Marie Antoinette, written and composed by Kunze and Levay and premiered in Tokyo in 2006.[20] Kim subsequently licensed Marie Antoinette and produced her own revision for the Korean market in 2014.
Border-crossing Actors
Sociologist John Lie has written extensively about Zainichi but emphasizes the lack of coherence in this community, which includes elites like Lotte’s Shin, as well as closeted Zainichi who work in the musical theatre industry but pass as Japanese. His focus on “the vicissitudes and fractures within Zainichi identity” may help to explain why Zainichi have regularly worked in musical theatre in both Japan and South Korea (xii). Members of minoritized communities have long deployed their talent and high-level skills to transcend oppression, and entertainment industries have welcomed artists passing as a member of another community. Arang Kei, a former top star of the Takarazuka Revue, is a third-generation Zainichi Korean living in Japan. Born Yasuda Hitomi, she entered the Takarazuka Music School in 1989 then joined the Revue in 1991. As journalist Jang Ji-young explains,
The ‘Arang’ in her stage name Arang Kei (安蘭 けい) is a phonetic transcription of the female protagonist Arang of [the folk song] ‘Miryang Arirang,’ and she added her Korean surname Ahn (安). And ‘Kei’ is the Japanese pronunciation of Gyeong (慶) from Gyeongsang Province, where his (sic) ancestors lived.
Though she was born in Japan, her status was that of a Korean residing in Japan, making Arang the first Korean to rise to the level of a top star otokoyaku (male role player) in Takarazuka, playing lead roles in musicals such as The Rose of Versailles and participating in the company’s 2005 tour to South Korea. She retired from the company in 2009 and continues to play leading female roles in plays and musicals in Japan.
Shiki has since the early 2000s routinely counted dozens of Koreans in its acting company. Kim Ji-hyun was the first to join, in 1997, after graduating with a degree in acting from Korea National University of Arts. She spent a decade playing lead roles such as Grizabella in Cats and Rafiki in The Lion King. After reprising Rafiki in Seoul in 2006, she left Shiki, but continued to perform in Japan and South Korea, including in the long-running original Korean musical Finding Mr. Destiny (2006).[21] Park Dong-ha performed as a child in Korea and joined Shiki in 2001, playing supporting roles for two years before moving to Toho productions in 2003. He achieved particular success playing Rudolf in Toho productions of the Austrian musical Elisabeth. Park also hosted “Hello, Korean Language Course” for several years on Japan’s NHK Educational TV. He began performing in Korea again, following Kim Ji-hyun into Finding Mr. Destiny.
“Encouraged by the performances of Kim Ji-hyun and Park Dong-ha,” Jang reports, “Shiki began to select Korean actors with good singing skills and quick Japanese acquisition,” from auditions held almost every year. Working for Shiki appealed to Koreans because of the musical theatre training the employment provided. In the early 2000s, Shiki shows offered more performance opportunities than were available in the Korean industry, though many Koreans working for Shiki later returned to Korea. Koreans make up on average 5% of Shiki performers, and Jang notes, “they play a major role in enhancing the productions with their singing skills, which are well-regarded in Japan.” Japanese industry stakeholders attribute Koreans’ strong singing variously to their consumption of kimchi, their voice-body connection, Korean music education, and a Korean willingness to sing loudly. Their voices could be the best way of identifying Koreans performing in Shiki productions, as they have frequently assumed Japanese stage names (known as “Tokyo names”) because of conservative Japanese theatregoers’ protests over Korean performers (Jang).
Kim Jun-hyun graduated from the Department of Theatre at Seoul Institute of the Arts. After auditioning the Shiki Theatre Company in 2005, he was cast in leading roles in musicals including The Lion King (in Japan as well as in Seoul, where he played Mufasa and Scar), Evita, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Aida, before returning South Korea in 2010. There he performed in musicals from the producer EMK, including Jekyll and Hyde, Rebecca, Excalibur, Marie Antoinette, and The Count of Monte Cristo. Kim returned to Japan in 2013 where he played Jean Valjean and became the first Korean to play a leading role in Les Misérables in Japan, and to perform in that musical in both countries (his turn as Javert in Korea followed in 2015).
