On August 9 Korean college students dreaming of becoming future musical stars have gathered at Chungmu Art Hall to open a gala show.

The audience gave a rousing response to the show’s hosts, Jang Woo-young and Hwang Chan-sung, who are members of Korea’s hottest idol group, 2PM. The show was a celebration of youthful passion and love for musical productions.

The gala show is just one of the annual Seoul Musical Festival’s colorful programs. Celebrating its second year, the Seoul Musical Festival was established to give full backing to Korea’s creative musical productions. Here’s the festival’s secretary general Oh Jong-hak.

People ask us what musicals we showcase in our festival. But the Seoul Musical Festival’s main objective is to provide assistance to original musicals. The Korea Musical Theater Association planned this festival with Chungmu Art Hall to promote original musicals. There are various programs in the festival, such as Yegreen Award, Yegreen Encore, and other creative support programs, academic workshops and side events.

The Seoul Musical Festival was organized to discover and support competitive contents and enjoy them with the public. The festival’s academic conferences and workshops analyze where Korean musicals stand and provide them with future directions. But the keenest interest was focused on the festival’s support programs for promising musical creations. Here’s the program organizer Lee Ah-ryong to explain more.

Yegreen Award, Yegreen Encore, and Yegree Fringe comprise the festival’s creative support programs. Yegreen Award recognizes quality original musicals that have already been shown to the public. Yegreen Encore provides support to creative musicals that have been rediscovered through competitions. And Yegreen Fringe is the junior version of Yegreen Encore and allows amateur college students to showcase their musical productions to the public and interact with them. All these programs aim to develop Korean musical theater.

Countless amateur musical productions vanish without ever being presented to the public, but Yegreen Fringe gives plenty of opportunities to college students to start building their careers in the industry. It is one of the most popular attractions at the festival, selling more than 80% of the seats this year as well. The Seoul Musical Festival has enough room for both established crowd-pleasers and underfunded up-and-comers, so those with enough confidence in their works can hope to have their productions shown to the public. Here’s the festival’s secretary general Oh Jong-hak to tell us more.

Most amateur producers can get their works through showcase support programs somehow, but have a hard time debuting and sustaining a run. It takes a lot of money and effort to put on a musical. Just having the will and passion is not enough. The purpose of having set up Yegreen Encore is to award select musical plays with government funding, venue, and suitable producers. We match a play with a producer.

Yegreen Encore, a creative musical rediscovery and support program, is the focus of attention at the festival. Last year five plays reached the finals and two were selected to be shown on the stage this year. Here’s the festival’s secretary general Oh Jong-hak for more.

Five plays entered the final round and two were chosen as winners. So earlier this year, the musicals entitled “Ah, My Goddess!” and “Fly, Mrs. Park!” received government funding and were matched with producers for a public run. Fortunately, the two productions won rave reviews and public response, giving the two musicals’ creators and producers the confidence they needed.

Before the 21st century musical theater was an unfamiliar genre to the Korean public. But then Koreans had their eyes opened to musicals for the first time by a stunning musical production in 2001. Here’s the festival’s secretary general Oh Jong-hak to tell us more.

The year 2001 is the landmark year for the Korean musical theater industry. About 12, 13 years ago, in 2001, the licensed musical “Phantom of the Opera” had a phenomenally successful eight-month run in Korea. Korean audience realized then how wonderfully entertaining and moving musicals can be and investors saw very lucrative business opportunities in them. The industry grew 20% every year since then.

The Korean musical theater market in 2012 amounted to 300 billion won, or roughly 27 million U.S. dollars. About 150 musical productions make it to stage in one year, and 100 of them are original local works. That’s similar to the number of domestic movies released each year. In recent years a growing number of musical plays are recouping their investments and making money by selling more than 80% of paid seats. Here’s the festival’s secretary general Oh Jong-hak for more.

By the number of released plays alone, Korea produces nearly the same number of musicals per year as Broadway or West End. Out of about 150 musical plays, which are divided into original plays and licensed musicals, about 100 to 120 are original ones written and produced in Korea. But the percentage is reversed when the situation is looked at from the perspective of revenue or paying audience. Licensed productions imported from abroad are making more profit and more numerous original plays are not generating enough revenue to match their quantitative presence.

