Andrew Seok remembers the first time he saw the small monkey, who had been abandoned at birth, clutching an IKEA plush orangutan while the surrounding troop of monkeys scolded him mercilessly. “The first video I ever saw of Punch made me very emotional,” he recalls. “But as with most reels we see these days, it’s just one of a million. So I pretty much immediately forgot about it.”
But Punch kept showing up. As he saw more clips of the bullying, Seok admits that “it was too difficult for me to watch”. Yet something about the story stayed with him. Now that something has grown into PUNCH – A New Musical at Factory Theatre, presented in concert by Eclipse Theatre Company and Chaos & Light, written and directed by Seok, with musical direction by Scott Metcalfe and Derrick Chua serving as consulting producer.
Seok, the creator and director behind a string of acclaimed sold-out Toronto Fringe musical hits like Rosamund, Almost Ever After, The Man With the Golden Heart, ECHOES and Unravelled, has his own theories about why Punch’s story captured the world’s attention in the first place. But he’s less interested in pinning that down than in letting audiences find their own way in. “I know this piece will resonate with audiences in so many different ways,” he offers, pointing to themes of belonging, bullying, friendship, love, abandonment and self-worth—all “presented in a heartwarming story about a tiny monkey on the other side of the world.”
The musical follows Punch (played by Lara Roda), a monkey abandoned at birth and raised by humans, who is released at six months old into a troop of 60 monkeys. Caught between two worlds and unable to belong fully to either, he must find his place in a world that is both unfamiliar and unforgiving. Through a succession of loneliness, hope, rejection and love, Punch searches for where he belongs and the courage to believe he is worthy of it. Rounding out the killer ensemble cast are Broadway’s Chilina Kennedy, Belinda Corpuz, Haneul Yi, Cyrena Fiel, Alex Wierzbicki and Seok himself.
The questions PUNCH raises about identity and belonging are not new ones in Seok’s work, but they feel newly urgent to him. He recalls the speech he used to give before performances of The Man With the Golden Heart: “I feel, as I’m sure many of you feel, that the world has changed. Something has shifted.” That feeling has only intensified: “I still feel that today, and I think so many of us are searching for something, whether that be belonging, or identity, or fill-in-the-blank.”
Looking back on his oeuvre, Seok admits that PUNCH marks something of a departure. “It’s interesting to look back on my previous works and remember what was going on in my life, and what was going on in the world at that time,” he reflects. Where his earlier shows tended toward the epic, PUNCH is something gentler. “This is the first ‘family’ show I’ve written and it’s also one of the most beautiful,” he smiles. “Most of my shows have an epicness to them, but PUNCH is different. It’s sweet, poignant, and heartwarming.”
But fans should not worry: the tonal shift does not mean Seok has scaled back his ambitions. PUNCH has grown from Seok’s moment of unexpected emotional connection into a vehicle that he is confident will offer audiences that same connection back. And he promises the music and the experience will pack his customary, well … punch.
PUNCH – A New Musical is on stage until June 21, 2026, 7:30 pm at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst St., Toronto. For tickets, visit factorytheatre.ca.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