Musical theatre actor Yang Joon-mo graduated from Korea National University of Arts but also trained abroad, in Russia, Japan, and the United States. He was already an established star in Korea when he sang in a Christmas concert in Japan in 2014 and managed to also audition for the newest Japanese production of Les Misérables. “I thought it was a great opportunity because I wanted to perform in Japan,” Yang explains. Because vocal sound positions (or placement) change significantly depending on the language being sung, he explains, “I wasn’t well-prepared to sing in Japanese, so even songs I could sing without any issues in Korean were difficult in Japanese.” He returned later that day to sing again, as well as the next day before returning to Korea. The production staff suggested that Yang record a video once he spent more time rehearsing in Japanese, which he did and on the basis of the video was offered the role of Jean Valjean.
Aware that Les Misérables is a kind of pinnacle for Japanese musical theatre performers, Yang felt pressure to prepare for the role so that he could represent Korea to the best of his ability. Having performed for many years as a baritone, Yang travelled to New York City for training with the American voice teacher Arthur Levy, to develop the tenor voice required to sing Valjean. Additionally, for a six-month period prior to the start of rehearsals in Tokyo, he isolated himself in Korea, to learn the music and the Japanese lyrics to the highest possible standard. “I did nothing else—no work, no phone—I even went to the mountains” (Yang). He couldn’t speak or read Japanese but wrote all the lyrics phonetically in the score and practiced everyday while walking up Bukhansan mountain in Seoul to ensure his Japanese pronunciation was accurate. Combining walking up and around a mountain with singing, Yang may have been building on the Korean concept of 득음 [deuk-eum], or achieving sound, pursued by pansori singers who use challenges such as drowning out or breaking through the sound of a waterfall with their singing as a training strategy. The kind of energy required to sing through a waterfall or while ascending a mountain begins to illustrate the physical intensity many Korean actors bring to their musical theatre performances.
Yang’s first rehearsal in Tokyo was a Sitzprobe where the orchestra and actors played and sang the entire score. Yang worked on his pronunciation to sound as much like a native speaker as possible. “The Japanese cast and crew were curious about how well I could do, wondering who I was and how good I would be,” he recalls. “But by that first meeting, I memorized everything and delivered a solid performance, which earned their respect. It ended up being a delightful experience.”
Les Misérables opened on April 17th, 2015, ten days after the Japanese foreign ministry released its annual report known as the Diplomatic Bluebook, outlining its foreign policy.[22] The 2015 Bluebook described Dokdo island as Japan’s sovereign territory and while it acknowledged Korea as Japan’s most important neighbor, the Bluebook omitted older phrasing that declared the two countries shared fundamental values. As had been the case a decade earlier, the Japanese Education Ministry sought to ensure textbooks would claim the island as Japanese territory (Kim).
After Yang’s first performance he told journalists, “I will try my best to convey the message of Les Misérables to the Japanese audience. Also, it was a big burden for me to make the decision to appear at a time when relations between Korea and Japan were not good, but I am working hard to make cultural reconciliation” (qtd. in “뮤지컬배우 양준모, 日 ‘레미제라블’ 장발장 役 첫 무대 ‘호평일색’ [Musical Actor Yang Jun-Mo, First Stage as Jean Valjean in Japan’s ‘Les Miserables’ ’All Praise’]”). Besides being the first Korean to play Valjean in Japan, Yang was also the first Christian to play the role in Japan, and became an unofficial missionary, sharing insight into Christianity with his Japanese cast members and theatregoers. He toured with the musical to Nagoya, Fukuoka, Osaka, Toyama, and Shizuoka. Yang also gave a masterclass attended by Japanese musical theatre performers from across the country, including Takarazuka performers. He then returned to Korea in 2015 where he played Valjean in Korean for the first time[23] and later reprised the role in Japan in 2017.
Matsuda Kazuhiko, one of the producers at Toho who hired Yang, explains how
Korean singers are much better than Japanese and we admit that. When we looked for a new Jean Valjean, we didn’t really have any singers in Japan that could play that role. So we had to depend on the talents in Korea. It is a sung-through musical so there’s no problem with accents that Korean people have in speaking Japanese. So Yang Joon-mo is kind of like a hero for us.
Years after his intensive preparation and performances in Japan, Yang reflected, “I see what Koreans accomplish, because they are more willing to be loud,” in contrast to more conservative Japanese performers. This experience has motivated him to theorize the impact of language on vocal technique, whereby different languages require a singer to use different sources of sound in their bodies. “I learned that by myself, by actually practicing and performing,” he explained. Yang continues to play leading roles in South Korean musical productions and is also a specialist in theatre voice at Soonchunhyang University, outside of Seoul, shaping the next generation of Korean performers.
