 Good evening everyone and good morning to those who are joining us from the other side of the world. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to our virtual panel from west to east, how musical theater has transformed a discussion on musical theater in Taiwan and Korea. My name is Leo Yuning Chang, I'm a bilingual musical theater performer and educator. It is my pleasure to be your moderator today. First of all, I would like to span a moment to shout out and chair up all the theater makers and performers around the world, especially doing this very challenging time. Some countries are able to maintain the theater industry and keep their doors open. Taiwan and Korea, some are not. With a shutdown of Broadway and theaters across the United States, many of us have lost jobs, opportunities, financial support, and health insurance. So please stay safe, stay connected, and stay creative. Without a doubt, we will come back stronger than ever. And today's panel kicks off our two days event presented by Taipei Cultural Center in New York with the support from the Ministry of Culture, ROC, Taiwan, and in collaboration with musical theater factory and HowlRound TV. This panel is the first part of our event, which is in junction with the English premiere of the Taiwanese musical tropical angels, a new musical reading. The online reading will be presented tomorrow, November 11th, at 6.30 p.m. Eastern time, followed by a talk back with Mayan Tao, the artistic director of MTF musical theater factory, and the creative team of tropical angels. So if you can, please join us tomorrow as well. Speaking of which, the development of tropical angels gave birth to this panel in discussion, and we are very fortunate to have four experts, including the writers of the show joining us today. Next we have the award-winning Taiwanese playwright, the book writer and lyricist of tropical angels, Da Zi Li Meng Huan, and the composer of tropical angels, Lei Sheng. Then we have the senior manager of the Department of Production and Marketing at Taipei Performing Arts Center, Lin Cai Yun, Shaolin. Last but not least, the author of Korean musical theaters' past, Ye Green and the politics of 1960 musical theater, Ji Hyun Kayla Ye. Before we dive in, I want to provide you some logistic information, and we will start with two short presentations about the musical theater industry in Taiwan and Korea, followed by a discussion with all the panelists. So throughout this event, if you have any questions, please feel free to submit them through HowlRound and Tropical Angels Facebook page. So now let's dig in, shall we? We all know that musical theater is a very unique art form. It's not just a form of entertainment that happens to contain music, dance, or acting. It is an art form that presents the now and soon to be history for others and everyone to remember and to learn something from it. During just about two hours, a musical production encapsulates a specific time and place and its culture, language, people, memories, values, and perhaps social expectations, you name it. And when we talk about musical theater, often enough, we associate it with Broadway or West End, where many successful musicals have been produced and toured internationally. Some of them have been translated into different languages so that more audiences can enjoy these stories from Western culture. However, you will see a gap between the number of shows toured around the world and the number of shows that have been translated into different languages. Because translating a show is not just about the language, right? Another big part to consider is the cultural differences. It is nearly impossible to translate a musical without making adjustment to the music, melody lines, and sometimes even the plots and characters. In Asia, aside from these shows coming from the West, we can also see many countries, they started to build their own musical theater industry in the past few decades, such as Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China, just to name a few. Undoubtedly, Western musical theater has significantly influenced the development of musical theater within these Asian countries. However, with their own unique cultures and indigenous art forms, such as Taiwanese opera in Taiwan, Noh in Japan, and K-pop in Korea, we have seen so many beautiful marriages and newborn children between the Western and Eastern performing art forms. So today, we will be focusing on the musical theater industry in Asia, specifically in Taiwan and Korea, and how this art form has been transformed and bloomed on the other side of the world. So first, we have Lin Tsai Yun, Shaolin Lin, to share with us the musical theater development in Taiwan. Shaolin is the senior manager of the Department of Production and Marketing at Taipei Performing Arts Center. She is also an acclaimed music critic and radio host. Early in her professional career, she served as a senior reporter for the Culture Division in Chinatimes. Shaolin is the author of Carpe Diem, a comprehensive interpretation of music ecology, as well as the co-author of several books, including the Complete Guide, 40 Years of Taiwan Contemporary Theater. Let us welcome Shaolin. Hi, hello, everyone. I'm Shaolin, and I would like to share with you the development of the Taiwan original musicals for the past 30 years. If you ask me what is the first original musical in Taiwan, basically the year will go back to 1987. The production was called The Chess King, which is adapted from a renowned novel and composer is from classical background. The leading performers of this production are movie star and pop singers. The premiere took place in a stadium, so we can imagine it was a large-scale production. And the main spirit of this work was trying to pay tribute to waist-sized story, the way musicals composed by Bernstein. In my observation, the development of original musical in Taiwan for the past 30 years can be divided into three phases, the dawn of original musical, the taking of period, and growth period. First, let's go into the dawn period. There were two pioneer theater companies in the 1990s. One is Goudou Theatre Company, another one is Green Red Theatre Company. The founders of these two companies shared the same background. They completed their learning in U.S., then came back to Taiwan. During their study in U.S., they were attracted to Broadway musicals. And in the 1990s, their productions such as Neck Ties and High Heel Shoes, Kiss Me Nana, are hit among students, young generations, and middle-class audience. After 2000, the musical scene in Taiwan becomes so active. During this taking of period, there are two theater companies focusing only on musical production appeared on Taiwan stage for the first time. All music theaters founded by Mao Yang, he is a musical critic and publisher as well. And he is the key person in this period. And Taipei Philharmonic Theater, this theater founded by a choir. Although the market was not big enough at that time and the talents were still nurturing. Artists and companies in musical fields tried very hard to create local oriented musicals in terms of music style, language, and story. Take 2003 for example, there are three different style musicals took place in Taiwan. The magic flute adapted from Mozart opera. Butterfly lovers adapted from a traditional legend. Sound of Colors adapted from a graphic book. Coincidentally in the same year, cast became the first Broadway show ever appeared in Taiwan. After kids in 2006, Ken the Phantom of the Opera. Another feature during a taking of period is the rising of musical in dialect. We have a Taiwanese musical trilogy, hardcore musical and even indigenous musical. After 2010, the rising of new generation took Taiwanese original musical to another stage. This new generation grew up in an era that information is easier to receive and they approached musical at an early age. Some of them even went to U.S. to have their master degree in musical. VN Theater Company founded by Chris Chen, who graduated from NYU, the first musical he produced called Just Like a Family, inspired by Aberdeen Q, the Broadway musical. Daylight is about the age issue. Reed Unbroken took an element from Taiwanese opera. Another theater called Studio M, founded by Owen Wang, Wang Xiwen. He is a NYU alumni as well. His production Mulan is a long hit on Taiwan stage and had a chance to export it to Singapore in 2016. Perfect Match is another theater founded by Ran Tianhao. He is a composer and he played an important role in the progress of original musical in Taiwan and he was also the composer of a Taiwanese trilogy I