1. The great heritage
(Male-5, Female-3, Running Time-120mns)
James, a freshman in college lives with his 3 sisters. The first sister is a school teacher, the second sister is a fashion designer, and the third is a senior in college looking for a job. He attends a theatre group in college that now rehearses "King Lear" by Shakespeare. The siblings’ parents passed away a couple of years ago due to a car accident.
The first sister is very generous and like their mother, is in charge of everything at home. On the contrary, the second is a bit greedy, and selfish and doesn’t respect others. However, she is very smart and diligent. The third is not so smart and lazy, which makes it difficult for her to find a job. James, the youngest is still childish and likes to drink. They are mostly happy.
One day, the second sister drops a bombshell. She plans to sell the house and have her portion to launch her own boutique. It was not a discussion but a declaration. She starts to show the house to would-be buyers, while the others are all in the police station because drunken James drove an excavator on the street intending to get into the city hall to see Mayor. However, because of the kindness of a policeman, James got back home safely, but he doesn’t know what he will encounter when he comes back home. Their house is sold and the siblings reluctantly accepted the situation, since they are family.
Some moments later, once again their family's happiness was shattered due to James' drunken behavior. Thanks to the kind policeman, he was again freed from the police. However, the really catastrophic problem occurs with the second sister. The man supposed to work with her took all the money and disappeared. In a word, she was swindled and the family loses their house. Feeling guilty, the second sister runs away from home and disappears. The first sister tries to find her, asking a detective agency but it couldn’t. Finally, recalling the kind policeman, she contacts and asks him to find her sister. The policeman accepts her request and makes some inquiries. Doing that, they become closer and closer, and finally decide to get married.
At the wedding place, the first sister is not so happy because her family problem is not solved. Crying, she asks her dead parents to forgive her. The new groom prepared a big surprise present which is the second sister with a bunch of flowers shedding repenting tears. The family vows to their dead parents to remember and keep their great heritage; first love, second don’t fight, third understand and the youngest obey your sisters.
Love, understanding and forgiveness.
(In <Making theatre with 42 questions>, 11/10/2009, Seoul, Somyung)
2. King LEAR
(adapted from Shakespeare)
(Male-3, Female-3, Chorus, 120Mns)
King Lear was a competent king but he has a temper problem and doesn’t accept others' advice easily. He became old and now wants to yield his country to his three daughters. The king asks them to say how much they love him.
The first and second daughters say what the king wants to listen to, but the third daughter refuses to say love to her father pretending that the love cannot be expressed by words. Angry, the king drives her away despite his subject’s advice. Fortunately, the French king accepts her as his queen. The relationship between father and daughter disintegrated.
After having yielded the territory, the king stays in the first daughter’s palace with his 100 subjects. Conflicts occur between the subjects of king and daughter. The subjects of the daughter ask their master to resolve the problem. The first daughter decides to reduce the number of the king’s subjects, but the king doesn’t agree and goes out of his daughter’s palace and heads for his second daughter’s palace. However, already informed about her father, the second daughter refuses her father to live in her palace. Outraged, the king goes to the desert alone and becomes crazy cursing his daughters. One of his subjects lets the third daughter know about this incident and she comes to see him immediately.
The third daughter discovers her father slept alone in the desert and blames her sisters. When the king wakes up, he doesn’t recognize his daughter at first, but eventually he apologizes what he did to her. She decides to go to see her sisters to argue about this situation. However, when she arrives in her sister’s palace, the second daughter was killed by the first. Witnessing this scene, the third daughter gives up on reconciling and tries to go back to her father. However, the first daughter kills her, saying if she is alive, her father will invade her territory one day with her… The king arrives late at the place of murder, watching the scene, blaming himself, is dying.
(In <Two musical scripts with their music scores 1>, 3/15/2015, Seoul, Somyung)
3. Tomorrow
(Male-3, Female-3, 100mns)
Pierre is a fashion designer. The name “Pierre” is not his original name, but he changed his name into Pierre because he has a great respect to Pierre Cardin, the famous French fashion designer. Since he was in college, his works were so outstanding that he could find and join the company without problem. However he is a little bit arrogant, and he usually doesn’t appreciate others’ works saying “I can do that better and in less time”.