The traffic of musical theatre performers does not flow in only one direction. Japanese performers visit Seoul for singing lessons with Korean teachers. Ishii Kazuaki is a Japanese musical theatre actor who has specialized in performing in Japanese productions of Korean musicals, including the Japanese premiere of the 2018 original Korean musical, Darwin: Origin of Evil. Ishii and other Japanese actors travel to Seoul periodically for singing lessons with Jeon Yoo-hun, a Korean voice teacher who has coached performers including Yang Joon-mo and Park Eun-tae. Though Korean actors valued the training available with Shiki, Japanese actors like Ishii are aware of Koreans’ singing prowess and desire access to the same training. Lumina is a Japanese Indian musical theatre performer who grew up in Japan as Nakamura Rumina and was introduced to musicals by her mother. She watched several musicals on a childhood trip to South Korea and began studying Korean so that she could become a musical theatre actor in Korea. She graduated from Seoul National University in 2023 and later that year made her Korean debut playing Eponine in Les Misérables. In 2024 she reprised the role in Japan, in Tokyo and on tour, becoming the third actor after Kim Jun-hyun and Yang Joon-mo to perform in Les Misérables in both countries. Eponine is Lumina’s first leading role, but her success in two countries has ensured that her fan base will support her performances whether she is singing in Japan or Korean. Such performers’ facility with languages, their pursuit of training across a border, and their success in two industries clearly distinguishes Japanese and Korean musical theatre practice from Western industries.
Audiences and the Korean Wave
Though some Koreans have become fans of the all-female Takarazuka Revue, the company enjoys only a niche following in Korea, of career women between the ages of 20 and 40. A Takarazuka tour to Korea in 2005 was the company’s first visit since Korean liberation in 1945, and it was organized as part of an otherwise not very successful Korea-Japan friendship year, meant to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea. The relationship had worsened that year thanks to the dispute over the sovereignty of Dokdo/Takeshima island, and tensions over how Japanese textbooks presented the history between the two countries (Card 5). Political scientist Cheol Hee Park evaluates Korea-Japan relations and notes that those tensions, “turned into intense conflicts after the Dokdo issue ignited popular sentiment against Japan” in the friendship year (27). A musical theatre tour and other cultural programming could only provide a limited tonic to such historical contentions.
On tour in Seoul, Takarazuka performed its iconic Rose of Versailles musical, based on the popular manga series, and a group of Japanese and Korean government representatives called the South Korea-Japan Parliament Union raised two-thirds of the tour’s funding. Ryu Seung-yeon, the president of a Korean Takarazuka fan club, “came to know about Takarazuka after I watched the show on cable TV. I was fascinated by the dreamy world on stage and went to Japan several times to see the show” (Applegate and Kim). Despite the Korean fan clubs, half of the tickets for the Seoul tour were bought up by Japanese Takarazuka fans who travelled to Seoul expressly to see their fellow countrywomen. The Takarazuka tour to Korea was in fact partly designed to encourage travel to Seoul by Japanese musical theatre fans, who could purchase a tour package including sightseeing in Seoul and special meet and greet sessions with Takarazuka performers. While the tour may not have accelerated friendship, it may have helped to demystify Seoul as a destination for Japanese travelers, just as the Korean wave crested.
In 2008, three years after the friendship year, Japanese office clerk Moji Mika was on vacation in Seoul and happened to stumble upon the Daehangno theatre district while she was sightseeing.[24] She explained in an interview that she was offered a free ticket to see the original Korean musical, Finding Mr. Destiny, about a young Korean woman trying to track down her first love. The actor playing the Mr. Destiny of the title, Kim Jae-beom, became Moji’s idol, and she continued travelling to Seoul regularly to see him perform. As Finding Mr. Destiny continued to run in Seoul, tablets with translated surtitles in English, Chinese and Japanese were introduced for foreign visitors like Moji (Seoul Travel Pass) and in 2016 Finding Mr. Destiny became the first original Korean musical to be exported to both China and Japan. Moji is now in her fifties and typically makes multiple trips to Seoul every year (Moji). She watched her idol Kim play Salieri in the play Amadeus as well as his return appearance in the 2016 historical musical Gone Tomorrow. Kim Jae-beom played Hong Jong-u, the first Korean to study in France who returned to Korea and accepted the king’s order to find and assassinate Kim Ok-kyun who was exiled in Japan.