mentioned before. His latest work called Eat, Drink, Man, Woman adapted from Endless Movie 饮食男女. Let's see some clips from these three theaters. The first one I would like to share with you is Mulan from Studio M. So let's see some clip from this musical. And they try to give a different interpretation of this traditional story. Of course, the story is really different from the Disney version. And the next one I would like to share with you is the clip from Reed Unbroken produced by the VN Theatre Company. So let's see the footage of this musical. So he can feel the diversity of this period of Taiwan original musical. And next one I would like to share with you is the clip from Eat, Drink, Man, Woman by Perfect Match Theater. Okay, so except these three companies in this period, there are so many small-scale companies established during this period and the style of production is profound. Such as the ex-Rebel Let's put emphasis on B.L. Voice Love Musical. C. Musical's production non-reading club is a musical series inspired by American sitcom Friends. C. Musical another production called The Lost City. Walk it with a Korean director and it is the first time that Taiwan musical company collaborated with Korean artists. It is worthy mention that in 2018, Fan Later became the first Korean musical showing up on Taiwan stage. And during this growth period, we can say the original musicals in Taiwan are full of diversity. The Kuangta Foundation, founded by the notebook manufacturer Kuangda, has produced a jukebox musical and in 2019, here comes Lesheng and Dazs musical. They don't belong to any company. They are two independent artists trying to do a great thing. The distinguishing features of the tropical angels, first it could be one production having two language versions at the same time and it never happened in Taiwan before. It shows their ambition to reach more international audience. Second, it tried very hard to follow the step of musical production procedure in Broadway and they really want to set a model in Taiwan. And next, let's see some clips from the musical I mentioned from C. Musical, the production called Non-Reading Club and it's kind of a serious musical inspired by American sitcom. Okay, so right now more than 30 musical original musicals produced a year in Taiwan and most of them are small and medium scale. The production procedure is more healthy five or 10 years ago due to the limited resources one production can be finished less than a year, even five months. Like a professional department in universities is still an issue in Taiwan and deal with this deficiency musical talent training programs in public theaters become a trend. Overall musical in Taiwan is in cultural context, not in entertainment industry context such as Korea. We still need more capital and angel form to support the artist and the system in the progress of musical in Taiwan. So it's my presentation and I'll hold in this 10 minutes give you a quick glance of this topic and thank you so much for your listening. Thank you so much Charlene for the presentation and bring us through the journey of musical theater in Taiwan and actually make me homesick because originally I'm from Taiwan as well so and after learning about Taiwan's musical theater industry now we are transitioning into musical theater development in Korea and the reason we focus on these two countries are that first Taiwan and Korea have this shared history of Japan's colonization in World War two which happens to be the set time for tropical angels the musical and also against the Communist Party. Also they both share similar development of its economy and democratization. What's more Korean success with its entertainment industry is a good example for us to draw comparisons and to learn from but it doesn't mean that a musical theater industry in other Asian countries are not promising or should not be paid less attention to. They are all uniquely different from each other so now please allow me to introduce our next presenter Kayla. Jihyeon Kayla Yeh holds a PhD in theater from CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Korean musical theaters past the green and the politics of 1960s musical theater in the Pell Grave handbook of musical musical theater producers and modern theater in North Korea and modern musical in Asia parentheses Korea in the root ledge handbook of Asian theater. Her research concerns Korean's understanding of self and racialized others through musical theater productions in South Korea. Currently she's teaching theater history in Asian theater to undergraduate and graduate students at Montclair State University in New Jersey U.S. Let us welcome Kayla. Kayla I think you're muted right yeah thank you thank you Hi everyone I'd like to thank you CUNY for inviting me to this important really exciting event as well as the organizers as well for me to panel and I'm very happy to be here tonight up and then one more time when you might be as you know I only have 10 minutes and it was nice to cover the development of Korean musical theater I'll do my best to provide more content for how Korean musical theater has developed to what it is now in both states through a few important titles and events. Most of my presentation will be about the development of musical theater in North Korea from the 1960s and onwards so when I say musical theater I'm talking about the specifically U.S. American genre that developed in the U.S. throughout the pre-century sorry and since Korea was pre-century and the introduction of the development of the form has a lot to do with the political and social environment of Korea in the begin half of the pre-century. With that said you may be worth mentioning that there were some forms that influenced the beginning of the Korean there are forms such as and also which are indigenous genres of musical or music drama that combined so in this case that often were another dramatic and well known to the audience. Also the early Hollywood films that you see here love parade and programs on parade more or less the ones that actually came to Korea in the 1930s and Korean audiences had many forms such ones. There are also a group of American-style live shows that were performed by Korean performers from the U.S. in the 1920s but that were part of the number of genres and the Korean birth had many forms too. I'll just resume from the beginning I was told that can you guys hear me better now okay good all right so I'll just resume from the first slide okay all right so like I said I only have 10 minutes but I'll start with pre 1950s development and I'll move my way up to 1950s and onwards and my presentation most of my presentation is going to be the second half of the 20th century in post Korean post work Korea. When I talk about musical theater like I said I'm talking specifically about the genre of musical theater that developed in the U.S. in the 20th century and the introduction and development of the form has a lot to do with the political and social environment of Korea in you know during that time as well. So having said that it may be worth mentioning that there were some forms that influenced the beginning of musical theater in Korea. There are forms such as Akduk and Hyangto Gaguk both of which were indigenous genres of musical or a music drama that combines popular music with stories that are often melodramatic and also sometimes well known to the audience. Also the early Hollywood films introduced some titles of musical films such as Love Parade and Parade on Pond sorry Paramount on Parade to Koreans during the 1930s. There were also records or there are also records of American style variety shows that were performed by the touring performers from the U.S. in the 1920s. Okay let's making sure that I am my screens are working fine okay. However Korean musical theater did not begin until after the Korean war when the cultural landscape of Korea changed tremendously following the war and the lasting presence of the U.S. culture not only through the popular culture but also through the physical presence of the military base that was set up after the war. Interestingly the first professional production or first professional musical theater production that Koreans saw was Porgy and Beth which was produced in 1962 during the inaugural season of Drama Center that was built thanks to the generous support of Rockefeller Foundation. The production was directed by Yu Chijin one of the pioneers of modern Korean theater and whose legacy is somewhat tainted by the history of his pro-Japanese works and attitudes during the colonial time. Yu had studied in the U.S. during which