KB News Desk
South Korean actors Jeon Do-yeon and Park Hae-soo will wrap up their international tour of “The Cherry Orchard” with a New York run this month.
Produced by LG Arts Center Seoul and helmed by acclaimed Australian director Simon Stone, the production will make its North American premiere at the Park Avenue Armory from Sept. 16 to 26, LG Arts Center Seoul said Tuesday.
The production premiered in Seoul in June 2024 and has since toured Busan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Adelaide, Australia. The New York engagement will mark the end of a two-year, three-month international tour.
The production was invited as part of the Park Avenue Armory’s 2026 season and will have 11 performances, marking the first time a Korean production has been presented at the venue.
The Park Avenue Armory describes the production as “an intimate, bittersweet portrait that is deeply South Korean and yet universally moving,” calling it a must-see reinterpretation that offers “a timely reflection on loss, change and social transformation.”
Stone’s adaptation relocates Anton Chekhov’s classic play from Russia to a rapidly transforming modern-day Seoul, where the original noble siblings are now corporate heirs struggling to adapt to a world that has moved on without them, squeezed by a rising middle class and wealthy self-made entrepreneurs.
Caught between the past and the present, hope and despair, and tradition and innovation, the family is forced to grapple with the inevitable forces of change.
The production is performed in Korean, with English subtitles.
Jeon and Park lead a cast of 10 South Korean actors, including Son Sang-kyu and Choi Hee-seo.
“A production that began in Seoul is now being presented in New York, one of the world’s major performing arts centers. That is deeply meaningful,” Lee Hyun-jung, head of LG Arts Center Seoul, said. “We hope this will be an opportunity to showcase the potential and competitiveness of Korean theater.”