Motivated by her strong emotional response to both the actor and the history depicted in the musical Gone Tomorrow, Moji studied the history of the Gapsin coup that the musical represents, learned some Korean, and visited the graves of Kim Ok-kyun and other Koreans in Japan, to pray for their peace. Moji admits that “when the musical is based on history, especially modern history, I sometimes feel very uncomfortable seeing it,” but she tries to study the relevant history in advance. She compares travelling regularly from Tokyo to Seoul with visiting Tokyo’s Ginza neighborhood for shopping and entertainment, suggesting that musical theatre has gradually made a real contribution to transforming Japan-Korea relations.
Korea’s ecommerce giant NOL World (formerly Interpark) is one of the primary vendors of musical theatre tickets in Korea, providing service in English, Chinese and Japanese, making it easy for international theatregoers to plan their schedule of performances (Musical – Interpark Global). By 2011, Interpark was selling 3.5 billion won (roughly $2.5 million US) worth of musical theatre tickets via its global website, accounting for nearly 1% of its annual ticket sales (Kwon). Multiple Korean theatres offer surtitles in Japanese, Mandarin, or English at selected performances, and pre-show announcements can be heard in more than one language.
The website for the Takarazuka Revue in Japan (including ticket sales) has been accessible in English since 2003, but in Korean only since 2025. Performances are typically entirely sold out, given Japanese producers’ tendency to only schedule the maximum number of performances they calculate can be sold out through Japan’s many musical fan clubs. They do not account for potential international ticket sales. Shiki is the Japanese exception, with a multilingual website and longer runs that increase ticket availability.
In 2012, Kwon Mee-yoo reported in the Korea Times that “Many Japanese fans of Korean musicals began watching them to see K-pop stars but fell in love with the charm of the actors. Some of them regularly visit Korea to see local shows.” Like Moji’s unexpected free ticket, an initial Korean musical theatre experience, often inspired by K-Pop idol casting, established a regular habit for many Japanese who began attending Korean musicals in Seoul as often as once a month. Kwon cited strong Korean voices as part of the appeal for Japanese theatregoers but spoke to one fan who appreciated the different Korean approach to casting. “In Japan, in my experience, popular actors monopolize big roles and it is hard for a new face to rise,” Yuko Sugiyama told Kwon. “The Korean musical scene is more vibrant and it is interesting to see an actor who debuted in a small show later become a protagonist in a big production such as Hong Kwang-ho and Jeon Seong-woo” (qtd. in Kwon). In both Japan and Korea, lead roles in musicals are frequently shared by more than one performer, allowing theatregoers to plan their attendance based on their preferred casting.
Unlike Japanese performances schedules where the casting for an entire run is announced before tickets go on sale, Korean casting can be adjusted over the course of a run, based on ticket sales. Both the Japanese and Korean strategies for casting and ticket sales differ from Western industries where roles are almost never shared and musicals seek to achieve open-ended runs.
K-Musicals in Japan
In addition to the actors and audiences who travel between Seoul and Tokyo, musicals also travel. Beyond Takarazuka’s 2005 tour and the 2006 Shiki-produced Lion King, the manga musical adaptation Death Note (2015)[25] premiered in Seoul[26] a year after its world premiere in Tokyo.
Though Death Note features a Japanese setting, this is exceptional in the Japanese industry where audiences associate musical theatre with exotic international settings rather than local stories. Another manga-based musical with a Japanese setting, Your Lie in April (2022),[27] also premiered in Seoul (in 2024)[28] following its Japanese premiere. Traffic of musicals from Japan has otherwise been limited.
Conversely, numerous K-musicals have followed K-dramas like Winter Sonata and found new fans in Japan. K-musicals are new musicals premiering in South Korea and while they often feature Korean stories and characters, they also include adaptations and biographies based on foreign sources and figures, including Dorian Gray (2016) and Marie Curie (2018). Nineteenth century settings are particularly popular in Korean musicals, more so than they are in western musical theatre. K-musical producers are Korean but their creative teams might include other Asian or western theatre professionals working in collaboration with Koreans, making some K-musicals, “Multi-national hybrid musicals, with more than one author, director, or financing from more than one country” (MacDonald, “To Remind You of My Love” 119).
