#and he’s probably another musical theatre performer so not much precious publicity :///

[zhu-xingjie]

WHY IS HE NOT GETTING THE SAME AMOUNT OF HYPE WHEN HE SOUNDS THIS GOOD

[sungggyu]

“신흥무관학교” / “iron mask” / “barnum” fan accounts

just a little over a week ago, i returned home from yet another korea trip in this year alone - this time to watch not only sunggyu but also dongwoo and woohyun’s musicals! so now that i’m back, i’ll be sharing a fan account of their musicals as i’ve done before with other performances i’ve attended ´･ᴗ･`

for those who are interested, i’ll put up a plot summary for sunggyu and dongwoo’s musicals in the next few days in a separate post!

sunggyu: shinheung military academy

16th september 2018 1430

18th september 2018 1500

18th september 2018 2000

19th september 2018 2000

sunggyu’s musical was the very first musical i watched, not just in the course of this trip but also the very first in my entire life. in other words, i have never ever been to a musical before this!! being able to experience a musical for the very first time through watching one of sunggyu’s therefore felt like somewhat of an honor, in a way?

before talking about the musical though, i just want to add that i saw sunggyu’s family…….. on the very day of my first show……………. like, what are the odds!!!!!!!!!! i had only just taken a photo of my ticket with sunggyu’s character banner at the side and turned around to walk to the seats at the back when a really familiar lady walked past me. i was still trying to recall where i’d seen that face before when not even a moment later, a squirming yoonhoo (sunggyu’s nephew) came into view and that’s when it clicked in my head.. she was sunggyu’s sister (இ﹏இ`。) i was so shocked that according to my friend, i froze on the spot LOL. after a few moments though, i finally got myself together and we went to the seats at the side as we originally intended. we caught a few more glimpses of his family a bit later and honestly they were just like any other ordinary family with a baby haha. yoonhoo kept throwing an empty bottle on the ground when he played with his dad but when he played with his grandpa, he kept tugging at grandpa’s clothes! eventually, when we went into the theatre, sunggyu’s parents stayed outside watching the baby while his sister and brother-in-law entered the theatre. after the musical, when we were leaving and making our way to woohyun’s musical venue, we walked past sunggyu’s mother carrying yoonhoo again near the theatre’s lobby. it seemed like baby-sitting duty was over for her so she’ll be watching the evening show with her husband while sunggyu’s sister and brother-in-law took over the baby-sitting role ahaha. it was such an unexpected but pleasant encounter! （´·｀ ）♡

what was really funny though (sorry sunggyu), was that yoonhoo looked so happy the entire day yet as soon as he saw his uncle....

moving on to sunggyu’s musical “shinheung military academy”, it’s a state-produced musical to commerate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the korean army. with this in mind, i was a little wary that the musical may be full of state propaganda and therefore, potentially lacking/subpar compared to those produced by privately owned production companies. as it turns out, however, the musical went above and beyond my expectations. it was most definitely not subpar and it was not just average either! it was so good that it exceeded all of my expectations ;-; imo the plot of the musical was brought out even better due to the A-list actors they recruited (ji changwook, kang haneul)..? seeing those two actors live in action had been a really incredible experience as well. both ji changwook and kang haneul really surprised me with how well they sang and it was not until days later that i found out they both actually made their debut in the musical theater.. which explains…

sunggyu plays ji cheongcheon, a korean general who was trained in the japanese imperial military academy before defecting to guide and lead the guerilla forces behind the korean independence movement under japanese colonial rule. to be really honest, sunggyu doesn’t have a very huge role and doesn’t appear much in the musical. he may be listed as one of the “main” casts alongside ji changwook and kang haneul but personally, i feel that this is very much just an honorary title? what’s interesting to note is that sunggyu’s character is one of the few, if not the only, character that is based on a real life war hero. i think sunggyu mentioned that he felt really honoured and awed to be playing an actual war hero, and he was so intrigued he spent lots of time reading up on the man’s biography.