Only a handful of original musical plays can be called hits, like “Sweet, Come to Me Stealthily,” “Ah, My Goddess!” and “The Days.” May be it’s asking for too much out of Korean creative musicals to compete against imported musical productions with proven banking power and critical acclaim. This is why Korean musical producers cannot miss an opportunity like the Seoul Musical Festival. Here’s lyricist Jeon Mi-hyun and composer Cho Mi-hyun of the musical “The Last Royal Family.”

- Plays that won contests are hard to put on regular stage, but this festival allows you to overcome that difficulty. I’m glad to see so many original musical plays and I wish all these plays get to be presented to the public.
- Many people helped me prepare for this festival. They are already very active in the industry, so I learned a lot from them. The festival is very meaningful for me, because my work can be expected to be shown on stage more often.

This year’s Yegreen Encore entries are “A Scoop of My Life,” “The Last Royal Family,” “Moon River,” and “The Story of the Grim Reaper.” The first one up was “A Scoop of My Life.”

This play debuted in last year’s Daegu International Musical Festival, and the Seoul Musical Festival is only its second appearance. It is a romantic comedy that combines the realities of today’s young job seekers and their quest for real love. Here’s Kim Kyung-ho, the writer of “A Scoop of My Life.”

This is a story of young Koreans in their 20s and 30s. It’s based on their efforts to get decent jobs. Youth unemployment is a serious problem for young people of Korea. I didn’t just write about the job issue, but turned it into a romantic comedy. My young characters put off love and marriage to search for jobs and I wanted this romantic comedy to appeal to the public. The title “A Scoop of My Life” means that everyone deserves to be the main character in his or her own life story just for toughing it out in this competitive society only with what they have.

The second day’s entry was “The Last Royal Family.”

“The Last Royal Family” is a historical fiction based on the relationship among King Gojong, his wife Empress Myeongseong, and King Sunjong in 1888. Here’s the play’s writer Jeon Mi-hyun.

“The Last Royal Family” is based on a fictional assumption that King Sunjong had run away from home. It’s a comedy and I imagined how Joseon’s first national anthem came to be. The narration and characters move back and forth between the past and present. In the play palace eunuchs communicate through instant messenger services and a band led by King Sunjung competes in auditions and mingles with common people. It’s a story of how all these different experiences of King Sunjong shape him up to become Joseon’s leader.

The mere setup of King Sunjong running away from home and joining a street band is enough to pique people’s curiosity. It is also funny when the past and present are mixed to create a scene like people in the Joseon era using social media services.

- I noticed how the characters in the play used a social media service. I majored in Chinese language, so I can just imagine how hard it would have been to text in Chinese characters. And the choreography was really interesting, too.
- I could not get the tickets at first, but was able to get last minute tickets. It was worth the wait. The play was fun and it made some new attempts.

“Moon River” was showcased on the third day of Yegreen Encore. It is a story of how a parentless girl grows up under her grandmother’s care and meets a boy with physical disability. Here’s the show’s director Sung Jong-wan.

The musical begins when a boy in a wheelchair and a girl who came to live with her grandmother meet. The story shows how the grownups in their lives are just struggling to live, with their own hurts and losses buried in their hearts. It’s a story of healing, communicating, and reaching for one’s dream.

On the last day of Yegreen Encore “The Story of the Grim Reaper” was shown on stage. It’s a story about the Reapers and how their roles have changed for today, when people live much longer than before. Here’s the show’s director Choi Do-won.

This is a story of the Grim Reapers. Competition is tough even in the world of the Grim Reapers. They have to compete to bring as many dead people as possible. Competition rages on in the netherworld as it does in this one. The play’s subtitle is “The Lost Grim Reapers’ Travel into This Life.” They come to this world to boost their performance records by encouraging suicides and causing accidents.

Actually, “The Story of the Grim Reaper” explores the issue of rising suicide rates in Korea. By describing how they struggle to increase death in this world, the play is sharply criticizing the prevalence of death and tacit approval of suicides in this tough world. This year’s Yegreen Encore entries were all strong, putting that much more pressure on the judges.

The 8-day Seoul Musical Festival came to an end on August 12. Yegreen Encore’s grand prize went to “The Last Royal Family” and second prize to “The Story of the Grim Reaper.” These two musicals will receive financial assistance and venue allocations for public performances. Now Korean musical lovers will get a chance to see two of the most promising original musical productions. Meanwhile, the newly established Seoul Musical Market provided a gateway for Korean musicals to enter the global market. Its official market directory enlists all Korean musicals for 2013 so that industry people can look up information on the productions they are interested in. With such financial and logistic support, the Korean musical theater industry is bound to propel itself to the next level.