ABROAD/WAY BULLETPOINTS FOR JAN. 7, 2025
Actor absences in Seoul, a new venue in Vienna from ATG, the Asian premiere of the Lord of the Rings musical, and more
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.
Around the same time that actor illnesses led to performance cancellations at Broadway’s Gypsy during the lucrative holiday season, Korean musicals were hit by some notable holiday cancellations too. Actor Jae-rim Choi exited the Seoul staging of Cyrano midway through the Dec. 20 performance and didn’t return until Dec. 25. Choi, “who has been playing the titular role in Cyrano since its opening on Dec. 6, has also been juggling appearances in the regional productions of the musicals Kinky Boots and Chicago,” writes Young-Sun Shin in K-En News. “Following the incident, [Choi] faced criticism for his overlapping commitments, with concerns raised about the strain on his schedule potentially affecting the quality of performances and burdening his fellow cast members.” Ticketholders for Choi’s cancelled appearances received 110% refunds. The subsequent absence, due to illness, of actress Ji-yeon Cha from the musical Gwanghwamun Love Song on Dec. 22 made news soon thereafter.
International live entertainment company ATG Entertainment is building a new musical theater venue in Vienna. “Named Theater im Prater, this project is poised to become the largest privately financed theatre development in Austria in the last 100 years,” reports Victoria Drum in TicketNews. “With a seating capacity of 1,800, the venue is designed to host international musical productions.” ATG Entertainment DE partners with the City of Vienna and Wien Holding on the project, which will add a shiny new performance space to an already strong musical market. “Construction costs for the theatre will be fully covered by ATG Entertainment, with the opening scheduled for late 2027. The venue is expected to generate an estimated annual economic benefit of €157 million (£130 million/$162 million) for the city.”
The musical adaptation of The Lord of the Rings will make its Asian premiere at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore in August, according to Esquire Philippines. The stage version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy saga (with music by A. R. Rahman, Värttinä, and Christopher Nightingale, and lyrics and book by Shaun McKenna and Matthew Warchus) was a commercial and critical dud in its 2006 premiere in Toronto and subsequent West End run in 2007, but has since had a resurgence following its revival in 2023 in the U.K. and then in Chicago in 2024. An Australian tour is set to launch later this month.
Please, sir, I want some more… original musical adaptations of Oliver Twist. In addition to Lionel Bart’s well-known 1960 retelling Oliver!, now in the West End in a production directed by Matthew Bourne, there’s also an entirely separate, 2016 French language version that producer Stéphane Letellier-Rampon wants to revive. Now AMR Produce, the Spanish production company behind the current Madrid musical Los Chicos del Coro (The Chorus Boys), is readying its own Spanish-language adaptation, writes Juan-Jose Gonzalez in BroadwayWorld Spain. With book and lyrics by Pedro Víllora and music by Gerardo Gardelin, this new Oliver Twist is scheduled to premiere Nov. 12, 2025 at Teatro La Latina in Madrid.
The new Oliver Twist will join a bustling theater scene in Madrid, which I checked in on earlier this year in this story from May…
…and Letellier-Rampon mentioned his plans to revive the French Oliver Twist in my recent story about Les Misérables in Paris:
The 2025 resident musical at Huguang Guild Hall in Beijing is Jinfeng Yulu (Till We Meet Again), a murder mystery set backstage among the members of a Peking opera troupe. The show “integrates modern musical elements, such as electronic beats and jazz, bringing a fresh energy to the performance and appealing to both traditionalists and the younger generation in the audience,” write Nan Chen in China Daily. The show’s writer, lyricist and director, Zhuoqun Li, “has a large fan base, especially among the younger generation, thanks to her contemporary approach to telling stories in productions of traditional Chinese operas.” The production is part of a wider municipal initiative to revive local historical edifices like Huguang Guild Hall, a complex of buildings that’s more than 200 years old.
The economic impact of Michael Cassel Group’s Australian tour of Hamilton rang in at AUS $364 million (~US $227million), according to stats reported in the Australian Financial Review. MCG says the show has been seen by more than 1.3 million people so far, across runs in Sydney (2021), Melbourne (2022), Brisbane (2023) and Sydney again (in an engagement that began in July and ends Jan. 25). The numbers don’t include data from the international tour of Hamilton, also produced by MCG.
There’s a non-replica, Italian-language production of Anastasia now playing in Milan and fellow theater Substacker has a mini-review in his newsletter Marquee. “The production was lavish, the performances enchanting,” Benkof writes. Also notable about the staging at Teatro Archimboldi: “during a ghostly scene, some of the dancing royal Russians appeared to be full-color holograms, an arresting display.” The holiday engagement ends Jan. 12.
In The Globe and Mail, writer and critic Aisling Murphy highlights the most anticipated Canadian theater productions of 2025. Among the shows on her list:
Britta Johnson’s Life After, “an exquisite musical about grief and family,” coming to Toronto after successful runs in Chicago and San Diego,
regional productions of Waitress and Legally Blonde,
a Mahabharata staged by Why Not Theatre in its Toronto debut, and
a remount of recent Stratford Festival standout Salesman in China, playing in Ottawa later this month.
Antonio Banderas’ Spanish-language staging of Gypsy was the subject of a new documentary that just aired on Spanish broadcaster Canal Sur. The production is now wrapping up its run at Teatro del Soho, the theater Banderas founded in his hometown of Málaga, prior to a Madrid engagement later this year. Called Gypsy en Soho, the film features “exclusive interviews with the cast of the play and prominent figures from the political, social and cultural scene,” according to Canal Sur’s announcement of the doc, which aired Jan. 2.
AND ICYMI
In last week’s SPOTLIGHT STORY, we wrapped up 2024 with a grab-bag of data and reporting I hadn’t had a chance to include elsewhere. Looking for the latest box office stats from China, or design sketches from Banderas’ Gypsy, or urgent updates on Starlight Express? Look no further!
