_Lee Eung-gyu, CEO, EG Musical Company

Musical Pitching—You & It, Love as a Second Language
Musical Showcase—Memory

Back in my furthest memories of my childhood days, I remember that every autumn, my father would harvest apples from our orchard and sell them at a fruit and vegetable market in a nearby city. He would leave home the night before the morning market, driving his truck from Gimcheon to Daejeon. Sometimes he took me along, making all kinds of excuses to my mother that I was his doppelganger and lucky charm.
Fast forward to 2021. Donning a suit and polished shoes, but carrying the same excitement that my father experienced on his way to sell apples, I am about to enter a new kind of market: the inaugural K-Musical Market. Filled with both fear and excitement, this is an account of the first steps we took together.

Beyond the Limits to a New Market
I have been involved in many musicals as a creator, but pioneering a market channel requires a different set of skills than those needed to create a musical. When I founded EG Musical Company as CEO and producer, I naively thought that the industry would automatically recognize a good piece of work. In just five years, my company came to possess the intellectual property rights of 13 works, but the reality of the market remained harsh. I had jumped into the world of producers without any prior knowledge, and had to learn through trial and error before finally reaping any rewards.
Our long-awaited recognition came when You & It (written by Oh Seo-eun and composed by Lee Eung-gyu) received the Creative Musical Award at the Daegu International Musical Festival(DIMF), which has been introducing diverse musical productions since its establishment. Despite receiving the award, it was not easy to continue promoting our musical or find ways to reopen it. It was at this point that I realized that if I did not take the initiative, the musical would simply disappear with the superficial tag of the award attached to it. To test my own limits, I reopened the show at Dream Art Center in Seoul in July 2020. The production ran for its initially planned 10 weeks despite the COVID-19 crisis, but ended on a disappointing note as it failed to break even, limited by self-financing and insufficient market research. At this time, while learning the hard way that a stable production and distribution environment is just as important as the quality of a show, I heard about the K-Musical Market.

An Opportunity Beyond a Dream
The K-Musical Market, which took place from November 24 to 26, 2021, at the Seoul Arts Center, was a new platform launched by the Korea Arts Management Service(KAMS) to encourage domestic and foreign investment in musicals and create a stable production and distribution environment. It showcased not only complete original productions, but also works-in-progress, to musical producers and investors.
Since I was desperate to take my company’s musical IPs overseas, bring in foreign investment, and create a stable production environment, I seized the opportunity to attend the market and showcase the works I had cultivated over the years. You & It, which won the Creative Musical Award at the 13th DIMF, was selected for the market’s Musical Pitching—Completed Works program; Love as a Second Language, which I created as a graduation project when I was a student at the NYU Tisch School of Arts, was selected for the Musical Pitching—Works-in-Progress program; and Memory, funded by the 11th DIMF, was selected for the Musical Showcase—Stage Reading program. Hectic days followed as my team prepared to present all three productions, but as a result, we were able to enjoy the various benefits of the K-Musical Market more than anyone else.

Musical Pitching: From Evaluating Marketability to Winning Grand Prizes
The Musical Pitching program was designed to present both completed works and works-in-progress to the market and create production and investment opportunities. It was a competition judged by musical experts and investors who evaluated the pitches in detail and selected the best works to receive monetary awards.
From the moment You & It and Love as a Second Language entered the program to the start of the competition, I received diverse on- and offline education and mentoring from KAMS. It was a chance to learn the general theory of theatrical planning and distribution, including tax accounting and personnel management, and understand the essential responsibilities of a musical theater producer—all of which were relatively new subjects to someone who had majored in musical theater writing. I was particularly inspired by the three mentoring sessions with investors I attended. The investors helped me break away from my narrow-minded focus on the quality of a production and instead reevaluate why my productions must gain investment, what their merits are, and what content current audiences are looking for. It was an invaluable opportunity to understand investors’ perspectives and the general investment process, as well as to think not only as a producer, but as an audience member, too.
My pitch for the work-in-progress Love as a Second Language drew positive responses from the judges, primarily for its relatable emotional aspects, the quality of the music, and the clear-cut directing and storytelling. It received first prize in the work-in-progress category.

Love as a Second Language received first prize in the work-in-progress category(ⓒKAMS)

Musical Showcase: Meeting International Investors After the Stage Reading
The Musical Showcase program, consisting of stage readings and performances of selected scenes, aimed to find production and investment opportunities for musicals. Our company presented the musical Memory, which had been chosen to receive the support of the 11th DIMF. The musical started to take shape 10 years ago and went through five stage readings, but after failing to make it onstage at the 11th DIMF, it was finally presented at the 12th DIMF. Unfortunately, it did not win an award at that time, and was locked away in a drawer, where it remained like a painful Memory. For the Musical Showcase, we had to condense the long musical into 80 minutes, but our talented staff, actors, and musicians all worked together to rewrite the show successfully. Our efforts paid off after the stage reading, when we received positive reviews from the audience and investors.
The biggest advantage of this showcase was that, unlike the Musical Pitching competition, creators presented their performances directly to producers and investors and received immediate feedback. Our stage reading was followed by open discussions in the lobby where our team received positive feedback from international experts working on Broadway and the West End. Conversations continued even after the event—practical, insightful talks that inspired us to dream of a Korean musical that would go global one day. The stage reading was a significant step forward as well as an invaluable way to rebuild the foundation of a musical that had been locked away, allowing it to see the light of day again and find a new direction.

Musical Showcase—Memory (ⓒKAMS)

Dreaming a New Dream…
From the application process in June to the actual event in November, the K-Musical Market was filled with excitement, fear, anticipation, and exaltation. Presenting three musicals in three days, I felt like a farmer who was finally receiving recognition for the fruit of his 15 years of labor. While preparing for the event, I was constantly hit by memories of my father, catching a moment of sleep in a small motel room the night before the fruit and vegetable market. I remembered the long hours of farming, the time spent polishing the apples with a soft towel, and the steps full of anticipation on the way to the market—steps that sometimes returned heavy with disappointment when we hadn’t been able to sell them at the prices we expected. But my father was proud that our apples were the best in the country and that they would one day be able to be sold at price they deserved. I still remember his three principles.
“First, if there is even a slight dent in marketability, it won’t fetch a dime. Second, more than its polished shine, it must be sweet when bitten. Third, do not entrust a seller with everything without understanding the market.”
Like a novice farmer, I kept my father’s words in mind while participating in the market, and with the dedication of someone starting anew, I reaped various rewards. By presenting content that we had created with such care, I was able to look back on the path that EG Musical Company had walked, check where we currently stood, and receive guidance about the journey ahead of us.

Networking - 1:1 Business Meeting(ⓒKAMS)

The biggest merit of this event was that it naturally opened doors to a marketplace where big names in musical theater from Korea and overseas could exchange business cards and engage in conversation. In addition to the Musical Pitching and Musical Showcase programs, the event hosted seminars by Korean and international theater experts and investors, plus mentoring sessions and business meetings, which all led to invaluable networking opportunities. Even better, many people at the event held Korean musicals in high regard and expressed their wishes to review them via email. This was an opportunity not to be missed.
Even if the outcome falls short of my expectations, I will hold all my experiences dear to my heart, like a farmer dedicated to reaping one firm apple. I will continue to knock on the door of the international musical market, and I won’t give up on my dream of making a global musical. The K-Musical Market has just taken its first steps, and I hope that it will plant itself firmly in the Korean musical market and continue to support producers like myself who all dream the same dream.