Rent dispute rattles new musical

Chang You-jeong, left, director of the musical “The Days,” reacts with one of her actors after a Seoul court allowed her cast and crew to access the Daehangno Musical Center for rehearsal. / Yonhap

By Kwon Mee-yoo

The creators of "The Days’’ will be able to put on a show, but just barely. The highly anticipated musical is based on the songs of late folk rock singer Kim Kwang-seok, who continues to enjoy a posthumous career surge after his death in 1996, and features stars including Yu Jun-sang, Oh Man-seok and Ji Chang-wook.

However, the directors, actors and crew members of the show were locked out of the Daehangno Musical Center until just before their first performance on Thursday, in a dispute over rent.

The squabble serves as an indicator for Korea’s increasingly Darwinist theatrical scene, where money is drying up quickly for everyone except the big production companies importing big-budget works from Broadway and Europe.

The Daehangno Musical Center, which was completed in 2011, had been intended to be part of a cluster of such sites, but financial troubles are muddying its future.

Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine & Engineering Construction, which constructed the center, is feuding over 14 billion won ($12.5 million) underpaid in construction expenses by the building’s owner, Eniworks.

Daewoo was looking to exercise its legal rights and take control of the building but Eda Entertainment, creator of “The Days,” filed for a preliminary injunction against the move with the Seoul Central District Court.

The court ruled in favor of the show Tuesday, questioning why Daewoo didn’t raise any objections about the performance until late March when it had been aware of the show’s schedule since November of last year. This gave the actors and crew two days to rehearse on stage.

``This incident shows how culture is mistreated in our society. There were other tenants of the building including coffee shops and restaurants in operation, but the construction company did not exercise their rights on them,’’ Son Sang-won, CEO of Eda Entertainment, said.

The preliminary injunction only protects “The Days’” schedule and the status of ``Cleopatra,’’ another musical that had been scheduled for the theater in July, remains unclear.

Eniworks has also proved to be a hapless manager of the building.

A production member of the musical "Bachelor's Vegetable Store," which was staged at the theater last December, said the theater was poorly constructed and not even fully soundproofed.

"We had to refund some of our audience members for bad experiences and asked Eniworks to compensate the damages. The owner agreed to pay by March, but didn’t,’’ he said.