IT’S F8

‘KPOP’ on Broadway Announces Closing Date After NYT Review Fiasco

The musical, which will have played just 44 previews and 17 regular performances, is closing after a series of rocky reviews, including one producers deemed “racist.”

KPOP, the bombastic musical celebrating Korean culture, made history when it opened on Broadway on Nov. 27, less than a fortnight ago. On Tuesday night, it was announced that it would be joining a markedly different historic pantheon—that of the shortest-running shows to ever play the Great White Way. KPOP will play its final Broadway performance on Dec. 11, bringing the show’s run to an end with just 17 regular shows, along with 44 previews. The musical’s rocky transition to Broadway after a critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run was noted in an array of decidedly mixed reviews, including one—a New York Times write-up by critic Jesse Green—that was denounced as “casually racist” by the show’s producers. Accusing Green of playing into “harmful stereotypes and the historic infantilization of Asian people in media” in an open letter published Friday, producers Tim Forbes and Joey Parnes demanded an apology from the Times. Three days later, a spokesperson for the newspaper told The Daily Beast that Times leadership had a group of “editors and members of our standards department” had determined that Green’s review was fair and unprejudiced.