time he had he said that he had seen the production of Porgy and Beth and was deeply touched by it. So after he came back he was in charge of running the program of the newly built Drama Center that was that was and Porgy and Beth was the third performance of the inaugural season of 1962 of Drama Center. It actually was pretty well 1962 production wasn't very well received but 1966 product and the revival product in 1966 was pretty well received. This slide actually shows Mary Martin's visit so you know during the because of the U.S. Army base that was stationed in Korea there were regular performers regular visits from the performers and college students and that was actually one of the first moments when Koreans actually saw the American musical theater in all its glory in all its glory when Mary Martin visited Korea and it was supposed to be really hard to get the tickets for with the production of Hello Dolly in 1964. But another important factor in the beginning of the musical theater in Korea has much to do with the political environment of Korea. While the very first Korean musical original very first Korean original musical theater is smaller production called Carnival Sochuk or the Carnival Notes it wasn't until the establishment of establishment of Yegeul Yegeul became the important genre that it is now. Yegeul was formed in 1961 a few months after the military coup by Park Jeong-hee the notorious dictator whose legacy is forever marred by his ruthless efforts to industrialize Korea. Initially Yegeul was formed by Park's initiative to create a positive national identity especially against the lavish shows that North Korea was able to offer at the time. Yegeul began by offering some mixture of western and traditional performances but the first season of Yegeul wasn't very successful and it wasn't until the second season or well it wasn't until the second season that you know that Yegeul was able to put put its action act together at the hem of Park Yong-woo who became the artistic director of the company and he made a case for creating an original musical that can really compete with North Korea at the time. The reason behind that was that North he argued that North Korea would never adopt a form such as musical theater because it's such an American institution and two he also argued that you know musical theater has the vitality that you know that will really resonate with the audience and as you see here and this is a video clip but I'm going to skip the video clip in the interest of time for now. 살짝 기억 사에 or come to me stealthly premiered in 1966 and it was the outcome of such efforts. Based on a Korean folktale titled pebi jeongjeon it talks fun at the corruption of officials while also telling us while also telling a story of love between an official and a court courtesan that first begins as a bet. It proves to be a very successful production placing musical as the viable genre for the Korean media and in the 1970s and 1980s a lot of the national focus was on the industrialization so there weren't a lot of big important productions that really made its mark but it's important to note that there were a lot of smaller productions of musicals and another important aspect of the development is the popularity of jesus christ superstar during those times especially as a christian musical with sometimes tweaking of the ending sometimes with a nice little blurb that shows the christian viewpoints of this musical and the picture that you have here uses the already existing painting by Korean painter named Kim Gi-chang who painted a series titled the life of jesus or yes we hang with jesus in korean traditional garb as you see here and you just you know it just speaks to the fact that you know musical theater the sort of combining of the musical theater and the national identity and the use of the musical theater in instilling a particular set of identities among the audience and the next phase of 1990s coincides with the nation's rush towards what is called globalization and you know and with this the musical theater makers or producers are trying really hard to reach the audience outside korea and this was one of one such example titled Myung-sung Hwang-woo The Last Impress by A-Kong International created by Yang In-ja was the writer and comedian of the composer and it tells the story of the Quinn Min who was murdered by the japanese samurai during the at the end of the at the very end of the chosen dynasty and sort of the tumultuous years that you know that come before the colonization of Korea and what's important about this is that you know Yoon Ho-jin who was the head of A-Kong International and also director of this musical aimed to write the musical that can reach the audience outside korea and this was the first musical that was able to go abroad and perform before the foreign audience with the mixed reviews the korean audiences there were a lot of korean audiences and there were a lot of criticism towards the works um originality and such but um but this became the musical theater that it also was a really large-scale musical so it was it became the musical theater that placed musical theater on the map in korean cultural development um and then with the with the imf so like at the end of the 20th century korea and along with a lot a lot of the other asian countries goes through a financial crisis and it was during that time and uh were the aftermath of the financial crisis and the reorganization of a lot of the companies and reorganization and that changed the sort of shape of the industry that actually gave a new breath to musical theater what happened was in 2001 the phantom of the opera there was the first local sit-down production that lasted more than six months and with a very very successful production as a very very successful production mostly full house by salt and you know produced by salt and company and this became the example that that proved to investors that musical theater can actually make money so this signal to a lot of investors or this invited a lot of the investors to the musical theater industry therefore there were a lot more capital and material resources that were available to the musical theater um producers um at the time and early 2000s where the early 2000s became the most prolific years in korean musical theater industry um which gave lives to these smaller more local original musicals as you see here uh i'm i'm i've run out of my time but so i'll make it quick um and and these two musicals are still running still very popular um they they continue to be very popular uh among the Korean audiences and what's important about that is that you know they not only capture the Korean audience now but they have also gone outside korea as a smaller productions smaller local language productions in japan and china and i i think kim jong up talking finding mr kim might have gone to taiwan as well but i'm not like 100 percent sure um and these are the works that were created by korean korean local creators um who came out of the schools that were established and were programs that were established that with the money that with the with the money that came in the aftermath of the or in the at the foot of the uh the success of the phantom of the opera and such so ballet and kim jong up really resonated with the Korean audience as well as the audiences outside and this also prompted a lot of the korean musical producers that the um the viability of producing something in korea as well as other asian cultures other asian cultures and countries at the same time but the the desire to create something bigger and hitting the broadway because you know like remains among the producers and youngung the musical hero which was done by the same producer acol international with that produced the last empress um is one of the examples that uh again like was able to make it out to broadway uh it actually came to lincoln center um and you know it was um it still continues to be very popular in korea as well and it tells a story about this hero anjung gun who is the freedom freedom fighter in the against the japanese colonial rule and it's just like you know very epic more like lemmings lemmings are like story and um you know it it sort of like proved in some ways korean musicals um competitive competitiveness um to the outside audience um to certain degree arguably and lastly uh or last uh sort of list of musicals that i have here are the musicals that have been running since the early 2000s uh except this last this one poster that you see at the left hand corner uh bottom at the bottom which is the taegu international musical festival