[News Culture] Before Hamlet sees a ghost, Richard II confronts his reflection or Romeo climbs toward Juliet’s balcony, The First Edition imagines William Shakespeare searching for the people, ideas and conflicts that might eventually lead him to those scenes.
The new Korean musical will receive a full-length reading on Nov. 23 at Seongsu Art Hall in Seoul. Selected for the 2026 support program for large-scale musical readings, the project is being developed with a future main-stage production in mind and follows an internal showcase held in September.
Set against the political fallout surrounding the 1601 Essex Rebellion, the musical follows an aspiring playwright named William and Francis Bacon, the lawyer and philosopher whose intellect and political instincts draw him into William’s creative life. Their collaboration moves through friendship, rivalry, compromise and betrayal as theater becomes increasingly entangled with power.
William arrives in London from the countryside with ambitions of writing for the stage but initially survives by attracting customers outside a theater. His fortunes begin to change when he encounters Bacon, who needs a play about the overthrow of a ruler, and Nell, who wants a love story in which everyone dies.
Those encounters become the musical’s route into Shakespeare’s canon.
Rather than presenting Hamlet, Richard II and Romeo and Juliet as finished classics, The First Edition breaks familiar images from those works apart and places them inside William’s developing imagination. The ghost from Hamlet, the mirror from Richard II and the balcony from Romeo and Juliet emerge as scenes within scenes, shaped by conversations, political events and people around him.
The play-within-a-play structure allows the musical to treat Shakespeare’s work as something still being assembled. Audiences encounter recognizable material, but in a different dramatic context: not as quotations from established masterpieces, but as fragments that appear while a young writer is learning what kind of stories he wants to tell.
The Essex Rebellion raises the stakes around that process. When a theatrical work created by William and those around him becomes implicated in political unrest, writing is no longer separated from consequence. A man who has approached theater primarily through ambition and invention is forced to consider what responsibility belongs to the person who puts words onstage.
Hee-jun Lee writes the book and lyrics. His original musical credits include Shinheung Military Academy, The Origin of Evil: Darwin Young and Pirates, while his adaptation work includes A Tale of Two Cities, Death Note and Daddy Long Legs. For The First Edition, Lee uses the historical figures of Shakespeare and Bacon as the basis for an original relationship rather than attempting a biographical reconstruction.
Won-ki Jung composes the score. Having worked as composer and music director on Korean original musicals including Eolssu, Seongjong: The King’s Song, Wolmyeong and Goheon, 1921, Jung is developing a musical language intended to move beyond a conventional period-piece sound while retaining the scale required for a large theater.
Tae-young Jung directs. His credits include Baekbeom, Nijinsky and The Moon Embracing the Sun, and the reading will provide the first public look at how the creative team is organizing its 17th-century setting, political narrative and play-within-a-play structure before a full production.
Min-woo Choi will read William, with Hoon-jung Ko as Bacon. Ji-hye Choi plays Nell, while Ryun-hee Hong takes on Queen Elizabeth. Hee-chan Noh appears as the Earl of Essex and Woo-sung Kim as Southampton.
Chae-eun Kim, Haeoreum, Ji-eun Lim, Jun-ki Kim, Eun-chong Choi, Seung-soo Ok, Yoon-jae Choi and Eun-jung Kwon complete the 14-member company, moving among actors, rebels, nobles and Londoners as the musical expands the world around its central figures.
The reading is more than an excerpted presentation. By performing the musical in full, the development process can test how William and Bacon’s relationship carries the larger narrative, how the Shakespearean references function for audiences who already know the plays, and whether the political story and theatrical invention remain legible across the entire piece.
The First Edition will be presented at 7 p.m. on Nov. 23 at Seongsu Art Hall in Seoul. Shownote produces the musical, with support from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Performing Arts Management Association.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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