These days, he started to hang out with one of his alumni who is a director of the company and so, he could not concentrate on what he is doing. Naturally his work doesn’t go well and he felt in a slump. His work is getting worse and worse. He is so aware about it that he even dreams about it. His life doesn’t go well these days. He has an impression to lose all his sense of design. He is in a slump.
One morning, everybody is busy for an upcoming presentation soon. Pierre criticizes the bad parts of other designer’s creations wandering around because he is not ready. He doesn’t know that this attitude to ignore others is one cause of his slump. After a while Mary, his rival, gives the presentation and it is well received by the boss. Of course Pierre doesn’t accept this situation. When his turn comes, however he cannot do a good presentation because he is not ready at all. He will be seriously reprimanded for his not being ready from his boss. He is driven out on the street to survey again the market trends.
After having “studied” on the street, designers gathered in the bar to take a drink. Pierre and his colleague Robert are totally drunk. All of a sudden, Pierre imagines that he blames Mary and his boss who drove him into a corner at the presentation this morning. He also imagines holding a meeting where Robert should attend, however he is actually almost naked.
On the way home after fantasizing with some drinks. Pierre’s team and Mary’s team encounter on the street by chance and start to talk about trivial things. Then Mary proposes to call their boss to join them, but Pierre cannot accept it because he could not totally get out of the bad moods of the morning. Exchanging some dialogues, Pierre ended up cursing a colleague who does the same. This accident will become a real fight where everybody hits each other without being separated as teams. This is not just a fight between them, maybe is it our struggling to live?
All of a sudden, Robert wakes Pierre from his nap. Fortunately, the fight was a dream. However Linda, one of his colleagues who studied together with Pierre in the same university, criticizes him about his actual incompetence. To tell the truth she joined this company because there was Pierre who was really a good designer, and when they were in college he gave her lots of help. He was a kind of hero for her and all his alumni.
Also the director with whom Pierre hung out these days appears and says that he cannot trust him any longer. In this situation, facing being fired, Pierre realizes that he started his job because he liked it, but now the job has become boring and he cannot find pleasure any more. Pierre will regain his ability from the realization that design is not just work he must do to live but it is what he can get pleasure from.
(In <Two musical scripts with their music scores 1>, 3/15/2015, Seoul, Somyung)
4. Love may come silently
(Male-3, Female-4, 100 mns)
Irene, who runs a café, has a lover, Eric, who runs a computer shop next to her. She is secretly in love because she is not courageous enough to confess her love to him, while, knowing nothing, Eric is looking for a girlfriend.
In the morning, they meet together with Roman, a new employee of computer shop, when they encounter a fatal game to have 1 million and a love at the same time. To participate in the game, the rules look extremely simple: to marry the woman of each one’s choice and to show a family picture with new born baby in a year.
Eric and Roman participate in game and begin dating with Mira and Lilia. Mira is an undercover investigator who arrest the swindle team, and Roman, also, a policeman with the same purpose. Lilia is a member of swindle team, so only Eric is innocent. At the park, on the ship, in the cinema and in the amusement park, they make their love story. At the end of the date, Lilia feels agitated because of purity and honesty of her partner, Roman.
After first date, Lilia finds that her partner, Roman, is a policeman, but she cannot deny that she is falling in love with him. The game cannot be stopped suddenly, they continue to date in an odd situation. When the time to ask for marriage , Lilia hesitates. She is in state of confusion between her job and her love. She ends up accepting and considering Roman as her destiny.
On the place of wedding between Eric and Mira, appears Irene who is decided to say that she loves him. She ends up confessing her love towards him but Eric catches it as a joke and the wedding goes on. While the wedding ceremony continues, all of a sudden, Mira has a stomachache, and with the rescue team who comes to save her, she disappears.
