Staging Hallyu: K-Pop and K-Drama Reimagined in Asian American Theater

In the midst of a worldwide fascination with Hallyu, South Korea’s
cultural products, the popularity of K-pop and K-drama has soared to
unprecedented levels. In New York City, Korean American playwright
Jason Kim’s Off-Broadway musical KPOP (2017) brought K-pop music
and dance to the stage. In the Twin Cities, a Hmong American playwright
May Lee-Yang set her play, The Korean Drama Addict’s Guide to Losing
Your Virginity (2018), within her Hmong ethnic background, as a romantic
satire and homage to K-drama. While both plays function superbly as
theatrical entertainment, I argue that these works serve as critical
investigations into the methods of creating and disseminating K-pop and
K-drama. Both theater pieces bring up issues of racial, gender, sexual,
national, and ethnic identities as they reimagine Hallyu in North America
and assess its impact on Asian America.