in the first part of the musical, sunggyu only appears very briefly to sing one verse in the first song and in one of the next few songs. probably due to the character he is playing, he runs a lot, which was honestly a pretty refreshing sight lol. every time he makes an appearance, he’s basically running onto stage before running off stage again after singing his lines. he has one solo song in the first part of the musical, complete with a long sword dance and i have to say it was so!! hot!!! especially in that military uniform of his? wow. at the end of the song, he runs off stage with a torchlight, down the left aisle in the audience seats before turning and making his exit from the right side of the theatre’s door. he appears more in the second part of the musical, complete with lots of fighting moves due to the thickening of the plot. he does roundhouse kicks and punches here and there, taking down all the enemies with ease depsite being surrounded and outnumbered by them. (i know this is just a fictional plot but just picture that.. super hot)

there are times when many of the cast members sing together for an ensemble piece and in times like this, i would say you can hear pretty distinctively that sunggyu takes the notes that are an octave higher than most other cast members ;-; i checked with a few of my friends who watched the musical as well and most of them thought that the high note sounded like him too! other giveaways include the extra quivering of his lip, the subtle movement of him opening his mouth wider the very same time the high note comes on.. and many more haha. but honestly i do think it sounds a lot like sunggyu too. my boy :’)

personally, as much as i enjoyed the musicals, the part i always looked forward to the most was the curtain call at the end of the musicals because that’s when actor!gyu goes away and natural!gyu comes back :-( when he makes his appearance, he climbs up this huge stage prop and stands at the top, beaming for a short moment before making his way down to stage center to take a bow, do a salute and greet the audiences. he does so in a very sunggyu-like manner (aka in all the glory of his natural cuteness), fists half hidden in his big coat, waving frantically and excitedly in every direction all with a really precious and genuine smile on his face ;-; after all the cast members have greeted the audiences and taken a final bow together, they returned to the center of the stage as the curtain draws. it was always during these short-lived moments that sunggyu does the most adorable actions!! on the first show and the last show i went to, he shot cute little fingerhearts to audiences in every direction (ಥ﹏ಥ) on the evening show on the 16th of september which i missed due to woohyun’s musical, he even did a little dance according to my friend who watched it (T⌓T)

i must add that it was also really heartwarming to witness sunggyu’s interactions with his new friends! in one song where kang haneul’s character dusts off sunggyu’s shoulders as part of the performance, i personally witnessed sunggyu wiggling his brows at kang haneul hahaha. during the curtain call in the final show i watched, sunggyu was doing thumbs up to all the actors around him and subsequently, ji changwook turned around and patted him on his cheeks.. he is just so loved wherever he goes ´·ᴗ·`♡

my friends who have watched sunggyu’s musicals have always told me how one could see that he genuinely enjoys doing musicals and now that i’ve finally seen it for myself, i can’t help but to agree, it seems like the stage is truly where he belongs ♡_♡

dongwoo: iron mask

19th september 2018 1600

dongwoo’s musical “iron mask” was set in paris, france in the 1600s and it was really interesting to say the least! i must admit that i spoiled myself beforehand by looking up the plot but then again if i hadn’t, i doubt i would’ve understood much of the musical considering how weak my korean language skills are :/

after watching dongwoo’s musical, i personally felt that his singing in there wasn’t his best ever yet, but i think this has more to do with how musicals demand much more than just simply singing a song. it requires (emotional) acting, which dongwoo portrayed REALLY well, and i would say his acting makes up for it a lot. that said, his singing was still pretty damn good even though it didn’t seem to be the best i’ve heard from him. it was a bit shakier in the first half of the musical but once intermission was over and we moved to the second half, it stabilised a lot more ♡ when curtain call rolled around, i realised dongwoo must’ve been really nervous earlier because many of the older cast members were all patting him on his head, his back, ruffling his hair and just babying him. from an outsider’s perspective, those seemed to be acts of encouragement, praise and comfort.. which was why i think dongwoo must’ve been nervous before.. not to mention the fact that it was his first ever show for this musical.