However, the couple Roman and Lilia are on their honey moon. They are unaware of what they are doing. It was a game but does not become the game any longer. Lilia considers this as true love. At the hotel, Roman is hesitating what to do at the bathroom, Lilia’s colleagues make a visit to her to say that the sweeping will start soon. They run away. However, Roman is pursuing them and arrests all, including Lilia.
Eric appears after a week of absence, and Mira also appears and reveals her identity. The money Eric deposited, will be returned with some extra compensation. Irene takes this situation to tell her love. Roman, coming back to the computer shop to say goodbye, but seeing the love scene between Irene and Eric, has time to contemplate about what had happened. Was the game with Lilia true love?
Jail. Lilia is called to be seen by a visitor. Roman appears. Roman feels sorry to her but she was thankful for him because she can be free to love Roman.
5. They are still running
(Male-3, Female-3, 100mns)
A group of students who are majoring in theatre and who are in the process of making a musical play by collective creation. They try to make scenes but it is not so easy. They try and try again until they reach a satisfied goal. What they are doing together is not only rehearsal but also many other things. According to what each has to do, they do dance, write, act, direct, design and also promote and manage. Sometimes they fight with each other, eat and drink together, congratulate and travel together as well.
One day, they left for a short trip of 2 days to a close island to clear the air. This short break can lead to a breakthrough, since their minds were blocked. They play games, drink and talk about the theatre. While all the students are talking to each other, James and Mary who love each other spend time separately from others near a small lake where, finally, Mary will be accidentally drowned.
After the students come back to school, they produce a performance which is constructed on the basis of their own stories including Mary’s death. Even though the performance was successful, they are not so happy, because the performance reminds them the death of Mary, especially James doesn't stop crying feeling strongly guilty for her death.
In the next semester also, they have to produce a musical play but it doesn’t go well again, so that they again talk to leave for a trip to the same place from last semester. However this place awakens the trauma of James who will definitely quit the school leaving a message to meet again in 10 years at the island. He couldn't endure the guilty feeling for Mary.
10 years pass. The student director directs the theatre in his field but he is not so satisfied with the actors. He tries to make some corrections on their acting, but, eventually they fight with each other. After that, he leaves to see his friends because this is the day of 10th year. Only the writer and the manager showed up at the promised place. The rest of students couldn’t come because of acting commitment. They look back on the past and miss that precious moment.
Having spent some time, when they are about to leave the place, they encounter the actor against whom the director fights today. It is very exceptional because the place is a famous tourist attraction and it is not usual to meet him there at that moment. However the actor says that he used to come here to have time for self-reflection, but when he became famous, he stopped coming here and became an arrogant person. Nobody around him says disagreeable words to him. However today, the director made him recognize his shortcoming and he thanks the director.
They vow all together to come here to have time for self-reflection from time to time.
(In <Two musical scripts with their music scores 2>, 12/30/2015, Seoul, Somyung)
6. Star
(Male-3, Female-3, Chorus, 120mns)
The basis of the story (explained and seen in the show)
1. Humans will be judged in front of King of Hell when they die.
2. They will, either be tortured on the hellfire, or be the star on the sky.
3. The star, dead person, can come back to his life if he reaches a certain degree of bright as if nothing happened.
4. The star who couldn’t achieve to go back, will bright until being forgotten from everybody, and then s/he will be born again having a new life, Samsara in Buddhism.
5. The star can temporary go back to life, maybe to say the things…
The specificities of this show
1. It might be spectacular with the scenes of Hell, Night sky, Light show, Shooting Star…
2. It might be a bit experimental with Speaking at the same time, Sound and image…
3. It might be universal with God and Samsara in Buddhism.
4. It might be touching with the sacrifice and love of the father.
5. It might be solemn with its music.
The outline of the story
James, who had promotion after long time of struggling, dies due to a car accident on the way home. Became star on the sky, he looks down his family, and he goes back temporary to his family to explain how much he was ready to be happy, but nobody believes his explanation. Being disappointed, he blames god, but prays again to let him go back.
