K-POP (Broadway)

Review of K-POP on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre

My good friend from college and I were major K-pop fans when we were in undergrad. We would go to all of the concerts of our favorite groups heading into New York City and even New Jersey to get our fix. COVID then happened, so the concerts stopped, and we fell out of that phase. Then we saw this show was coming to Broadway with Luna/Kevin Woo/Bohyung/Min, and we knew we had to see it. So we did!

I waited to buy tickets for this show because I know how to get cheaper tickets, and I knew the ticket prices were absolutely ridiculous at the face value. I knew I could get cheap, better seats rather than spending $100 for the back of the theatre.

I have a TDF membership, and knew this show was not selling well, so I bought tickets through them. For a Saturday matinee I paid $60 a ticket and got us the $200 seats in the third row. And dear god, those seats were so good for those show. More on that later.

Here’s the review! This was my friend’s first Broadway show ever, so I’ll include her thoughts as well.

K-POP unfolds like a concert and a fever dream.

In this show, it focuses on three different stories: a girl group, MwE, and the boy group. The one thing my friend and I agreed on is that the story in this show is really, really bad. The girl group only gets one moment of dialogue, one in which they were ready to give up. We learn a little bit about the one girl, Sonoma, and how she learned to not be shy because of MwE, then they decide not to give up on their dreams. That’s it. We learn nothing else about them besides the random white filmmaker in the show trying to create drama at one point.

The boy group’s story is that one of the members was ousted (he is not shown) and replaced with a hapa from Connecticut named Brad. This role is usually played by Zachary Piser, but he was out ill when we went. We had the understudy and he was very, very good in the role. Brad doesn’t really speak Korean, has vocals in English, and starts getting all the camera time.

Naturally, this does not bode well with the rest of the group. Kevin Woo plays the pseudo group leader, who yells at Brad and leads the charge against him. The white filmmaker interviews Brad in an attempt to try and create drama (again) and expose the company’s practices.There’s a major loophole in this story because while they roast him for not knowing Korean, Brad suddenly seems to understand it towards the end.

This is perpetrated further through MwE’s story. She joined the company at nine/ten, wasn’t the best dancer, and basically sells her soul to it and the owner. She has the trope of the dead and abandoned parents, wants to have a boyfriend, and must make the decision between the boyfriend (who she literally proposes to halfway through the show) and her career.

Her boss kind of gaslights her throughout under the guise that she cares for her, which was an interesting and most likely realistic outcome in the industry. The show highlights a lot of the issues with the industry, but doesn’t really add much to the conversation outside of what a fan already knows.

The story in this show simply needs a lot of work. It was cliche, the dialogue was funny, but also not great at times. There were a couple of loopholes throughout, especially considering Luna supposedly is ready to marry this guy after six months and then gives up on it for her career.

My friend and I agreed that the story was not good at all, which is interesting because my friend is typically complimentary for almost everything. There was a good use of technology throughout, and the stage is utilized well for this kind of show. During the dance numbers everyone makes use of the circle format and interacts with the audience in a way you typically do not see on Broadway, including the use of technology.

One thing I found entertaining throughout is figuring out who was an idol and an actor based on their singing, acting, and charisma. The idols in the show really seemed like idols.

The actors do their best—lots of fan service was given—but they 100% are not idols for sure. Kevin/Min/Bohyung/Luna knew what they were doing and could do it well. On the opposite side of things, their acting was kind of rough and you could tell they could not handle the vocals at times. The actors, minus Bohyung, hit the higher notes. I give Luna massive credit for doing a show not in her native language, but her acting was not great at times. It was a little too dramatic.

As a show though, this feels like a very fun concert. We agreed that it felt like a K-pop concert and the vibes started to get better, and some of the songs really were bops.

The fashion was also on point throughout. It’s also worth noting that when we saw the show, there were sicknesses and illnesses sweeping through the cast. We had the Brad and Sonoma understudies, and they were very good. I’ve seen Zachary Piser before in Dear Evan Hansen, so I was glad I saw a take on Brad with a different actor, although I would’ve enjoyed seeing Piser again. My friend and I were obsessed with the understudy, Bohyung, and Kevin in the end.

Overall Thoughts

It’s a fun show, but do not expect high art. I think it’s an important one, as it has an almost entirely Asian/Asian-American cast and had up to eighteen Broadway debuts among that cast.

Quite a bit of the dialogue is in Korean and not translated, but it still is not lost on the audience. I understood enough Korean to get what they were saying (the dialogue was pretty simple overall, which made this a lot easier), and I think it wasn’t missing anything by not translating. That’s good for Broadway. K-pop fans might not be as happy with this one though unless you’re a big second generation fan—you’re not going to take much from the show if you already know about the industry.

We had fun. I’d honestly see it again just to see Julia Abueva and Zachary Piser, but I honestly don’t think this show will last. There were a lot of empty seats when we went, and looking at its sales and grosses, it probably will not survive long financially.

See it if you’re vaguely interested, but I would not recommend going in with super high expectations. The songs are catchy and good, but that plot really needs some work. My friend said she wanted to see it again, and we both agreed it unfolds like a fever dream.