It won Best Drama Series at the 22nd Asian Television Awards, and received six nominations at the 53rd Baeksang Arts Awards where it won Popularity Awards for leads Park and Kim. It aired on KBS2 at 22:00 ( KST) every Monday and Tuesday for 18 episodes from August 22, 2016, until October 18, 2016.Ī domestic hit, Moonlight achieved a peak audience rating of 23.3% in South Korea and was praised for its production, performances and music. It is a coming-of-age story and youth romance set during 19th-century Joseon Dynasty based on the novel Moonlight Drawn by Clouds which was first serialized on Naver in 2013 and consequently published as a five-part series of books in 2015. Moonlight Drawn by Clouds) is a South Korean television series starring Park Bo-gum and Kim Yoo-jung with Jung Jinyoung, Chae Soo-bin and Kwak Dong-yeon.
Spoiler alert: You might be all shook up to see them move.Love in the Moonlight ( Korean: 구르미 그린 달빛 RR: Gureumi Geurin Dalbit lit. Jean-Yves Tessier’s lighting (on the production’s eye-catching rented sets) also brings a little magic, particularly in a scene involving several statues. Writer Joe DiPietro (a Tony Award-winner for the La Jolla Playhouse-bred “Memphis”) has fun with all the mixups, although at least Shakespeare leaned on the occasional potion to explain such whipsawed affections.Īmong several standout individual turns, Mixson belts a powerful “There’s Always Me,” and the appealing McDonough brings warmth and feeling to “Fools Fall in Love.” Nerdy Dennis (Jake Saenz) is in turn chasing Natalie, while Natalie’s own dad, Jim (Todd Nielsen) is smitten with Sandra. Meanwhile, Chad has eyes for the museum director Miss Sandra (an amusingly vampy Christine Hewitt), while Natalie (Katharine McDonough), the young mechanic with dreams of leaving town, is all about Chad. That gets complicated when her own son Dean (Nick Eiter) falls for the ebullient Lorraine (the one-named Yvonne, a vibrant actress and vocalist), who’s the daughter of the local shop owner Sylvia (Vonetta Mixson). The town where the show is set, though, is an especially tough case, being under the thumb of Mayor Matilda Hyde (a comically strident Tracy Lore), whose campaign against “indecency” has made a particular target of interracial dating. The fact that the (admirable) sincerity of the show’s social messages doesn’t always mesh with the sometime absurdity of its storytelling - that, and the fact “All Shook Up” feels a couple of numbers too long - constitute mild shortcomings.īut you have to admire Michael James Byrne’s funny and committed turn as the roving, leather-loving “roustabout” Chad, and the work of the cast Williams has assembled around him.Ĭhad is a kind of cross between Elvis and the Bard’s mischievous Puck, spreading magic via music around the heartland circa 1955. The zippy ensemble choreography (on songs from “Heartbreak Hotel” to “C’mon Everybody” to the title song) and musical director-conductor Lyndon Pugeda’s crisp, swinging 12-member band (which really gets cooking on “That’s All Right”) might be the best parts of the show. And if the show can feel pretty nakedly derivative at times, director-choreographer Charlie Williams’ production still lights up the stage with excellent dancing, strong singing, winning wit and all those classic Elvis tunes. Nothing wrong with that, of course: The Bard himself was a champion borrower. Where: Moonlight Amphitheatre, Brengle Terrace Park, 1200 Vale Terrace Drive, Vista