Mary, his wife asks him to get rid of all traces James left, at least until everything is in order, because they make her sad. So he wants to go back again. But if he goes back for the 2nd time, he cannot come back to the sky but will disappear as a shooting star, and finally his eternal life as form of Samsara will peril definitely.
James goes back finally, even though his eternal life will totally disappear, not to get rid of his traces but to leave bunch of happy memories with which his family can immerge in happiness even it cannot stop them being sorrow, and James explodes as a shooting star.
Summary
Songs – 40 songs
Running time – about 2 hours without intermission
Cast – 7 + ensemble
** The music is not yet ready
(In <Two musical scripts and two plays>, 12/30/2015, Seoul, Somyung)
7. Today
(Male-1, Female-1, Chorus, 100mns)
Many people get losing their face expression these days because of their life piled up with every day’s life attacked by bunch of unpleasant matters from time to time. Mary is one of them. She started her work with hope to be the youngest president of her company like many who have similar goal, but the life is not so easy and she became bored because of the almost same work repeated every day. Forgetting her goal of life, she lives as it is.
One morning, on the way to work, she encountered an old woman who had felt down and helped her stand up. Recognizing her expressionless face, the old woman promises her to get her smile back. However, the day doesn’t start well, because her boss was angry with her because of her performances, and she has to get out of the office to check the market situation, which was given to her by her boss threatening that she will fire her if she doesn’t do her work well.
When she returns to the street, the old woman appears again and gives her lottery which makes her win 10 million. She becomes rich all of a sudden and thinks of what to do with money. At that moment James whom she loves secretly from long time ago appears. She asks him to become her lover, but will be rejected because he already has a girlfriend. Anyway she again invites him to have a cup of coffee and almost drags him there. In the café, she cannot stay calm because of her money she has won. She yells everybody that she’s crazy and leaves the café still dragging James.
They are again on the street, and Mary finally says that she won the lottery and asks James again to become her boyfriend. By the power of the money, maybe, he accepts the proposal and promises to leave a journey around the world after having bought a convertible BMW. In a sudden, Mary wants to go back to the office to say goodbye to her colleagues before their departure. However James doesn’t want go back with her, because his girlfriend is one of Mary’s colleagues. Anyway they go back to the office.
They arrive at the office saying loudly “hello” to everybody. She says that she will quite the job and go for a journey around the world with James. Everybody, including James’s girlfriend is surprised. She hands the letter of resignation in her boss and is about to leave the office. At that moment, the president of the company comes in hearing the loud noise from outside. The president asks what is so happy, and Mary, using this situation, says about everything that almost all the employees want; increasing the salary, assuring every holiday, forgiving being late or off and supporting everyone to go to the journey. With everyone’s surprise, the president gives up his position to give it to Mary. She becomes president of the company, telling James to go back to work.
Mary became president of the company. She is looking back on what happened today and realizes again this is not a dream. She decides to run the company well practicing what she wanted before. She decides to increase the wages, work 4 days a week, give money to trip, etc. However suddenly the financial manager and the union members appear who disagree to the Mary’s idea because it will threaten the future of the company. They start to introduce a manifestation against Mary, and Mary again gives her position of president to one of the union member and leaves the company.
Getting back into consciousness, Mary realizes that she was about to go to a journey with James. She calls him and is rejected by him. She wants to leave alone, but she has no passport no visa and has not made any arrangements to go anywhere. She doesn’t know what to do.
At that moment the old woman appears again and asks her why she doesn’t smile, and if the money can’t make her smile she will take it back. Astonished, Mary starts to contemplate what has taken her smile. And she finally realizes that it is because of repetitive and unchanging everyday life in which she lost the purpose of life that can keep life being awakened, stimulated and motivated.
We should be responsible of our face by maintaining us winner against the attack of our everyday boring life.
(In <Two musical scripts and two plays>, 12/30/2015, Seoul, Somyung)
8. Sakedai
(The five reasons of being broken up)
(M-1, F-6, 100mns)
This story is about the love, not the love itself but the reasons of relationship's break up and how can we prevent break ups.