K-musicals often premiere in the intimate theatres of Seoul’s Daehangno theatre district, with seating for as few as 200 spectators. The most popular Daehangno shows might transfer to larger venues, where larger-scale K-musicals premiere. Though David Savran identifies “Broadway-style” musical theatre in Seoul, some of the defining characteristics of K-musicals differ sharply from American musicals on Broadway. This includes casting, whereby multiple actors alternate in leading roles and the various permutations inspire repeat attendance by fans.[29] Unlike Broadway, Korean musical theatre casting balances the celebrity of K-Pop idols with the theatre training of career musical theatre actors. Additionally, because casting is the main attraction for many theatregoers, scenic design and staging can be simple and minimal for K-musicals in Daehangno, given many in the audience are attending to experience a beloved performer live, regardless of significant visual splendor from production values. Unlike Broadway’s open-ended runs, K-musicals run for limited seasons but are frequently revised and remounted, attracting theatregoers keen to see each revision of a musical.
The first original Korean musical to be licensed in Japan was Bballae (Laundry, 2005),[30] chronicling the hardships of South Koreans and a migrant from Mongolia living in close quarters in a working-class Seoul neighborhood. With an uplifting narrative, Laundry became known as a “healing musical,” a uniquely Korean type of musical that Laundry helped popularize. Its humor, warmth and romance endeared the musical to Korean theatregoers. Producer Mariko Hosaka attended a performance in Seoul shortly after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan in 2011. “It contained a message of hope and courage, and its music and script were impressive. That’s why I wanted to bring this production over to Japan,” she explained to a Korean news outlet (qtd. in “Original Musical ‘Laundry’ Exported Overseas”). The Japanese premiere opened in 2012, running in Tokyo as well as Osaka.
Hosaka explained why the Korean musical was able to engage Japanese theatregoers: “Tokyo also has a lot of out-of-towners, just like Seoul. We can see people eking out a living in Tokyo as well. Japan underwent great changes after the bubble bust, like back wages, income gaps, and other social ills. The similarity between the two countries made the musical feel closer to home” (qtd. in “Original Musical ‘Laundry’ Exported Overseas”). As word of mouth helped to establish Laundry in Japan, Japanese celebrities such as singer and actor Naomi Kawashima joined the cast. Actor Nojima Naoto took on the lead role of Mongolian migrant Solongo and continued to play the role for nearly a decade. Along with performing in multiple Korean musicals in Japan, he has also performed in Laundry and other musicals in Seoul (Yumi).
Korean jukebox musicals also travelled to Japan in 2012, capitalizing on Japanese fans of K-Pop idols. Members of Japan’s entertainment industry praised the Korean exports as “definitely better than Japanese musicals” (Choi). More than a dozen Korean musicals were scheduled for productions in Japanese theatres in 2013. On May 9, 2013, Japan’s first lady Akie Abe posted a photo of herself on Facebook in front of a poster for the Korean musical Caffeine and was criticized, given tensions at the time between the two countries. A Korean cast was performing Caffeine, about a couple who fall in love after meeting at a coffee shop, at the new Amuse Musical Theatre in Tokyo’s Roppongi district.[31] The 900 seat venue was to be dedicated to Korean musicals, in a collaboration between the Japanese company Amuse and the Korean entertainment company CJ E&M (Chung). The new venue was inspired by the theatres of the Daehangno theatre district, where Laundry and countless other original Korean musicals had been incubated. Presentations of ten Korean musicals were planned, for month-long runs, and CJ E&M hoped the programming would help to introduce the individual musicals, without the stars who had helped attract Japanese audiences to previous Korean exports.
EMK premiered a new musical, Mata Hari, about the Dutch dancer, courtesan, and spy, in Seoul in 2016.[32] As is often the case in South Korea, EMK revised the musical, making adjustments to the script and songs, and opened it again in 2017. A Japanese premiere followed in 2018, produced by Toho subsidiary Umeda Arts and starring the retired Takarazuka otokoyaku performer, Yuzuki Reon.[33] She reprised the role in 2021 and the performance was streamed online and released on DVD in Japan (MacDonald, “A New Path to the Future” 70–71).
When Toho licensed the new musical The Man Who Laughs (2018)[34] from EMK, a Seoul newspaper reported on the surprising differences between the two companies’ marketing campaigns. The musical is based on Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel about Gwynplaine, a young English boy whose mutilated face is perpetually smiling and who becomes a carnival attraction. Journalist Ahn Seok wrote, “The reason the poster changed with overseas expansion was because of the tastes of Japanese audiences.” As a licensing agreement with EMK was being prepared, Ahn reported, Toho observed that Korean musical theatre posters were scary. Although musical audiences in both countries are predominantly female, in South Korea musical theatregoers are young women, while in Japan there is a large audience of women in their 50s and 60s. The Japanese women may have found the Korean poster felt “too much like the horror stories that are popular with young people” (Ahn). In addition to the flower petal imagery, a new subtitle, “the eternal love,” was added for Japan, and implied the centering of the main characters’ romance, though the narrative was ultimately not substantially revised for Japan.
