NYMF in KOREA
NYMF PRODUCTION EXCHANGE
WITH DAEGU INTERNATIONAL MUSICAL FESTIVAL (DIMF)
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DIMF Executive Chairman Bae Sung Hyuck with NYMF Executive Director Isaac Robert Hurwitz |
Since 2009, NYMF has enjoyed a partnership with South Korea’s Daegu International Musical Festival, the only theatre event of its kind in Asia.
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Starting in 2009, NYMF began a partnership with the Daegu International Musical Festival (DIMF), a three-week celebration of musical theater in South Korea and the only event of its kind in Asia. With the goals of expanding the opportunities for musical theater writers and strengthening the musical theater industries in both Korea and the United States, NYMF and DIMF have collaborated on an annual production exchange.
Each year, one NYMF show is awarded the DIMF Production Award, which entails a fully funded production at DIMF the following summer. NYMF serves as producer for the Korean production, rehearsing the show in New York before flying the entire company to South Korea for a week of performances in one of Daegu’s premier theaters.
NYMF has also hosted several Korean-language musicals, which it presents with English supertitles. The NYMF-DIMF Collaboration was inaugurated in 2009 with a NYMF production of My Scary Girl, an award-winning Korean musical by Korean bookwriter/lyricist Kyoung-Ae Kang and American composer Will Aronson. In 2010, NYMF presented another hit Korean musical first showcased at DIMF: Special Letter, a musical comedy about lovelorn soldiers in the Korean army.
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My Scary Girl |
Dae-woo’s been saving his first kiss for someone like Mi-Na but is she as perfect as she seems? Things get weird for a naïve professor when he realizes his new girlfriend may be a seductive serial killer. Based on the hit Korean film and featuring the cast of the award-winning Seoul production, this darkly unpredictable romantic comedy knows that love and trust should go hand in hand… even when there’s a severed limb hiding in the kimchi fridge. |
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Keith gets fired. Keith gets revenge by writing a musical. Aspiring writer Keith has been a temp in a wacky office’s soul crushing cubicle for six years. When an evil nemesis emerges to squash his coffee-stained hopes and dreams, Keith makes a decision that causes him to get summarily fired… with security escorts and everything! Naturally he retaliates by writing a musical. Based on a true-ish story. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty. |
I Got Fired: A Revenge Musical |
The first NYMF show to travel to Korea, John Mercurio’s Academy, played at the Suseong Artpia in July 2010 and received the Best Musical Prize at the 2010 Daegu Musical Theater Awards. Keith Varney’s I Got Fired, the following year’s DIMF Prize winner, played in July 2011 at the 1,600-seat Daegu Opera House and walked away with the awards for Best International Musical and Best Leading Male Performer. In July 2012, NYMF produced the Korean premiere of NYMF ’11 hit Central Avenue Breakdown (by Kevin Ray, Amanda Lepcio, and Suellen Vance) and then brought the production back for a first-ever “NYMF Encore” run as part of the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival.
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Moving on is never easy, as six strangers discover when they are trapped between stations on the subway. When tension builds, colorful characters clash as they recognize pieces of themselves emerging in one another. This poignant, contemporary musical will take you on a humorous and heartfelt ride as it explores exactly what it means to be Stuck. |
At NYMF’s annual gala on November 11, 2012, Stuck was awarded the DIMF Production Award entailing a Korean production next July, as well as a cash prize for the musical’s writer, Riley Thomas. Stuck received the Theatre for the American Musical Prize following the 2012 Festival, as well as honorable mentions for Excellence in Writing (Book), Excellence in Writing (Music), Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Ensemble Performance.
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