Hamilton's Korean Premiere Opens in Busan Before Seoul This Winter

"Hamilton" will play Busan and Seoul this winter, marking the Tony-winning musical's Korean premiere and the opening stop of a newly announced world tour, the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts and producer S&Co confirmed to the Korea Herald.

The Busan run opens first, at Dream Theatre in Gangseo-gu, from Dec. 17, 2026 through Jan. 16, 2027. The Seoul run follows at the Sejong Center's Grand Theater, 175 Sejong-daero, Jongno-gu, from Jan. 21 through Mar. 20, 2027, an eight-week sit-down booking. Opening in Busan ahead of Seoul reverses the usual pattern for touring Broadway productions in Korea, which typically debut in the capital and move south afterward.

The show arrives in English, performed by the touring company rather than adapted into a Korean-language production. That puts it at odds with how Korea has staged most imported Broadway titles, including the Korean-cast versions of "Wicked" and "The Lion King," and tests how local audiences respond to Lin-Manuel Miranda's dense, rapid lyrics without translation.

The Korea Times reported on Oct. 13 that casting and ticket on-sale dates remained to be announced, even as some Korean-language listings already name Jason Arrow, who played the title role in the 2021 Australian premiere and the first international tour, as reprising the part in Korea. A listing on the ticketing platform Yanolja sets Nov. 11, 2026, at 2 p.m. KST as the on-sale time for Busan tickets. No Seoul on-sale date or ticket price has been published as of Oct. 30.

Since opening on Broadway in August 2015, "Hamilton" has collected a record 16 Tony nominations, winning 11 in 2016 including best musical, and its cast album became the first to reach diamond certification in the United States, for 10 million units sold. The production has already toured Manila, where it had its Asian premiere at the Theatre at Solaire in September 2023, followed by Abu Dhabi's Etihad Arena and Singapore's Sands Theatre. Lead producer Jeffrey Seller has pointed to strong box office in Manila, Singapore, London, Sydney and Hamburg as the reason for pushing the tour further into Asia, with a Hong Kong stop floated for 2027 but not yet confirmed.

Korea gives the tour a market of more than 12 million annual musical theater admissions, the country's largest performing arts audience by attendance, according to the Korea Economic Institute of America. Dream Theatre in Busan has hosted other large-scale touring productions recently, including an earlier stop by "Wicked," a sign that Busan is building a second major touring circuit alongside Seoul. Whether "Hamilton" draws the same repeat ticket-buying that has powered recent Broadway runs in Korea, where some fans return to a single production more than ten times, will become clear once the Busan box office opens on Nov. 11.