Generally, there are 5 reasons for break ups; being unfaithful, no communication, being negative, controlling and being jealous and having a long distance relationship.
Being unfaithful is a challenge especially for the young who are not married, but it is still true for all the ages. Why does a person become unfaithful? There are many reasons…. Is it human’s nature to be like other animals?
The second case is the situation where one doesn’t express what s/he feels even though s/he is not satisfied saying always "I am OK." However in many cases, this person is not really OK. His or her true feelings are revealed by her facial expressions. To tell the truth, this person is not satisfied of nobody-knows reasons. In this situation, the partner cannot stay comfortable, so he or she wants to know the reason of the person’s grimace, but the person might repeat continuously “I am OK” and finally both parties get feel bad. This is one reason why couples separate.
The third case is saying unconditionally “no". Do you feel cold? No. Do you like summer? No. In many cases we are really accustomed to say “no”. Why? Maybe, it is a habit; people say “no” without any specific reason, or they are unconsciously reacting not being obeyed by the partner, or people consider it as a kind of mind game competition? Is a human being just simple animal where only the strongest survives?
The fourth case is the problem of controlling behavior. We are human beings and, it is said that God gave us free will. However, between lovers, there is no free will in many cases. One tries to control the other, or to make the other do what s/he wants. They get angry when the partner doesn’t do what one asks, or when one did without saying to the partner, etc.
The last case is a sad story. It is an example of “out of sight out of mind”. Happy together, but when a couple separates, the relationship between them will diminish gradually due to various problems, or even if there is no problem.
Each of girls who gather on the rooftop finishing their breaking up stories, the hostess who proposed this meeting appears. She helps to resolve their break ups. Nothing resolved, but just enumeration of the reasons and solutions. When the hostess tries to finish the meeting, all the women refuse it. And from now on, the real story will start in the dark because all the lights will be turned off to facilitate speaking anonymously. Finally, after many dialogues exchanged among all the people of theatre, the performance finishes with a little words of Confucian; always, treat love like a very important guest.
(In <Two musical scripts and two plays>, 12/30/2015, Seoul, Somyung)
9. Even though life cheats you
(Male-1, Female-4, 100mns)
A rehearsal room in an entertainment agency. Patricia is practicing lines from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, but she is not so gifted. A man, the trainer is irritated by her ignorance about the common sense as actor and drives her doing her best but in vain. He finally gives up training her and leaves the rehearsal room. She is completely frustrated and prepares to go home.
At that moment, a very skillful actress, Mary, appears and recites the same lines completely different. Touched by her ability, Patricia wants Mary to be her trainer. However Mary also finds that she is not so good at acting, and, during speaking with her, she recognizes that she has some pain from her neck when something related to her past is about to go out from her memory. Anyway, they especially talk about the result of 100 minus 1. Mary says that the result is not 99 but 0, because they, as actress, cannot act when they are not casted in the right road. But Patricia is not so convinced by Mary’s words.
While they talk about the result, a little bit reckless girl, Linda appears. She doesn’t mind anything around her because she is firmly decided to live happy. She already knows Mary for a long time and Mary tells her about some experiences that Linda and she have gone through together such as a story with a policeman Linda was falling in love from their first encounter. Surely, Linda is a kind of girl of no thought and she doesn’t contemplate much about her future.
Finally a girl with guitar on her back, Barbara comes in. She wants to be a singer and she is waiting for an interview with manager. The manager comes in and asks her to sing. Barbara sings pretty well. The manager asks her what she wants by her song, but she didn’t think that kind of thing so far, because she just likes to sing. The manager asks her to think of the philosophy of her artistic act, and goes out. At that moment, a ghost, the father of Barbara appears like an angel of music. He was satisfied with her song and encourages her and disappears. Stimulated by Barbara’s father’s appearance, Patricia also looks upon her father who was a poet. And in thinking of their past and fathers, they all grieve.