poster so the musicals that you see here jikul and hae thulmi haedwig and mozart are all the musicals that have have been translated and licensed by korean producers and they've been super successful it was jikul and hae that actually some people argue that it was jikul and hae that started the star vehicle musical in korea and thulmi is a small two person musical by steven dolginoff that um that sort of started the fad for um uh smaller intimate musicals that are also um you know that also gives the voyeuristic pleasure to korean audience um to a lot of korean audience on homosexuality or homosexual relationship uh or just the power dynamic between um you know in the relationship and haedwig and ingrinch as well as mozart you know like are often you know able to sell tickets you know uh sorry are often sold out musicals um product musical productions with the stars that you know that headline the shows uh one thing that i want to mention about taegu international musical festival in terms of the development of korean musical industry is that you know dimf that still continues on was um important in building the relationship although it started as sort of the sort of the bureaucratic beginning of the festival but you know it actually has given a lot of room and place for the um for the uh early career you know for the musical theater creators in their early careers as well as the students because it actually you know like provides um space for the musical theater students to also perform and you know and compete against each other you know for a spot and and things like that and also it it used to have a relationship with dimf new york musical theater festival so it provided those like international again international approaches as well lastly uh you know some of the words about korean musical theater now um it's striving and struggling in the sense that like it's striving in the sense that there are still a lot of audience a lot of new shows that are being developed a lot of new talents that are being sought but at the same time uh financially it's always struggling there are a lot of news about you know a production company not being able to pay their factors or staff um and you know and obviously with the coronavirus it's not helping um there is a balance there is some balance or there um there is uh efforts uh to balance among the developing new works while also um sorry developing new works relying on reliable titles uh both original and local licensed titles so um as you can see here um you know like these um these are some of the works new works and all the new works that have you know that have been producing for a year and i'll talk about the details in like in a little bit but um um but also one other thing that i want to mention is that you know korean producers are also developing new works with multiple audiences in mind which is a case of this musical maybe happy ending which started in korea it was it's a musical by will erenson and hu park um but it started in korea but at the same time it's you know seeking you know new york producers and or it's successfully seeking new york producers or sought new york producers so that you know they can develop for the new york audience as well but at the same time you know like there are these you know broadway production big broadway productions that come to korea um and you know do really well kinky boots came and like you know and continues to be successful um great comet was going to open this year um they had to postpone because of the virus and sapiens is actually a musical that was based on the movie that deals with um the korean traditional uh storytelling uh storytelling performance titled pansori uh sorry storytelling performance named pansori and um this is a musical that that really builds a nice bridge between the traditional and the modern and the content end up between the genres as well pans between pansori and musical as well so those are my broad stroke overview i'm so sorry that i went over the time so much um and thank you so much i look forward to getting your questions and thank you so much keila for the wonderful presentation and providing us the information about musical theater in south korea and sorry for the technical difficulty but you know it's like theater and the show must go on so thank you very much for your patience and it's very exciting to see the empty development in these countries right so now that we have a deeper uh understanding of how musical theater works in these two countries i would like to invite our creative team of musical of the musical tropical angels the book writer and the lyricist ling mohwan and the composer leishen to join us for the following discussion ling mohwan mohwan ling a snow as that currently serves as an artist in residence of national taijong theater in taiwan with a master's degree from the department of drama and theater at national taiwan university lince works span across theater children's play and television he has received awards including the hong kong youth literary awards taipei literature award for best script and the script award of taipei children's arts festival his other publications include on macon road as well as many children's drama poetry trope fiction and children's stories as for the stage shows lane has given birth to more than 20 staged productions including a doc's house a r k 47 and children's play jane's magic dragon egg the tv series the teen age psychic in which lane was a member of the screenwriter group was shortlisted for best script for a miniseries slash tv movie at the godam bell awards leisheng shenglei is a new york city-based composer musician born and raised in taipei taiwan sheng earned his mfa in musical theater writing from nyutish school of the arts he is currently writing and developing a historical musical tropical angels supported by the national taijong theater in taiwan which projects to go into production in 2021 he's always excited about collaborating with artists of all kinds of medium including musical theater plays and dance he believes musical theater is an ultimate form of storytelling with no boundaries or limitations and can express the inexpressible making the unseen seen and unheard heard so please welcome da zi sheng and keila and charlene for our following discussion hello da zi sheng hello hello and welcome back keila and charlene awesome so first of all da zi and sheng congratulations on your musical um i'm sure everyone is very excited about the english premiere of tropical angels tomorrow so first of all could you briefly talk about the process of writing this particular musical and what propels you to translate and bring this piece to our english speaking audience basically we already finished the tropical angels in in taiwan the chinese the chinese version and the chinese version so this time we change translate into the english uh we we are very nervous about about it yeah yeah so we basically we have a full draft in chinese and in taiwan is in june last year and we were planning to have a a stage reading in live in york uh this fall but because of the pandemic and we were like so i i was supposed to be in new york but i'm stuck in taiwan right now so um so the technical the cultural center of new york just pitched us an idea of making the reading online and to still make it happen so uh yeah so there's another aspect like um we try to make it an english version because like we can also examine a lot of uh concept in the show that's uh if it's like universal enough for different audience from different cultural backgrounds so to say yeah so that's basically the whole idea of yeah that's great and thanks to the technology right we can still get to see this wonderful show the reading tomorrow so uh please stay tuned and watch the online streaming tomorrow so that leads actually leads to my second question because i think it's very interesting that our topic today is how has musical theater transformed from the west to the east right and now we are about to see a show that's being translated from taiwanese to english which is the opposite way and honestly less common so um but i'm sure that we will see more and more international productions coming to the us in the future so my question would be what are the main challenges that you running to doing your process of translating and transforming this musical for the english speaking audience and i also want to expand this question to keila and charlene as well please feel free to chime in if you have any similar experiences bringing pieces from your country to another war if you have any thoughts uh uh for me the