A potentially significant transfer of Korean musical theatre to Japan may have occurred in 2023, when Marie Curie opened in Tokyo. Written by Cheon Se-un and composed by Choi Jong-yoon, Marie Curie was originally selected for the new musical competition, “Glocal Musical Live,” sponsored by the Korea Creative Content Agency in 2017 and for the ARKO Selection program hosted by the Arts Council Korea in 2018. The biographical musical was clearly influenced by European bio-musicals such as Mozart! and Elisabeth but was exceptional as a Korean creation for centering a woman’s story, being supported by official government programs developing musicals for export, all in an industry often focused on distributing male characters and performers to a majority-female audience.
When Marie Curie opened in Japan in March 2023, Manaki Reika played the title role. A former musemeyaku or female role player in the Takarazuka Revue, Manaki had previously played the title role of the Austrian empress in the musical Elisabeth in 2018, before her retirement from Takarazuka and performance in the Japanese premiere of Marie Curie. While Takarazuka fans inevitably supported a retired star like Manaki, a twentysomething male office worker also enthused about Marie Curie on a micro blog post. “Many works often depict the love between a man and a woman, such as a married couple, but I think it is rare to find a work that focuses so much on the friendship between two women.” He admitted that he got a headache from crying and compared Manaki’s power as a performer with Curie’s power as a scientist. He concluded by reflecting upon what the imported musical’s success might reveal about musical theatre:
Reading in the program about how this work was created in Korea made me think… I think the fact that this work spread so widely, that people thought, ‘This is good,’ means that the work itself was praised… How amazing is it that the desire to ‘deliver the message of the work’ has come to fruition, that it has properly reached the audience, and that it has spread even further? (Taishoroman).
The Japanese theatregoer’s affective response and subsequent reflection illustrate the power and complexity of musical theatre circulation in the Seoul-Toyko exchange.
The spread of work between Japan and South Korea became more complex in the 2020s. EMK snagged the world premiere of Kunze and Levay’s new Beethoven musical in 2023, over the Austrian producer VBW and Toho in Japan.[35] It was revised after the initial run in Seoul and remounted there later in 2023. Toho licensed the musical from EMK, premiering it in Tokyo at the end of 2023 prior to a Japanese tour in 2024. The speed with which a Korean production can be revised, and with which Japanese premiere can be prepared, indicates the infrastructure in licensing and producing that has been established, and the productive relationships maintained by companies such as Toho and EMK.
Shared History and Infrastructure
Official cultural diplomacy initiatives brought Japanese musical theatre to South Korea in 1994 (Shiki’s Superstar) and 2005 (Takarazuka’s Rose of Versailles), reinforcing that live, affective musical theatre performances have currency in strengthening and expanding trans-Asia relations. Casting initiatives and commercial collaborations have since ensured that the two countries continue to engage with one another through musical theatre. This traffic and production have been aided by motivated fans like Moji Mika but also dedicated performers like Yang Joon-mo. The Korean actors and musicals that Japanese audiences enjoy deliver emotional performances and stories, and the enthusiastic Japanese reception suggests a symbiotic East Asian relationship has been formed, potentially transcending any prior western primacy. Manaki Reika is one of many Japanese women retired from Takarazuka but still seeking performance opportunities in musical theatre. If Korean musical theatre creators continue to develop new musicals centering women like Marie Curie, a mutualism between the infrastructure of new Korean musical development and of Takarazuka’s well-established performer training system just might help to satisfy the women theatregoers of both Tokyo and Seoul, and maybe even Beijing.[36]
Japan-Korea history has been featured in original Korean musicals including Gone Tomorrow (representing events in 1884), The Last Empress (1894-96), and Hero (chronicling the activism of Ahn Jung-geun from 1909-10).[37] For Koreans still living the tensions of colonial history and ongoing disputes between Japan and South Korea, including disagreement over how colonial history is retold in textbooks, and who has sovereignty over Dokdo/Takeshima Island, the heightened emotion of musical theatre offers Korean creatives some control over the history narratives. Japanese actor Nojima Naoto, who appeared in Laundry in Japan more than a decade ago, travelled to Seoul in 2024 to take on the role of the Japanese prison officer, Chiba, in a new season of Hero. He was the first Japanese actor to play the role in the musical’s 10 seasons over 15 years and was inspired after appearing in the 2022 film adaptation of the musical. “He visited a shrine dedicated to Chiba and conducted extensive research on both Chiba and Ahn, delving into their histories,” Park Ga-young reported in the Korea Herald. Nojima explains, “We study this issue at school and we know about it well. The musical gave me a chance to study history and it can give many others a chance to discuss history” (qtd. in G. Park). With actors like Nojima and theatregoers like Moji studying Japan and Korea’s shared history, musical theatre is fostering understanding in contrast to the mixed results of official cultural diplomacy, foreign policy, and history textbooks.
