KPOP is bringing musical theater lovers and K-Pop fans together on Broadway. The new musical is now showing at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City.
The musical was written by Jason Kim with music and lyrics composed by Helen Park and Max Vernon. It features a majority Asian/Asian American cast. Luna, a member of the K-Pop group f(x), plays popstar MwE (pronounced “Mwee”).
The musical has received both positive and negative reviews.
“With mega-watt set design, exquisite choreography, a show-within-a-show storyline and a score that sounds more like a Spotify playlist than a conventional musical’s tunes, “KPOP” is elegant, energetic, and exceptional,” A.D. Amorosi wrote in a review for Variety. “It’s a cleverly playful dramedy wrapped around a concert and stuffed inside the enigma of what it means to want fame – badly – then get it, with all its risks and losses spilled onto the stage.”
Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times, believes that the Off-Broadway version in 2017 was “radically different and far superior” to the Broadway version. Green felt that the musical did not sufficiently portray issues within the K-Pop industry.
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“In its remaking for Broadway I wish “KPOP” had preserved more moments like that: moments that allow you to consider what the excitement of K-pop (for those who feel it) and the expressiveness of American musical theater (likewise) can profitably say to each other,” Green wrote at the conclusion of his review. “Both have their fans and no doubt their glories, as well as their limitations. But it seems to me that in introducing the two, a good place to have met would have been, well, halfway. ‘KPOP’ still has far to go to get there.”
Tickets are available for purchase here.
(Editor Note: An earlier version of this story misidentified Luna’s Kpop group. We regret the error.)
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