Super Junior member Lee Sungmin has just been casted as the lead role for the Japanese musical Summer Snow. The musical is based on a popular drama that aired in 2000 (starring Ryoko Hirosue, Domoto Tsuyoshi, and Shun Oguri) and was awarded Best Drama at The Japan Academy Awards. Sungmin will be playing the warm Jin Ha who must take care of his siblings after the accidental death of his parents.
In April, Summer Snow will begin its performances in Osaka then move to Tokyo.
Watch out Glee, the Kitchen Musical is on its way to international stardom! Originally introduced to the Singaporean audience, the television musical series which aired throughout Europe and Asia has been renewed for its second season. It will also be embarking on its first international musical tour in 2012 and is in the works for broadcast in the United States.
For those of you who are unaware of the blooming drama, The Kitchen Musical brings a Glee-like approach to story telling; enriched with song and dance with the kitchen as its stage. It contributes a unique insight into the elite culinary world of restaurant business and artistry through its Asian female character Maddie Avilon, a young and rich Le Cordon Bleu post graduate who struggles to find individuality in her father’s upscale restaurant. She and her friends play up to the expectations of young adult life capturing moments of fear, love, romance, confusion and etc.
Here are some of our favorite clips from the show:
Its Youtube fans are steadily growing and prominent TV producer Ben Silverman, popular for US adaptations The Office and Ugly Betty has become involved with its creative production as co-producer. It’s actually quite amazing.
What do you think about The Kitchen Musical? Do you like it better than Glee?
I was fortunate enough to snag tickets for the world premiere of Leave It on the Floor last Wednesday at the LA Film Festival at the Regal Cinemas L.A. Live 11.
For me, dance is the ultimate form of self-expression and escapism. I think it’s one of the few things in life that can release an individual from his corporal “whatever” and transcend him into something more than. While I was in Boston, I was able to attend a few jams where b-boys from the Greater Boston area, and even Rhode Island and New York, would come together to battle each other. And it was at these sessions where I realized that dance is one place where the color of someone’s skin, his sexual orientation, their religion or creed, her gender, the corporeal characteristics of our identities do not matter.
With three viral videos and appearances in commercials, roles on TV shows and Broadway, is George Takei the new Betty White?
Three recent videos that have gone viral stars everyone’s favorite Trekkie, the iconic George Takei.
Darren Criss’ fantastic introduction to Glee as the confident male prep school student who will eventually be Kurt’s love interest performing Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” had us squealing like teenage girls. Those silky vocal cords! That smirky stare!
We just found out Criss is Filipino! (His mother, from Cebu, is of Filipino and Spanish descent)
Criss recently landed the cover of Da Man’s February/March issue and had this to say about his Asian heritage: “Any person in the position I’m in I hope would know that having a distinct heritage like being Filipino is a tremendous blessing in a global market.”
Someone who can sing like that and is proud of his Asian heritage? Love it!
Also loving him in this and this:
Too cute. Darren Criss, you make us smile with glee. 
… And end gush session.