Japanese new musical theatre writing is not sufficiently developed to provide any counter narrative to Korean musicals staging conflicts with Japan, but Toho has partnered with Marie Curie composer Choi Jong-yoon, and original Korean musical author Han Jung-seok (The Goddess is Watching,[38] Red Book[39]), to provide training in musical theatre writing and to support the development of new Japanese musicals. Choi and Han are also professors at Korea National University of Arts and their graduates have succeeded in Korea’s musical theatre industry, which bodes well for the new training venture in Japan.
While the Korean musicals Maybe Happy Ending opened in Atlanta in 2020 and on Broadway in 2024, and Marie Curie opened in London in 2024, they both premiered in Japan before travelling west. If a Korean wave of musical theatre has begun to extend beyond Asia, it may only be because of a hearty Japanese embrace.
Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Kara (Ah-Hyun) Hwang and Yui Yamada for their research assistance.
Endnotes
[1] Music by Helen Park, lyrics by Lee Hee-joon, and book by Sakaguchi Riko. Koyama Yuna directed with choreography by Kyle Hanagami.
[2] I am defining commercial musical theatre as musical theatre made and marketed for profit by producers engaging creative teams of musical theatre professionals. While these mostly narrative-driven musicals are occasionally influenced by traditional East Asian instruments, music, and/or dance styles, a broader consideration of traditional Asian music theatre forms is beyond the scope of this article.
[3] Music by Choi Jong-yoon (alumnus of New York University’s MFA in Musical Theatre Writing and composer of Marie Curie). Book, lyrics and direction by Lee Gi-na.
[4] Music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Jack Murphy, and book by Ivan Menchell. Directed by Jeff Calhoun and produced by EMK.
[5] Music by Will Aronson, book and lyrics by Aronson and Hue Park. Directed by Kim Dong-yeon and co-produced by Daemyung Culture Factory Co. and Neo Production.
[6] Music by Choi Jong-yoon, book and lyrics by Cheon Se-eun. Directed by Kim Tae-hyung with choreography by Shin Sun-ho. Produced by Live Co.
[7] Book by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. In 1959, a University of Oregon student production toured throughout Asia with the USO, including performances in Japan and South Korea.
[8] Book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe. In 1960, a University of Kansas student production toured throughout Asia with the USO, including performances in Japan and South Korea.
[9] Original play by Lee Moon Yeol, musical adaptation by Kim Kwang-lim. Music and lyrics by husband and wife team Kim Hee-gap and Yang In-ja. 1995 premiere directed by Yoon Ho-jin.
[10] The Korean premiere was presented at the LG Arts Center, in collaboration with producer Seol Do Yoon and his company, Seol & Company, and the production company Zemirmo. This team had previously produced the 2001 Korean premiere of The Phantom of the Opera.
[11] The Korean premiere was produced by SeenSee Company.
[12] The 2006 Korean premiere was produced by Shiki, MBC, and Charlotte Theatre, with translation by Kim Hyo-kyung and direction by Asari Keita.
[13] Book and lyrics by Michael Kunze with music by Sylvester Levay. Takarazuka’s Japanese premiere was a licensed, non-replica production translated by Kurosaki Isamu and directed by Shuichiro Koike. The production was tailored to the strengths and traditions of the Takarazuka Revue.
[14] Toho’s licensed non-replica production was translated by Sako Hikaru and Kurosaki Isamu, and directed by Shuichiro Koike.
[15] The original Czech musical Jack Rozparovač featured a book by Eduard Krečmar, music by Vašo Patejdl, and lyrics by Ivan Hejna. The 2009 Korean production was adapted and directed by Wang Yong-bum and produced by Kim Sun-mi and Eum Hong-hyeon.
[16] For further examination of Kim’s contributions to the Korean musical theatre industry, see MacDonald, “‘A New Path to the Future’: Women Producers of Border-Crossing Musical Theatre in Japan, South Korea, and China.” Theatre Topics 33, no. 2 (2023): 65–81.