most challenge is the some history background we don't need to explain so much because because all the taiwanese taiwanese audience we we all know it well so so when we translate into english some information need to add into the lines to help audience to understand what happened and why and the the dialogue translation is also a big challenge different languages uh have their own uh own ways to express the emotion and substance however the substance is hard to translate sometimes uh the the director the character doesn't answer the question directly for uh for the Mandarin audience we can we we can understand what happened but but it's easy to confuse to english audience so we have to change some uh some lies and some plots to help the uh who make the story more clearly and easier to understand yes yeah so i was working closely with our lyric translator emily too which is a like a like an excellent translator in lyrics but like so she can basically like turns our lyrics in chinese or in taiwanese into the same like almost exactly the same melody so i don't have to change much in terms of music but still like so there's a couple times i have to explain a lot like mostly because of cultural background difference to her like how this work how this can make sense in in lyrics in chinese or in taiwanese so i have like two specific example actually so um so in our opening number there's a lyrics which is originated from the original novel which is very important which is um the lyric basically means uh i buried my death in south pacific so this is the origin meaning of the lyrics so uh in terms so in for south pacific is actually a really cultural specific term for taiwanese audience actually so we we say uh nanyu or nanyang a lot which which literally means south pacific because of the pacific war like if you mention this term everyone will like automatically relate this to the pacific war actually but like for emily for like a taiwanese american she always see like when she hears um south pacific war related to that um you know roger zahannes time musical so that's really really confusing for american audience so so she just like change it into the specific location of the story which is timore island so let make more sense for her and for for like english-speaking audience i would say and the other one will be kamikaze which is uh which means godly wind or the heavenly wind in japanese but like when uh when we mentioned kamikaze whenever for an american audience or even taiwanese audience they were like directly related that to um the suicide squad so to say but actually kamikaze means more like just like literally more like a symbol for imperial japanese so it's not directly related to the suicide squad army so that that's a little bit confusing to emily as well so i have to explain that to to her like this concept actually means something bigger than just a suicide squad for the character so that's like two really specific and interesting example that had to explain quite a lot and to get like so far as to working through the whole concept yeah yeah that's very interesting that even one word has so much unfold because of the history and the culture and the language right um so for for dazi or uh shanlin keila do you have any thoughts on this um i think it's not a really easy thing to translate the mandarin to english or english to mandarin vice versa because it's below two different language systems so if you use the one melody and you need to fit in the uh actually the the same words of numbers but it's not it's kind of like impossible so i think it's a great challenge for leisheng and dazi and but i think it's a good try because uh in the development of taiwanese origin musical i cannot record anything like this one so i think dazi and leisheng is very ambitious and they take the challenge and we will see the outcome of this challenge so i'm so excited and looking forward thank you i know for korean musicals that have come to the us for you know for the english speaking audience um you know it was always a challenge to create a third title or super title um and then making you know when you look at when you go see an opera you know for example you know it's here because opera super title is like much shorter like the lyrics of opera is you know so much shorter than the musicals but you know with musical you have to be able to put in a lot of words in the super title and and give the audience a chance to see what's what happening on stage as well as you so that i know that that has always been a challenge as well as the you know like the musical that has toward um that has come as a foreign production to korea as well you know like this the challenges of the super title has always been difficult to me but i know also for that like in korea we have um you know there have been quite a few musical theater um you know quite a few translators whose work have been really well recognized because of the ingenuity of the um their ingenuity and their wits um that is able to capture um some of the essence of the you know um substance as you are saying and that's the you know um the substance of the line or the um what you know the lines and the um the dialogue so um so i know that you know like korea has come a long way in terms of the translation like you know even like you know when you think about when we when i think about the musicals that were produced in the early 2000s you know the translation you know like there might have been some wonky translations that were um that might have been a little bit difficult to understand what the cultural context is whatnot but you know i think now you know Koreans are doing much better job in in uh in the sense that you know audience is able to grab the uh grasp the meaning of the cultural context as well um and i think that has a lot to do with just the number of musicals that have come to Korea and the number of words that the translators had to do and their own their own development in their career as well yeah thank you uh i think Kayla's what you mentioned is a great segue to our next question because we talked about you know from east to west uh because of topical angels and you mentioned a little bit of the process of you know transforming musical theaters from the west to the east so i would like to ask our panelists what do you think what are the challenges that a team from uh the western countries like what are the challenges that they would face while transforming a Broadway musical theater to asian audience and that's you know we talked about language culture already and what else are the challenges that they would come across i mean one example that i can't share is like for example the musical dream girl musical dream girls was produced here in uh premiered in 1981 you know it's still the story of african-american girl group you know much like the supreme's and the struggles that they go through because of their you know their racial identity as well as you know like other you know issues that are related to their relationship you know the group dynamic and all of that in the u.s you know there is no need to mention the background you know like they we like we know here in the u.s you know people know but in korea obviously you know the racial dynamics need to be educated a little bit or and it needs to be communicated a little bit um so in the in the in the in 2005 production the korean premier production of dream girls um they had like in the souvenir program they were to have like a one-page uh educational piece about the racial dynamics in the u.s so that the audience can see but at the same time you know to have that um spoken out loud on stage or to explain that on stage that goes beyond what was in the original touch is obviously impossible so what the korean production did with the 2005 production was that they down downplayed the racial aspects of the play or the musical and what they did was they focused on so the relationship issues and the appearance issue of fb the main or the female the main protagonist who is sidestepped because of her voice and also by her looks so they decided to focus on particular things that are not race related so that the audience could like relate to a little better in 2009 production um sorry 2009 was the original product of the premier production in 2015 was the revival production and in 2015 production they actually changed the context a lot so they actually invited um or they introduced a sort of a family background of one of the characters that had that needed more motivation for the character development so like Curtis Taylor jr you know which is the you know