Odi Company CEO Shin Choon-soo: "'The Great Gatsby' Broadway Challenge... Aiming for 1 Trillion Won Corporate Value"

"We aim to create more than three original IPs (intellectual properties) and achieve a corporate value of 1 billion dollars (1 trillion won) as a performance company."

Shin Chunsu, CEO (producer) of Odi Company, stated his future aspirations at the vision and global new work presentation held on the 27th at Studio159 in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. He explained, "The domestic musical market size has surpassed 400 billion won, but it is still only about one-fifth the size of Broadway in the United States," adding, "Since there are limits to the domestic market, we must go global."

Shin Chunsu, CEO of Odi Company, is speaking at the Vision and Global New Release Presentation held on the 27th at Studio159 in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
[Photo by Odi Company]

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Regarding this, CEO Shin plans to produce the musical The Great Gatsby and enter Broadway in 2024. The production team was formed locally in the U.S. in March 2020, and after development workshops, the world premiere is scheduled for October next year at the Paper Mill Playhouse theater in New Jersey, USA.

CEO Shin is serving as the lead producer and has assembled a creative team including playwright Cake Kerrigan, lyricist Nathan Tysen, composer Jason Howland, and director Mark Bruni.

The musical The Great Gatsby, based on the novel published in 1925 by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, is set in the glamorous New York of the 1920s and critiques the illusion of the American Dream. Musically, it combines 1920s jazz with contemporary pop music, and visually, it aims to create a grand and dreamy atmosphere on a scale larger than domestic musicals.

CEO Shin said, "The Great Gatsby is a very famous novel in the U.S. I look forward to seeing how many people will talk about this work when we reveal their story as a musical."

Having previously experienced setbacks entering Broadway with Holler If Ya Hear Me in 2014 and Doctor Zhivago in 2015, CEO Shin said, "In the past, I was impatient to succeed and tried too hard to adapt to local direction, which caused me to miss the timing, but now I am confident of success," adding, "I am doing well and have high expectations when judging coldly."

Regarding success criteria, he said, "Artistically, it would be winning a Tony Award (the highest award in Broadway musicals), and commercially, it would be recovering the production costs within a year."

Recently, as the copyright for The Great Gatsby has expired, various parties are preparing productions, and currently, two The Great Gatsby performances are being prepared locally in the U.S. There is a possibility they might compete by entering Broadway simultaneously. CEO Shin explained, "The American capital counterpart is also powerful," adding, "Each side thinks they are doing well, so they are keeping an eye on each other."

[Photo by Odi Company]

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Besides The Great Gatsby, Odi Company is also producing the musical Il Tenore, set in 1930s Gyeongseong. It will depict the story of youth running toward their dreams in a tragic era through three characters: 'Lee Seon,' who dreams of Korea's first opera; 'Jin Yeon,' an independence activist; and 'Suhan,' who secretly loves Jin Yeon.

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