Jill Santoriello, writer-composer of the musical production of "A Tale of Two Cities," speaks during a roundtable interview at a venue in Gangnam District, southern Seoul on Nov. 12. SNOWNOTE There are two ways to bring a Broadway musical to Korea: One is to ship it over — the sets, the costumes, the lighting plot, the director’s blocking — and rebuild it here as faithfully as a license allows, which is what the industry calls a replica production. The other is to keep only the script and the score and start over on everything else, a riskier bet, and one that Korean producers have been making more and more often. A poster for the new 2026 production of "A Tale of Two Cities" SHOWNOTE The Korean runs of Jill Santoriello’s "A Tale of Two Cities" in 2012, 2013 and 2014 were the first kind of bringing the original Broadway show. The production that opened Wednesday at the Gwanglim Arts Center’s BBCH Hall in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, the musical’s first Korean run in 12 years, is the second. 오리지날야마토연타예시 “The original productions that were done here were basically replicas of the Broadway production, with the Broadway set and the Broadway costumes and even the Broadway wigs, [but this time] it is all brand new,” Santoriello, who wrote the book, music and lyrics, said during a roundtable interview at a venue in Gangnam District on Thursday. The 2008 Broadway production being copied had not lasted three months in New York. It opened at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on Sept. 18, 2008, three days after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and lost money as the financial crisis deepened, closing on Nov. 9 the same year after 60 regular performances. The award nominations came the following year, when there were no tickets left to sell — Outstanding New Broadway Musical at the Outer Critics Circle Awards, three Drama Desk nominations and a Drama League nod. A stage scene from the original 2009 Broadway production of "A Tale of Two Cities," written and composed by Jill Santoriello JILL SANTORIELLO 백경게임랜드 “We really didn’t have any reason to believe the show would have a future beyond Broadway, because we had a short run,” Santoriello said. “But the people from Toho [from Japan] were at the show on opening night, and they wanted to do the show instantly, even with what happened with the economics and the early closing.” A Korean producer contacted Santoriello through her agent soon after, and the Korean-language production opened at the Chungmu Arts Center in August 2012, a year before Toho’s Tokyo premiere. “From the ashes of thinking there was nothing left, all of a sudden these two beautiful, wonderful professional productions opened in Asia, one year after another,” Santoriello said. “That turned from being the worst thing in the world to the most wonderful thing.” It is a very Dickensian turn of fortune for a musical based on a novel that opens with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” 바다이야기모바일 Dickens serialized the book “A Tale of Two Cities” in 1859, and its ending, in which Sydney Carton, a brilliant English lawyer who has drunk away most of his promise, goes to the guillotine in place of the husband of the woman he loves, has been making readers cry for a century and a half. “I snuck out of my bedroom at two o’clock in the morning when I was 12 years old and watched the movie version of ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’” Santoriello recalled. “I had no idea what the story was, and I got to the end and my tears were just flowing down my 12-year-old face. I never forgot that story.” That was MGM’s 1935 film, starring Ronald Colman. The book came at age 16 for Santoriello, after her brother read an early “Wuthering Heights” musical of hers and told her the music was good but nobody in it was worth rooting for — and most of the 25 years between that and Broadway went into finding a producer willing to stage it. Jill Santoriello, writer-composer of the musical production of "A Tale of Two Cities," poses for a photo before a roundtable interview at a venue in Gangnam District, southern Seoul on Nov. 모바일 바다이야기 사이트 12. SHOWNOTE For Santoriello’s second musical, “It Happened in Key West,” which premiered in London in 2018, she co-wrote the script and kept the music and lyrics to herself. Writing all three is still unusual on Broadway — more unusual still for women — which Santoriello puts down to history: Broadway was born as a business, and businesses hire one person per job. “Interestingly, the times that [one person writing all three] has been done were all Dickens musicals,” she said, citing Lionel Bart’s “Oliver!” and Rupert Holmes’ “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” “Something about Dickens’ stories inspires people to just do the whole show themselves.” A stage scene from the original 2008 Broadway production of "A Tale of Two Cities," written and composed by Jill Santoriello JILL SANTORIELLO Korean production company Shownote’s version swaps much of the heavy scenery for projected backdrops. The score changes even more. 온라인바둑이 There are three songs new to Korea, all in the second act: “One More Time,” by Santoriello, and “Never Say Goodbye,” by “Jekyll & Hyde” composer Frank Wildhorn, both written for Toho’s 2025 revival, and “I’ll Die for Love,” also by Wildhorn, which premieres here. Santoriello’s Broadway producers have lately been talking about a revival of “A Tale of Two Cities,” according to Santoriello. The original set — heavy pieces moved around the stage by the actors themselves — is what she would leave in New York; if there is a next copy, she would like it to be of the one in Seoul. “I want to talk to [the producers] and say we should really see if we can bring this [new Korean production] to Broadway, because it’s much more what I imagined the Broadway show would be than the Broadway show was,” she said. “It would be great to get a movie star for Sydney Carton, because that really helps sell tickets, too.” “A Tale of Two Cities” the musical runs through Feb. 8, 2027, with no shows on Mondays except the final closing show. Tickets cost 80,000 won to 160,000 won ($59 to $119) through NOL Ticket, Yes24, Melon Ticket and Shownote. BY LIM JEONG-WON [] on opened