‘Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet' becomes Seattle musical

Music and mochi make a powerful combo.

More than 10 years ago - when bookwriter Lainie Sakakura and composer/lyricist Paul Fujimoto first began adapting Jamie Ford's bestselling 2009 novel "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" into a musical - a song about mochi not only kick-started their collaboration; it helped convince Ford that his beloved book should take on this new form.

"I was a little skeptical," Ford said of the cold call he got from the writing team, along with a couple of sample songs. "Not of Paul and Lainie's intentions, but just that they would get the book, you know? But they sent me demo songs they'd recorded with some Broadway kids, and I ugly cried all over my keyboard; it was so good."

Now, this team is bringing the musical to Seattle, a hometown shared by Ford, Fujimoto and the foundational text itself. This sneak peek of the musical's first act, performed May 23 and 24 at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, seeks to connect this show with its deep Seattle roots, and in the process, perhaps subvert the commercial theater model in favor of a communal theater model.

Made to be a musical

To give credit where credit's due, it was Fujimoto's mom, Nancy, who first introduced him to the novel and suggested it would make a good musical. Fujimoto, a composer and musician who grew up on Beacon Hill and now lives in New York (and, full disclosure, was a classmate of mine at Franklin High School), didn't listen to her right away.

But when he finally did read the book, he knew his mom was right - as did Sakakura, when Fujimoto eventually tossed the idea her way. The two theater artists connected at an event for the Japanese American Association of New York. Broadway veteran Sakakura was emceeing, and she went looking for a Japanese pianist.

"I wrote a little song about mochi," said Fujimoto, which went over well, but it was the backstage chitchat where he mentioned "Hotel" to Sakakura that struck a real chord.

"I read it right away, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is a musical,'" Sakakura said, sitting with Fujimoto in Seattle's historic Panama Hotel, a pivotal location for the novel and musical. "It's basically ‘Romeo and Juliet' set in Seattle."

"First of all, you have this beautiful, romantic coming-of-age story," she continued. "Then a multigenerational story, and then Henry's best friend, Sheldon, is a Black jazz musician, which naturally puts music at the heart of this story."

"Hotel" takes place in Seattle's Chinatown International District during World War II and focuses on two teens, Chinese American Henry and Japanese American Keiko, who become enamored of each other just before Keiko's family is incarcerated at Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. A second story thread, 40-some years later in 1986, follows the now-widowed Henry and his son, Marty.

"It's about fathers and sons, it's about long-lost love, it's a family story," Fujimoto said. "It's dealing with a very serious time in America, but it's fun and lighthearted - it's a romantic comedy."

That descriptor probably would have surprised Ford himself, who said he was both startled and delighted to hear how much laughter both this musical version and a 2012 stage adaptation at Book-It Repertory Theatre have elicited from audiences.

That's a marvelous part of adaptation. This "Hotel" isn't a replica squashed into a new format; it's a new piece of art that lives and breathes in new ways.

And this is a capital-B Broadway musical - not ironically a musical, or a musical that comments on itself - but a big, brassy, good old-fashioned musical, complete with a ballet sequence a la Rodgers and Hammerstein. (Unfortunately, that ballet happens in Act Two, so Seattle audiences won't see that in this upcoming semi-staged production.)

The 17-person cast will include a mix of local and national performers, including Broadway veteran Darius de Haas, who has played Sheldon in developmental productions and will continue with the role here. Rich Ceraulo Ko will play Henry, with Keita Kawahara as Young Henry and Isa Noriko Sanchez as Keiko, alongside local talents including Nathaniel Tenenbaum and Shaunyce Omar. Fujimoto, who grew up playing jazz trumpet as well as piano, will lead a six-piece band through a score that weaves elements of jazz with elements of both classic and contemporary musical theater.

Flipping the narrative

No matter the musical vocabulary, Ford said, what worked was that Fujimoto and Sakakura were writing songs from a place of deep connection. An early song in which Henry sings about feeling like an outsider in between two worlds captured a feeling that Ford related to and had tried to write into the novel.

As for that song about mochi, he said, "It's not something someone from outside of that community would think of as a meaningful, communal, generational experience. They hit the right emotional buttons for me from the start, and everything they've done since has made my heart happy."

Everything Fujimoto and Sakakura have done since has been a lot. As they engaged in the already-herculean task of writing a musical, the sausage factory of commercial theater kept churning. They raised money (so much money), negotiated contracts, workshopped the show and then workshopped it again. And they navigated the choppy waters of enthusiastic producers who wanted too much control over the finished product.

In her years in the theater business, as a dancer/choreographer and, most recently, as a co-producer of three Broadway shows, Sakakura has seen plenty of sausage get made.

But this project, she said, has given her the creative experience she's always dreamed of.

Not only did she get to collaborate with an Asian American composer and lyricist (which she never had the chance to do in her whole career), but now she and Fujimoto have spent a decade, on and off, in some magical creative spaces, telling a story that celebrates multiple Asian American communities and honors personal experiences with universal resonance.

"It comes from the heart, because it's based on events that affected our ancestors," said Fujimoto.

Which is why, this time, the writing team is coming to Seattle on its own terms, producing the performance themselves (with assistance from local producer Neen Williams-Teramachi) and connecting with Seattle organizations like the Nisei Veterans Committee to build grassroots support for the project. All profits from these two shows will be donated to Seattle's Nikkei community of Japanese emigrants and their descendants.

The hope is that by letting audiences show love early, they'll generate the organic, enthusiastic interest that attracts the right backing, rather than letting producers or producing companies guess at what we in the audience might like to see.

"I'm just asking our communities to flip the narrative a little bit," Sakakura said. "Let's ask for what we do want instead of complaining about what we don't want."

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 4:51 PM.