Suddenly, Barbara asks who Mary is, because everybody knows each other except Mary so far. However Mary doesn’t recognize who she is, and the further she tries to remember who she is, the greater the pain in her neck is. Finally she discovers that she was a bit famous actress and committed suicide in this rehearsal room because her reputation as actress was severely spoiled. That means she is a ghost. Discovering and terrified, everybody tries to avoid the situation but her fury explodes and pushes everyone in horror for a certain moment. After eruption of her anger, she vows that she will never leave the rehearsal room until her vengeance is realized and asks also others not to leave the place until the goal of their lives achieves. And finally, she added that everybody has to remember 100 subtract 1 is 0.
Having heard this statement, Linda abruptly refuses to obey her and tries to get into arguing saying that the result is not 0 but 99. And about the result, they, Mary, Patricia and Linda debate and finally, Patricia asks Barbara her idea. That is, not only Mary but two other girls are also ghosts. Scary, Barbara tries to go out but she is stopped and trapped by ghosts who ask the result of calculation. She answers that even though the result of an attempt is beyond expectation, we can always try to have a good result for the next time and she says that she will challenge the next time. Satisfied with the response, Patricia agrees with her and also says that she will take chance for the next time. However Linda imprints that she is dead, and says that nothing is valuable for them because they are dead.
Patricia regrets of being dead and wants to live again even just one day. Jealous for Barbara, Patricia tries to harm to her. Furious threatening of Patricia as a ghost, but thanks to the help of ghosts, Barbara can survive and can show her real ability to the real manager of the agency. She appreciates ghosts and pledges to do her best.
(In <Two musical scripts and two plays>, 12/30/2015, Seoul, Somyung)
And I have two others which are not usual plays but kind of engaging theatre which accentuates the problem of environment.
One is a real environmental theatre for children or for family. The characters are aquatic animals that live in a small stream. The stream is getting dirty by humans and the aquatic animals are captured by them as well. You can find some images of this performance below.
10. Who?
The other is a kind of protocol. It means this story can be a sample to produce any story including a musical band. There are songs, but almost all these songs don't have nothing to do with the story itself. These songs are supposed to the ones that each member of the musical band (main characters of the story) made. So any story which has musical band members as main characters can be created and the songs can be played existing independently from the story.
11. This story
(Male-4, Female-2, Chorus, 100mns)
There is a musical band composed of 5 members in a small town. They get together every day to rehearse music they write expecting one day to be a famous worldwide musical band. The town where they live is small and peaceful, and is a bit famous because of its beautiful scenery.
One day, James, the former guitarist of the band comes back. He has lived in this town until he became an adult. He left the town several years ago because his father who had a great success in business called him to help him in his company. After he left for work, they didn't keep in touch because James became too busy. Even the relationship with his girlfriend (the singer of the team) has ended because of out of mind, out of sight. Several years later, he suddenly came back. The reason he came back to the town is to develop it. To tell the truth, James became executive director in his father’s company and proposed to develop his hometown making the beautiful scenery nationwide a famous place. Having become the director of this project, he wants to build an eco-friendly golf-course in his hometown, which will bring wealth and reputation to the town.
People of the town get together to discuss if they will accept James’s proposition, because the town's people's assets are related to the development. There is a little bit of opposition about the compensation, but the majority agreed. The construction starts. Almost all of the villagers are hopeful that once the golf course is open, it will bring success to people and the village. The musical band continues its rehearsal expecting a little help from James, while James enjoys reunion with his ex-girlfriend, Mary, the singer of the team.
One day, during the rehearsal, Mary suddenly couldn’t sing well and even speak well. She is in a hurry to go to see doctor to be heard that this is very rare symptom, and the dust from the field of construction or the change of environment due to the construction might be the reason, but nothing is sure. There is no evidence that can prove the relationship between Mary’s losing voice and the construction. Mary will eventually lose her voice if she continues singing.
After this accident, the construction keeps going on and nobody says anything to stop construction because nobody knows the true reasons for losing her voice. The members of the band advise Mary to ask James for compensation, but she refuses saying money cannot return her voice.
James who started this construction in good face to bring wealth to his hometown, doesn’t know what to do. Is development always positive?