When Janek started writing, he soon became obsessed with the project even though he had never before composed a musical. His friends and colleagues called him crazy, much like the hero of our play. When no producer would touch this project, the craziness grew. Janek built his own theatre in Prague and produced it himself. He’d used his last dime, even sold his motorcycle, but somehow the craziness paid off.
Janek starred in the original Czech production as Hamlet. When he started to work on “World Wide Version” with Robert Johanson, they decided to push Hamlet to Tenor range. So Janek, as a baritone, enjoyed also part of King Claudius in Czech and Slovak productions during the last decade.
The most of the original Prague cast became a big stars after 2000. Josef Vojtek for instance, Laertes from the opening in 1999, sold with his band Kabat more than 70000 tickets for his Prague concert during their last tour.
Korean translation is special – did you know they have a three completely different words for “sister”? Younger sister, older sister and a sister of someone else. And – yes – the fourth word for a sister of somebody who is highly ranked in society. So mentioning Ophelia is quite tricky in Korean…