ABROAD/WAY BULLETPOINTS FOR FEB. 18, 2025

A new Mirvish season of musicals, a new tour of an "iconic" Chinese play, a new head for Berlin's Volksbühne, and more

Feb 18, 2025

Welcome to the latest edition of ABROAD/WAY BULLETPOINTS, my regular roundup of theater headlines from around the world. New to Jaques? Check out this handy explainer.

The Tony-winning Broadway musical *The Outsiders* will make its Canadian premiere in Toronto as part of Mirvish Productions’ 2025-26 subscription season. Photo: Matthew Murphy

It’s all musicals, all the time for the biggest commercial theater producer in Canada: Mirvish Productions has announced seven musicals for its 2025-26 subscription season in Toronto. Four of them—Some Like It Hot, Shucked, A Beautiful Noise, and last year’s top Tony winner The Outsiders—are Broadway alums making their Canadian premieres. Along with MJ and the new, sit-down staging of & Juliet, the season is rounded out by Tell Tale Harbour, a musical comedy based on the 2013 film The Grand Seduction and starring one of the musical’s co-creators, Alan Doyle of the Canadian band Great Big Sea. Notably, the Mirvish press release quotes both the company’s longtime head, David Mirvish, and his recently confirmed successor, daughter Hannah.
The Chinese play To Be Continued has launched a yearlong tour of China with a run in Beijing celebrating 20 years since the show was written and 18 since it was first performed. In China Daily, reporter Nan Chen describes the enduring play as “[o]ne of the most iconic pieces of contemporary Chinese theater”; the story follows a 28-year-old woman who faces the Grim Reaper four times on the day before she dies. In the show’s minimalist staging, “five actors [play] 44 roles in an empty space, with a cappella harmonies as the only accompaniment.” The new production is helmed by the show’s creator, Ying Huang, with a young cast that he nurtured through what he describes as a “performance creation workshop.”
Matthias Lilienthal has been named the new head of the Volksbühne (People’s Theater) in Berlin. A longtime leader in German theater, Lilienthal “announced plans to expand the theater’s dance offering” and “to feature a slate of works by international directors—a decision he described as ‘a conscious resistance’ to rising nationalism in Germany,” writes Thomas Rogers in The New York Times. Lilienthal’s appointment comes after “a prolonged period of turmoil” at the Volksbühne, “which has long been known for its formally daring and politically provocative works. But in recent years, the theater has been plagued by scandal and tragedy, as well as vicious conflicts about its creative direction that have mirrored broader debates about Berlin’s identity.”

In the latest marker of South Korea’s longstanding interest in musical theater, the Korean musical Empress Myeongseong is celebrating its 30th birthday. Reporter Youngeun Shin highlights the title’s long lifespan in Maeil Business Newspaper, tracing its origins back to the 1995 premiere at the Seoul Arts Center’s Opera House. The show, about a Joseon dynasty empress, is now playing in a new production at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts.
The Philippines production company Theatre Group Asia gets the spotlight in a feature in The Philippines Daily Inquirer, looking ahead to upcoming Manila productions of Into the Woods (starring Lea Salonga and Arielle Jacobs, among others) and A Chorus Line as well as looking back at last year’s staging of the play Request sa Radyo. I wrote about the initiative—spearheaded by Broadway regular Clint Ramos, the late director-producer Bobby Garcia, and Christopher Mohnani of the Samsung Performing Arts Theater—back in the fall, just after Request sa Radyo (Request Program) had wrapped up its run. Now the Inquirer’s Marge C. Enriquez reports, “Despite a limited run of 20 performances, with a total occupancy of 8,000 seats, Request sa Radyo proved financially successful and attracted a younger audience, defying expectations for such an unconventional production. The considerable buzz generated by the play has sparked inquiries about potential engagements in New York and Los Angeles.”
The U.K. musical trio The Tiger Lillies and Barcelona’s La Perla 29 have joined forces for A Macbeth Song, a musical retelling of the Shakespeare tragedy. Three actors, accompanied by the Tiger Lillies (whose musical Shockheaded Peter played both London and New York in the early 2000s), will “construct and deconstruct Macbeth,” according to Diari de Barcelona. Performed in English with Catalan supertitles, A Macbeth Song will play Barcelona’s Teatre La Biblioteca in a lengthy run this spring (Feb. 19-April 13).
And in quick bites from around the world:
- Waitress has opened in Mexico City, and the show’s Mexican premiere brought out the musical’s co-creator, Sara Bareilles;
- Michael Jackson musical MJ is touting strong sales in Sydney prior to its Feb. 26 debut there;
- Jersey Boys and Amélie have announced runs in São Paulo;
- Beijing will see Chinese productions of Singin’ in the Rain and Hamlet this month;
- The Crucible will play Seoul this spring;
- and Come From Away will get a homegrown staging in Manila.