News


Musical Production of “The Hillside Road in the Days of the IMF” Coming to Busan

Read 1,438

2017-01-02 15:55

 

Dong Chan talking with the three naughty scoundrels

 

 

A musical produced and performed by Busan’s “musical youngsters” is coming to the theater soon. “The Hillside Road” tells the story of a boy who came of age on Busan’s Hillside Road during the Asian financial crisis. It opens as 29-year-old Dong Chan revisits Hillside Road and travels back in time twenty years. We witness the death of Dong Chan’s mother when he was 9 years old, his family’s impoverishment in the financial crisis and his move with his father from Seoul to Busan’s Hillside Road. We meet the three naughty scoundrels of the neighborhood, first as they treat Dong Chan as an outcast, and then as they gradually accept him into their group to form the four naughty scoundrels. We also meet Grandpa Mang Tae, who is notorious on Hillside Road. One day Grandpa Mang Tae faints and is helped by the four naughty scoundrels, to whom he relates the story of his estranged daughter. The four scoundrels immediately set about trying to find his missing daughter.

 

“The Hillside Road” is based on the research of Professor Oh Se-jun of Dongseo University’s Musical Department, and it will officially open for the first time in January 2017. The upcoming production is by Lee In-chang, a graduate of Dongseo University’s Musical Department who is still in his 20s. The performers, also all in their 20s, are known as Busan’s “musical youngsters.”

 

Producer Dong-hui Lee of Lee&Culture said, “When seeing the innocence and purity of heart of the children who overcame the Asian crisis in the musical ‘The Hillside Road,’ everyone struggling these days will be able to find hope.”

 

“The Hillside Road” was shown at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on December 29 and 30 at the Geumjeong Cultural Center, Small Art Hall; it will also be shown at 7 p.m. on January 6, 2017, and at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on January 7 and 8, 2017 at the Centum Sohyang Theater, Experimental Theater. For more information please call 051-740-5112.