[17] Book and lyrics by Michael Kunze, music by Sylvester Levay. The original 1999 production was directed by Harry Kupfer at the Theatre an der Wien in Vienna, Austria. The Korean premiere was produced by EMK, translated by Park Young-min, and directed by Yoo Hee-sung.
[18] The Korean premiere was produced by EMK, translated by Park In-sun, and directed by Robert Johanson.
[19] Book and lyrics by Michael Kunze, music by Sylvester Levay. The original 2006 production was directed by Francesca Zambello at the Raimund Theatre in Vienna, Austria. The Korean premiere was produced by EMK, translated by Park Chun-hui, and directed by Robert Johanson.
[20] Adapted from Shusaku Endo’s novel Marie Antoinette. Adaptation by Michael Kunze. Music by Sylvester Levay. Directed by Kuriyama Tamiya.
[21] Book, lyrics, and direction by Jang Yu-jeong. Music by Kim Hye-sung. Produced by Neo Production and CJ ENM. Finding Mr. Destiny premiered at JTN Art Hall in Seoul.
[22] Book by Alain Boublil, music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. Translated by Sakai Yoko and directed by Laurence Connor.
[23] Directed by Laurence Connor, James Powell, and Hong Seung-hee.
[24] After visiting K-Pop and musical theatre fan Kaitani Rieko’s Gohan Cafe Pokuichipu in Osaka’s retro Nakazakicho neighborhood, she introduced me to her Tokyo-based musical theatre fan friends, including Moji Mika.
[25] Based on Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi’s series. Music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Jack Murphy and book by Ivan Menchell. Japanese lyrics by Takahashi Ako and book by Jo Kayako. Directed by Kuriyama Tamiya.
[26] Korean book and lyrics by Lee Hee-joon. Directed by Kuriyama Tamiya.
[27] Based on the series by Arakawa Naoshi. Music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Tracy Miller and Carly Robyn Green, book by Rinne B. Groff. Japanese lyrics by Takahashi Ako and book by Sakaguchi Riko. Directed by Ueda Ikko.
[28] Korean book, lyrics and direction by Choo Jung-hwa.
[29] Role-sharing is also practiced in the Japanese industry though often only two performers will share a role, compared with as many as three or four Korean performers sharing roles.
[30] Book, songs and direction by Choo Min-joo. Music by Min Chang-hong. Produced by CH Soobak. Originally submitted as a graduation project at Korea National University of Arts.
[31] Book, lyrics, and direction by Song Jae-jun. Music by Kim Hye-yeon.
[32] Book by Ivan Menchell, lyrics by Jack Murphy, music by Frank Wildhorn. The premiere was directed by Jeff Calhoun.
[33] Japanese adaptation and direction by Ishimaru Sachiko.
[34] Music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Jack Murphy. Book and direction by Robert Johanson. Translated and directed in Japan by Ueda Ikko.
[35] Book and lyrics by Michael Kunze. Music by Sylvester Levay. Direction by Gil Mehmert.
[36] Finding Mr. Destiny (2006) was the first Korean musical produced in China, in 2013, and K-musicals have continued to enjoy Chinese premieres ever since. Chinese theatregoers regularly attend musicals in Seoul, leading some venues to provide surtitles in Mandarin.
[37] Book and lyrics by Han Ah-reum, music by Oh Sang-joon, directed by Yoon Ho-jin. Produced by ACOM.
[38] Book and lyrics by Han Jung-seok, music by Lee Sun-young, directed by Park So-young.
[39] Book and lyrics by Han Jung-seok, music by Lee Sun-young, directed by Oh Kyung-taek.
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*Laura MacDonald is Assistant Professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. She previously taught American studies at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and musical theatre at the University of Portsmouth (UK). With Ryan Donovan, she edited The Routledge Companion to Musical Theatre (2023) and with William A. Everett, she edited The Palgrave Handbook of Musical Theatre Producers (2017). Her articles have appeared in journals such as L’Annuaire théâtral, Comparative Drama,The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Performance Research, Studies in Musical Theatre, Theatre Research International, Theatre Survey andTheatre Topics. Her monograph, Transnational Musical Theatre Journeys: The Circulation of Musical Theatre Practitioners in Europe and East Asia, is under contract with Palgrave’s Transnational Theatre Histories Series.
Copyright © 2025 Laura MacDonald
Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, #32, December 2025
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