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Granny Poetry Club
오지게 재밌는 가시나들
Official English Title
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SOURCE
documentary
SETTING
Korea
BOOK
adaptation
Based on the 2019 documentary Granny Poetry Club
Korean Premiere
2025
Korean Premiere Theatre
Haneul Theater, National Theater of Korea, Seoul
Further Korean run reference:
https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%98%A4%EC%A7%80%EA%B2%8C%20%EC%9E%AC%EB%B0%8C%EB%8A%94%20%EA%B0%80%EC%8B%9C%EB%82%98%EB%93%A4
The Musical search cue — “오지게 재밌는 가시나들 뮤지컬”
Summary
Elderly women in a literacy class discover reading, writing, and poetry late in life, transforming long-silenced memories into humor, dignity, and shared expression.
Origin & Development
Granny Poetry Club (오지게 재밌는 가시나들) is adapted from the 2019 documentary film Granny Poetry Club (칠곡 가시나들) and the essay collection 오지게 재밌게 나이듦, which portray grandmothers in Chilgok learning Korean literacy and writing poetry in their eighties. The musical is developed through the Glocal Musical Live Season 7 program run by Live Corporation and is selected for Arts Council Korea’s “2024 Performing Arts Creation – This Year’s New Work,” securing national support as a notable new creation.
With book by Kim Hajin, music and music direction by Kim Hyesung, direction by Oh Kyungtaek, choreography by Shin Sunho, and producing and artistic oversight by Kang Byungwon and Kim Jaehwan, it premieres at the National Theater of Korea’s Haneul Theater in Seoul from February 11 to 27, 2025, produced by Live Corporation. 2025 – premiere (Live Corporation). From February 11 to 27, 2025, Granny Poetry Club had its world premiere at the National Theater of Korea’s Haneul Theater in Seoul as a selection of Arts Council Korea’s “2024 Performing Arts Creation – This Year’s New Work,” giving around 22 performances.
It attracted a wide audience that included many viewers in their 50s–70s alongside younger spectators, and was noted for its cross-generational appeal and musical settings of poems written by real literacy-school grandmothers. 2025 – regional tour (Live Corporation). After its Seoul debut, the production toured to Chilgok, where the original documentary was filmed, and to Changwon as part of a regional distribution program for performing arts administered by the Arts Management Support Center.
These performances reached local literacy schools and cultural centres through large group attendances and connected the stage version directly back to the communities that had inspired the original film. 2025 – cinema screening (Live Corporation / ARKO LIVE × CGV). A performance-capture film of Granny Poetry Club was screened at 13 CGV cinemas nationwide from July 23 to August 5, 2025, in collaboration with the ARKO LIVE initiative.
Recorded with fourteen cameras and edited partly from the onstage “documentary director” character’s point of view, the film achieved a 98 percent CGV egg rating and drew numerous group bookings from senior centres, welfare institutions, lifelong-learning facilities, and literacy schools.
Full Synopsis
Four women in their seventies and eighties attend a literacy school in Palbok Village, where their teacher Ga-eul encourages them to write poetry from their own lives. When one of their poems attracts public attention, radio producer Seok-gu is sent to film a documentary about them. The eldest student, Yeong-ran, initially refuses but agrees after learning that the documentary might save the school from losing its funding.
As the women learn to read and write, each confronts memories shaped by illiteracy. In-soon recalls being denied schooling while her brothers studied and remembers the young man who read Pushkin to her until she memorized the poem; he later became her husband. Chun-sim, who abandoned her dream of becoming a singer because she could not complete an application form, enters a village singing contest. Yeong-ran overcomes the humiliation of having concealed her illiteracy from her son and grandson, then writes a poem expressing love for her son and sorrow over her aging body.
Bun-han has long been ashamed of the name given to her after her grandfather resented the birth of a third granddaughter. Through writing, she finally claims the name as her own and composes a poem about her mother and identity.
Seok-gu gradually becomes attached to the women and secretly enters them in a national poetry-recitation contest. Wearing school uniforms, they take the stage and read poems about first love, lost family, motherhood, aging, and the lives they were never previously able to record in their own words.
On the final day of the literacy school, the women take the picnic they had always dreamed of. Knowing that their classes are ending, they search for hidden treasures, laugh together, and pose with Ga-eul and Seok-gu for a photograph they jokingly call their funeral portrait.
とっても楽しいお嬢さんたち
2025
2025-11-12
to
2025-11-12
Country:
Japan
City:
Tokyo
Production Type:
Reading / Showcase
Language:
Korean
Venue:
Hulic Hall Tokyo
One of five official works at the 2025 K-Musical Roadshow in Tokyo, organized by Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Arts Management Service, the musical was introduced through a roughly 20-minute digest performance and presentation. It appeared alongside segments from The Watermelon Seed, Three Winds and One Tree, The Dandelion Flute, and Narcissus and Goldmund – Knowledge and Love.
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