Kumiko Yoshii and Jack Lane
When The Karate Kid—Robert Mark Kamen’s semi-autobiographical film about a teenage boy who learns martial arts from an unexpected friend to defeat a high school bully—premiered in 1984, Kumiko Yoshii was an exchange student in Bozeman, Montana. Yoshii saw the movie in a theater with her host sister, who had spent the summer with Yoshii’s parents in Yokohama, Japan. “She knew a lot about Japan,” Yoshii remembers, “and I was the only Japanese student in Bozeman. The character of Mr. Miyagi spoke to me a great deal. I never thought that I would be working with the person who wrote the movie series.”
But she is. In early 2020, Yoshii, a producer and co-owner of New York–based Gorgeous Entertainment, Inc., was in the middle of a reading of Karate Kid, The Musical (book by Kamen) when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Work on the musical halted.
“The first couple of months or so, I personally was in a very dark place,” Yoshii says. “I didn't know what to expect, but then I called the creative team and said, ‘Let's keep developing it.’” It meant a lot of Zoom calls, with the director (Amon Miyamoto) in Tokyo, Kamen in Sonoma, choreographers (Keone and Mari Madrid) in San Diego, and Yoshii in New York City, but the musical was finally ready for a trial run before heading to Broadway. One problem: Because of delays caused by COVID-19, venues had to push débuts to 2023. Solution: Yoshii met Jack Lane, the executive producer of STAGES St. Louis.
STAGES’ new home, the The Ross Family Theatre at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, ticked all the technical boxes for Karate Kid, The Musical’s pre-Broadway début. But STAGES was able to offer something else, too.
“When I entered the theater and some of the community leaders were waiting for us, including Mayor Tim Griffin, they really welcomed us, along with Jack,” Yoshii says. “I just felt that I found our first home for the show.” Kamen is also excited for St. Louis: “The East Coast and West Coast, these people get all the stuff… to be able to bring [the musical] and see people come out with enthusiasm, as opposed to cynicism, that was truly exciting to me.”
But Lane is aiming for more after Karate Kid, The Musical makes its début on May 25, 2022: He wants to turn St. Louis into a tryout town. “The Broadway shows are always flying over St. Louis,” Lane says. “Yes, we have the Fox for the road companies, but [companies] go to Chicago or Boston or L.A. to try out shows. I'm talking about a show that comes here and literally sits down, like in residency, and is very much created here—it's not just coming in for a week or two. That's what's happening with Karate Kid.
“When this is done, I want New York to go, ‘Oh, yeah, St. Louis—that's the new tryout town.’ So this is not the one and only, so it becomes a tradition for St. Louis.”
The benefits of turning St. Louis into a pre-Broadway destination extend beyond the fact that we might soon get to see even more cool, experimental, and interesting theater in our city (it also means some St. Louisans could be cast in The Karate Kid). It could help drive the economy. Explore St. Louis and Lodging Hospitality Management, along with Edward Jones, have signed on as sponsors. Lane says that he has gotten thousands of calls from around the world, people inquiring how they can purchase tickets (which will go on sale early spring 2022). St. Louis hotels, restaurants, and other businesses will have to house and feed not just the creative team. The audience will also need a place to stay and a couple of meals out.
Although The Karate Kid is revered by multiple generations, the musical also represents an opportunity to present programming that appeals to a younger audience—and to one that doesn’t typically go to the theater. Every year, STAGES does a Theater for Young Audience production on the second stage—but it’s not the mainstage.
“If you go to most STAGES performances, unless you have a production that's skewing younger like Mamma Mia!” it is an older audience, Lane says. “How do we shift that paradigm? How do we move the needle when you hear that young people want to come to the theater but for some reason they're just resistant. I think so much of it has to do with programming.” Also prices. One thing STAGES will focus on is making some seats accessible—meaning affordable. “I know that there's young people who want to go,” Lane says. “In New York, it's almost always a diverse audience of all ages. But St. Louis...it's been a tough one to crack. I think Karate Kid is going to make a difference, but then we have to stick with that and remember that as we program other shows.”
Perhaps a diverse audience is even more important for a trial run. As Yoshii points out, St. Louisans will be offering input that will help further develop the musical. “We want to give a wonderful production to everyone in St. Louis,” she says, “but I think you can have a great time giving us feedback, and [we can] develop this together, in a sense. We're basically giving birth.”