like the um the manager of the group who in the original didn't really have a backstory but you know in on stage we hear his backstory like he had his father you know who was really driven by the success and so on so forth and also we are introduced um at this little girl who doesn't actually have um who doesn't actually appear on stage in the original but in the korean production we actually have a little girl girl actor who comes on stage and talks to ethi again like which magnifies the family the bond ethi has for the daughter and the motivation that ethi will have for singing again because the daughter says mommy i want to hear you sing i know that you are happy when you when you sing so these things happen you know in terms of dealing with um some of the cultural context that can't be translated um in korean production and um the result of that actually like critics or the reviewers seem to have actually enjoyed the play uh the musical a little more because they are saying like yeah it fills a gap you know it fills a cultural gap that is just said you know uh you know between what was performed originally and what was um understood by korean audience that's great and you know i'm glad that they were open to make changes and adjustments because it is a very necessary to you know if you want the audience from another culture to understand right so for dazi or sheng or charlene you know what are your standpoints on this question uh my experience is still more um like in terms of language and lyrics so as a lot of people know like in chinese we have four tones so um there's like a specific kind of flow of the melody you have to take care of in in case like so you so you can like understand what you are actually thinking about so that's very tricky to translate like english lyrics into chinese so like uh there's not so many examples in taiwan that's like translating um Broadway shows or like shows with international rights into chinese but there's a lot of examples in china right now but like when i think everybody will face a difficulty which is like when you want to keep the original melody but you also want to make the chinese lyric being understood that's really tricky because like there's like some ups and downs you have to uh take into your consideration when you're writing the new lyrics for the melody so to say so that's actually really challenging and also the different um different and i don't know how to say different texture of the language also like matters a lot so i'm also doing some lyrics translation for english musical right now and i think the difference between english and chinese basically is like it's um it's more normal or like more comfortable for english to have more syllables in the melody in music but in but in chinese or in taiwanese whatever like you cannot make that many syllables because like it doesn't make sense for our language to speak that fast and to be understood so that's really challenging sometimes it's like uh sometimes the original composer want to keep the melody the music but i was like uh maybe i have to take out a couple words there so like people can actually understand what we're singing about yeah and uh and for me it's very it's very tricky for the taiwanese audience we don't like to see the the Broadway show translate into chinese version we i we also like the the english two english versions tour into taiwan because our audience is very used to uh read the sub subtitles so like the audience in taiwan will sing the the original original language is uh is better than translating so so it's it's very challenging for for the taiwanese production yeah yeah i think that's very interesting um so for shanlin in terms of you know being in the marketing and producing side of musical theater what are your thoughts on you know bringing shows that has to be translated or transformed from another from one culture to another um i think i like that to say in taiwan we are used to receive the musical in their original language so and it's a kind of americulture or the western culture is very popular in taiwan so we are familiar with the pop music and the art of pop culture so we not really can get into a musical if we bring it to taiwan and translate to to mandarin it's kind of a weird for us so we are used to see the subtitle and we see the subtitle is kind of normal things because like a movie in taiwan we still don't translate in chinese we use it in the original keep it in the original language so i think it's our background of our attitude toward the different culture so right now i cannot recall that we have for any musical the the big or famous musical translated to to mandarin at this moment but i know there are some musical companies they are trying to do these things maybe for the next year there will be a small musical like um i love you you are perfect maybe they have a chance to translate to mandarin but i don't know how the process is but i think it's not so easy to pluralize the composer to do that i think it is a the cultural challenge and another one is the people cannot get used to the different kind of language to translate to chinese and even like a french musical is kind of a hit in taiwan as well but we don't translate a french to to mandarin so it's our culture so so don't like the korea there are so many so many license in musical and translated korea so it's kind of pretty much like the at this moment yeah thank you thank you all right just to chime in with uh on what charlene was saying i think it also has a lot to do with just the pool of actors and actresses available for a local production and in korea like i said you know with the rise of the musical theater in like programs in college in college levels you know like there are actually a lot of actors and actresses who want to perform the perform in big titles in local language you know they don't want to speak english obviously you know when performing these big roles so you know that's also one of the reasons why i think you know koreans need the translated on the translation and license musicals because there are just that many you know that amount of talents that we need to accommodate for as well yeah that's a very good point and i wanted to point out that made i think in my observation or i think i saw some musical has been translated into mandarin in china but also the number just like you said charlene and kala it's not as many as the numbers that you can see in korean um so i think that's a very interesting point but now i would love to transition this to the next topic is about the unique aspects of the musical theater in your countries what are the things that are uniquely existing in your country that we don't really see in the western musicals i think one thing that i would say is the excessive emotion in a good way expression of emotion in a good way that they are able to really capture the audience in the in their performance of the emotions and the emotional arc of a character is perfectly captured um which i think resonates with a lot of the audience and it's which is also one of the reasons why there are so many stars um that have the like various um a big fan base because they know that these actors can perform the role can break the sheer uh um uh you know sheer uh density of the emotion that comes from the character and i think that's really um particular to korean musical theater thank you and also can you expand a little bit on k-pop because you know we know that k-pop has played a really important role and i would also like to you know expand this invitation to our folks from taiwan as well because meadow pop also plays a big role in the musical theater right a lot of shows they have been inviting stars to come to their um musical theater production so can you all elaborate this a little bit more i mean about k-pop i think um at the moment um the extent to which k-pop interacts with musical theater is that a lot of k-pop stars perform in the musical theater uh in musical in musicals uh in musical stage but at the same time a lot of the early k-pop you know before the rise of k you know before the k-pop was k-pop you know there are musicals that are based off of the music of the the old school k-pop so to speak and these musicals are being written and there are i know like there are a lot of demands for the new works that use utilize utilizes our k you know what is more proper or more contemporary k-pop as we speak so i think that's the extent to which that there is an overlap at the moment and i haven't really put a lot of thought put more thought into the subject of the overlap between musical theater and k-pop beyond