expanding on dongwoo’s performance in the musical, i must say that he was an amazing actor. he’s such a wasted talent (πーπ) dongwoo played double characters in this musical - his role was both the elder and younger twin born to the parisian royal family in the 1600s. basically, the elder twin, louis, was the king whereas the younger twin, philip, who had been kept away from the public eye ever since he was young, was as good as a prisoner to the extent he’s unfamiliar with all the royal ettiquete that his elder brother has long been acquainted with. simply put, louis was a huge ass of a person and a king and philip, his complete opposite, was kind and gentle, albeit clumsy. the musical showcased dongwoo’s ability as an actor due to the huge contrast in the characters of both brothers he was portraying. dongwoo could leave the stage laughing his head off as a deranged (and somewhat psychopathic) louis after he had some man killed just so he could have their lover all to himself as his queen but within a minute, when the scene changes, he’ll be back on stage as weak and clumsy philip, who apologises to everyone for the slightest things he couldn’t have had control over anyway. dongwoo did such a great job in portraying each twin so cleanly without any overlap or confusion which is why i say he acted so well ;-; with enlistment coming round the corner for dongwoo, i doubt that he’ll have time to be doing anymore musicals, especially if we consider how there had been mentions of his solo as well. but if there’s a chance in the post-enlistment future, however, i’ll definitely be looking forward to his potential projects!

woohyun: barnum - the greatest showman

16th september 2018 1830

truthfully, i remembered the least from woohyun’s musical because i was feeling a little under the weather on the day i went to see his musical :-( that and the fact that it’s one of the earlier shows i watched compared to the other dongwoo and sunggyu shows.. but from the bit i do remember, he sang (really well, obviously) in a lot of lower range notes which was kinda refreshing considering how he’s usually in charge of a lot of high notes in infinite songs! if my ears didn’t fail me, the usual reminder to audiences to turn off their phones and that recordings of any form were prohibited was announced through a voice recording made by woohyun? hahaha. as soon as that ended, he appeared on stage right away and started the first song.

i would like to make a note that there was so much bromance going on between woohyun’s character (amos scudder) and the lead actor who played p.t. barnum and it was so adorable. the lead actor was easily taller than woohyun since woohyun is not the biggest man so during the many scenes where barnum grabs and hugs amos in joy, the lead actor literally lifted tiny woohyun off his feet in a tight hug and it was soooooo cute (ಥ﹏ಥ) there was another scene where the lead actor (i’ll just call him barnum from now) and woohyun ventured into the audience seats on the ground floor as part of the scene where they were pooling funds. at one point, after collecting enough “funds” (which were really just fan letters in envelopes), barnum said “i’ll give you amos” and then pushed woohyun into the crowd. the screams!! were so loud!!! woohyun was man-handled easily and i don’t know how else to say it but it was just so cute ugh. woohyun is smol, we get it, no need for the constant reminder (⋟﹏⋞) these aside, there were also the scenes of barnum and woohyun almost kissing (on the lips lol) and barnum slapping woohyun’s butt so yeah that’s about it for their bromance.

miscellanous notes from the musical:

there was this part at the start where barnum said amos was good-looking so woohyun made a flower pose

woohyun did a cartwheel

woohyun’s character got angry a lot and shouted so much it was lowkey 🔥

woohyun danced to ‘tell me’

after the show, we went to catch woohyun at his post-show greeting with fans at the lobby of the venue. it took some time before he appeared but when he finally showed up, he talked for quite some time and it was so sweet even though i understood close to nothing. other than the fact that inspirits are 너만이’s mom(s) from now on ;-) when he left the venue, fans lined the pedestrian walkway to send him off in the driveway and at one point he was so close to me i was so !!!#$%%#^@!$@! HE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL.. that perfect face barely 2 metres away from me.. i had an internal breakdown seeing this beautiful man that up-close..

there was some talk going on later that night on twitter about a fan who allegedly grabbed his hand from the open car window and kissed it but personally i doubt it happened. after looking at the photos i realised said fan was actually the one right next to me and in the fancam i managed to film, there was no kissing going on. it was probably the photo angle in the initial photo that spread. if there was anything awful about that send-off, however, it was all those fans who ran after his car when it drove out of the driveway just because it stopped at a traffic light outside. that was really something.. which i hope will never happen again in the future :-/

all in all, this had been a really great trip! even though i got to see sunggyu’s solo concerts in the previous trip (featuring these two as well), this trip just felt so much better overall in that i was able to see each of my faves performing on a different kind of stage. oh, and did i mention our chance encounter with hoya at his brother’s restaurant too? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) as i’ve said, this trip was truly 10/10.