New Musical COMFORT WOMEN Opens Today

Comfort Women: A New Musical, directed by Dimo Hyun Jun Kim with musical direction by TekGoo Kang. Written by Dimo Hyun Jun Kim, Osker David Aguirre, and Joann Malory Mieses, with music by Bryan Michaels and TaeHo Park. The new musical will be staged at Theatre St. Clements 423 W. 46th Street, New York City starting July 31st for a limited two-week run, ending Sunday August 9th.

Comfort Women: A New Musical brings its audience to Seoul, Korea in 1941 during WWII, where we meet the young and beautiful Goeun, who is promised a "dream" job in a factory in Tokyo. Goeun soon realizes that this is not the opportunity she was promised, not at all. It's a nightmare with no ending in sight. She is transported to Indonesia, and forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army. We follow Goeun through this life-altering experience as she befriends fellow slaves (Comfort Women) and they plan their impossible escape.

Comfort Women: A New Musical is based on the real-life accounts of a few of the approximately 200,000 women who were trafficked into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army from 1930- 1945. Women and girls as young as 14 were coerced or kidnapped from their homes and forced to service 50 to 100 soldiers a day. As a result of this treatment, combined with unsafe practices, only 25- 30% of these women survived the war and those who did survive were forever changed. Comfort Women: A New Musical gives voice to a story that has been silenced far too long.

Writer/Director Dimo Hyn Jun Kim, originally from Seoul Korea, is delighted to be making his Off-Broadway debut with Comfort Women: A New Musical. Kim, a student at City College, conceived this production while taking a playwriting class at the school taught by Kathleen Potts. Later when the idea gained traction, many of his classmates and professors, including Potts, came onboard as team members to help bring the play to the stage.

Comfort Women: A New Musical by Dimo Hyun Jun Kim, Osker David Aguirre, and Joann Malory Mieses with music by Bryan Michaels and TaeHo Park. Directed by Dimo Hyun Jun Kim with musical direction by TekGoo Kang. Featuring Sandra W. Lee, Megan Lee Hodson, Garett Taketa, Daniel Kennedy, Roger Yeh, Edward Ikeguchi, Yeena Sung, Bomi Yim, Tricia Fukuhara, Jann Punwattana, Maggie Lalley, Tomoka Iwata, Paul

Marquez, Wilton Yeung, and Tenzin Yeshi.

For more info: www.comfortwomenmusical.com

Comfort Women: A New Musical will perform July 31 at 8pm, Aug 1 at 2pm and 8pm, Aug 2 at 3pm and 7pm, Aug 4 at 2pm and 7pm, Aug 5 at 2pm and 7pm, Aug 6 at 2pm and 7pm, Aug 7 at 2pm and 8pm, Aug 8 at 2pm and 8pm, and Aug 9 at 3pm and 7pm at Theatre at St. Clement's 423 W. 46th St

New York, NY 10036. Tickets: $39- $69 www.web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/34622 866-811-4111

Donations from the production will be sent to The House of Sharing (the official house of the surviving Comfort Women) http://www.nanum.org/eng/

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