that point but that is an interesting phenomenon and that is all interesting you know that is going to be more interesting as time continues on i'm sure thank you and how about the uh the situation in taiwan uh when kelo mentioned the k-pop uh it reminds me that because in the early stage of original musical developed in taiwan actually a lot of talent especially the composer is from the pop music background so like kiss me nana it's like a very early original musical in taiwan it was composed by zhang yushen is like a famous pop star and composer at that time and it's very have a rock style on it so the kiss me nana at that time is like a huge hit and so i think in taiwan the talent in musical theater is not from the very traditional like a classical composer he is mixed with like a lot of talent from the popular culture it's like a normal thing in taiwan so i think it's like already mixed together and by the way when leo mentioned that what is the characteristic of specialty in taiwan musical compared to the western one uh it's remind me that because in taiwan we really want to find our own style so some of the musical the topic of the story or you've been said the element is uh related to the local culture so like a taiwanese opera maybe that plays a role in the taiwanese musical because it kind of like a local cultural context and it will make the the um creation is more or have a local test and the other thing i think um the taiwanese talents because their playground is really not from the professional training because like kello said maybe it's the same situation in taiwan we don't really have a department of a musical in the university or college so the talent in taiwan sometimes they train themselves by like to have a lot of a $10 workshop and even they listen to the music and see the video and learn by themselves so we feel that the taiwanese talent then have a kind of a specialty it's like a mixed style it's not like a Broadway when the performer came out it become the one style but in taiwan it's not mixed so maybe it's good maybe it's bad but it's the situation in taiwan at this moment yeah thank you charlene yeah yeah so bouncing off just what what just what charlene just said so there's like a really good example which is the read unbroken by charlene by bm theater company which like i think is the one of the best show let like combine uh Broadway style musical so to say with taiwanese opera and let's and it blends like pretty well i would say yeah that's one interesting aspect in taiwanese music i would say and if you want to put it into like a more like broad chinese speaking world like so uh leo just mentioned mando pop what mando pop has influenced in in chinese or taiwanese musical so there's like quite a not a lot but like quite some jukebox musical by like big mega mando pop star which like jiao has had a jukebox musical um last year i think or a couple years ago and john of the li zongshen which did a jukebox musical last year which i personally work in before and like so and there's a really um reason taiwanese musical called fairway beto which is also a jukebox musical of a taiwanese sing-song writer uh to min zong yeah so i think that's one of the influence that has in musicals like we did some jukebox things and we tend to like using jukebox as a way to work in through and figuring out how our own style is yeah that's why like yeah thank you i i think this conversation really unfolds how diverse the musical theater industry just in these two countries right even it's just you know for example in taiwan there are different languages and then there are different music styles and cultural background so you know i would like to expand this to the next question is what kind of collaborations you are hoping to see in the future between the western and eastern musical theater industry so that we can have more platforms for um you know musical theater pieces from the east any thoughts i know this is a big question right but i think that is one of the biggest thing that we are hoping to see so any thoughts are welcome i think uh in taiwan right now um it's kind of a crucial time for the development of of the musical in taiwan because i think uh as i said um the original musical in taiwan we developed for like 20 to 30 years and right now is a kind of a period and it's like a profound musical 10 up every year normally it's like a 30 uh musicals but we still lack of like the whole very healthy environment so we lack of a director we lack of a musical director we lack of a lot of professional departments uh in in this industry so um as a type t-pack of the type of for me our center we have a training program every year and we invite the the Broadway director or the musical director came to taiwan to um give their professional thought a concept for our students so i think the collaboration or the collaborator with the western east is like two two ways one way is so we would like to um invite more western talent to come to taiwan and to understand our culture or more and not only we help uh the the taiwanese talent and get some more professional idea or concept from the western so i think it's a good situation right now and it will make the taiwanese the musical development more healthy and you will have an opportunity to work with the western in the future so i think right now is like we build the bridge and we will see what's happening in the future thank you shalin how about our other panelists one is very it's a very small market so in the future maybe we can combine the resource from from not only taiwan we can combine the resource from like uh singapore uh malaysia and other countries so we can make a big musical and and have a long term and have a long term show and like like mulan mulan is making making in taiwan but have a long term show in singapore for three months it's but it's a very sample for the the corals countries uh cooperation yes yeah so yeah so as i just mentioned so i work in the johnson lee musical from china before and their creative team is like combined uh chinese chinese people and the um the director and choreographer from the us from broadway actually so i think that's a good way to like get to like work together in collaboration and get to know their know-how and or like or other like technical or technique stuffs and so and i think and there's like more and more musicals in taiwan right now it's actually in collaborations with with korea there's like uh i think there's there's gonna be the second um musicals in taiwan that's directed by korean director musical theater director so i think that's a so i wouldn't i wouldn't say it's like it's a west thing it's just like in collaborations with like different market and different country different cultural background it's good because like you can get to know uh how to like work together and know their technique and their their how to build the market better i would say yeah and also i think there's the collaborations we are doing right now with uh with the us team for tropical angel is another way it's like to put the writing material in different in front of different audience with different cultural background and to examine like how our piece work in different come in different circumstances i think that's really helpful way to develop either the local market or the whole industry yeah i yeah thank you sorry i okay let's go ahead and kaila um let's char and doze will say about interation collaboration you know i think there is that might be a at the moment i think that might be much more productive uh collaboration considering that a lot of times of the east and west collaboration ends up being it it's it's not always on the equal ground because you know because of the way in which the american producers for example approach these eastern countries as just a market as opposed as a market to invest in or as a market to to gain their financial benefits but as opposed to sort of like seeing one you know seeing each other in eye to eye or in on an equal ground and i think that happens much more often in the you know within the inter-asian context and i think that is much more fruitful outcome that has come through these inter-asian context like so i think you like that's also that's a very interesting avenue for the for the creators to pursue and explore at the moment in terms of the collaboration between east and west i think if we can pursue that kind of collaboration where you know the collaboration happens more um less bound by the financial means that would be very exciting to see but obviously i'm sticking in the idea i understand and you know obviously musical theater happens within the commercial world so we cannot um disregard it all together but i think that's just where my thought is at the moment that's a great point and i think what you all mentioned you know was not was that it's not just at west and east thing you know like it's it's great to see many collaborations between the these countries in asia you know and so that we can work together and then furthermore bring these collaboration globally from our own district geographically so yeah i think that's and i just want to remind all of our audience that you know if you have any questions you can feel free to drop in our um facebook page of how around and also the tropical angels um facebook page and we do have some questions from our audience so that you know i'm gonna um present that them right now so um one of our audience members asks that are there any taiwanese or korean musicals available online right now i'm going to be disappointed and i'm gonna say i can't think of anything um i'm sure that there are some youtube clips if you if you look for the clips but there isn't a full recording of anything that as i know you know like as i know um what that i know of on youtube or anywhere other any other platforms that are available right now and with the coronavirus i know that there have been a few live casting or live streaming of the events but i don't know anything that's coming up at the moment i see how about our folks from taiwan charlene or shang or datzi i think from your future expressions it does that mean that there are not a lot of resources that we can find right i think just a few clips yeah yeah yeah another like a full video i don't think yeah yeah it's about yeah so i think there's more taiwanese musicals that were online but there's like a temporary thing so they probably take it down because like a lot of shows so the things like a lot of shows are still touring and still like performing right now so it's like like so it's like a little bit tricky to get the video the filming of it i was saying yeah yes oh yeah uh the the pts public television public television program in taiwan always uh they will shut they will shutting the musical and making the tv program but sometimes they will put online for some some some uh some special event but they're not not a long term yeah right i think there's more like an archive thing instead of like public showing things so yeah i see well but maybe this will change because of the pandemic right we'll see you know how this process um go uh also the next question would be what was the name of the taiwanese pop musical i think it was shane that mentioned this musical but uh i don't think we had this specific name that was given to the audience right uh uh you mean the reason juvaks taiwanese musical or yeah i think you meant so the name right was that不能說 the me me right from the j-chall musical one yeah i'm not sure about the show title at the end because they change the title quite sometimes like a lot of times it's different so when i was working on is a different title and the the ultimate like title for the show actually so the last the last show i mentioned is actually fairware betel tai hui ba betel which is the juvaks musical a taiwanese juvaks musical that's uh happening like this two years yeah i see cool thank you and i think one of the last questions i would like to ask is i love the way um that charlene you were portraying taiwanese musical theater industry as three different faces right and it seems like each decade was represented by one face that you mentioned so i think now it's 2020 and now we have tropical angels right what are you hoping to see uh with the creation of tropical angel and what are you hoping that you know what are the direction that maybe this show or uh our new new theater makers and writers can bring the musical theater um in the future um i think the tropical angel it's kind of a landmark uh at this moment because they try and do a lot of things the first i mentioned is like they want to build up more healthy production procedures in taiwan and i think in taiwan a lot of theater they want to do that but we still need a lot of capital and time results to do that so like the tropical angel it takes like two years from the of 2018 90 and 2020 and then we'll have premium in 2021 next year so i think it's like a long run preparation from the readings from the concert and from another readings and to the official premiere so i think that it's built up a good like a circle in things for the audience for the performers even for the creators because they can do a lot of adjustment during this process i think it's so that in taiwan can do that we always want to adjust it um after the premiere but we don't have time or we even don't have a venue or have a resource to uh represent it again so i think uh that they send their do their best and then i think the topic of this musical is really really unique because it's adapted from the really not the novel in taiwan and is related to the very deep historical background and i think uh in this like a very um heavy topic in the musical thing is not of it's unusual because we we really want to make the musical like a happy ending or the musical is easy to receive but i think that that's the choice of very strong things so i'm really curious how will they deal with this kind of a story and put in the musical context because it's even very hard to put in the like a play or drama context so i think it's a big challenge and um as leo said this um um tropical angel will have an english version so maybe we will have for the english production in the future so i think uh it's a kind of a test for the western audience how can they understand um a culture from east and even the context is very local from taiwan so i think um tropical angel they try a lot of diversity things and different own angle things so i think maybe this one we can we can looking forward to what happened in the future and i think i understand they use a amount of english speaking talent in america from taiwan if i understand it as well so i think it's a kind of a give the chance for the taiwanese talent who have a career in america and they can um have a chance to deliver their culture in the broader way i i think is a very seldom chance we can do this before and i think um it's really a breakthrough from for the taiwan original musical at this moment yeah i think that just sums up you know what tropical angel is for it's a breakthrough for taiwanese musical theater right now and i believe that this is the first taiwanese musical that has been transformed or will be seen by a us-based audience for the first time right please correct me if i'm uh i'm wrong and i think it's really exciting to see because like kelo was mentioning that happy uh maybe happy ending you know came to the united states earlier this year right at the end of last year and earlier this year uh and then now tropical angels is coming to um the united states as well despite you know the challenge that we are facing but i think it's really promising for agent musical theater industry that you know it's getting stronger and more developed and then there are a lot of interest and money put into this industry so i think this is you know what we're hoping to see in the future so i want to thank you all of you you know for participating in this panel because we just learned so much from all of you within the past hour and i think our discussion today is just a starting point it would definitely trigger more conversation in the near future and certainly we are hoping to see more collaborations in the future so that you know not just the audience in asia can enjoy these beautiful stories and productions from the west vice versa more artists like shang and dad can have the platform to showcase their unique and incredible works and appealing stories so that our western audience would also have the opportunity to appreciate musical theater from the other side of the world so thank you again charlene kala that's relation for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us today and we also want to thank all of you for joining us and contributing to this meaningful conversation and please don't forget to tune in uh and share with your friends that tomorrow at 6 30 p.m is the english premiere of tropical angels book and lyrics by da zi limon huan and music by sheng lei leisheng so please check out our facebook event or taipei cultural center of tecco in new york facebook page for more detailed information thank you again for joining us and take care and have a great evening we will see you tomorrow