DCT GREEN ROOM 2009 -- WINTER SERIES
DCT Presents DISORIENTED by Kyoung Park
A Workshop Presentation
Directed by Carlos Armesto

Features Obie Award Winner Ching Valdes-Aran, Tom Ikeda,
Cindy Cheung (Sides, Lady in the Water), David Shih (Saving Face), Jeffrey Omura (Gossip Girl), Ariel Estrada (Honor) and Jon Norman Schneider (Durango)

Theater 54, Shetler Studios at 244 West 54th Street, 12th Floor
Saturday, February 14th @ 7PM; Sunday, February 15th @ 5PM

Kyoung Park

SPOTLIGHT ON KYOUNG PARK:

TRI-CULTURAL: Born into Korean Household ... Studied at an American School ... Grew Up in Chilean Society

by Martha Zamirski, Producer & Managing Director
Diverse City Theater Company

Please tell us about DISORIENTED.

When Ju Yeon's brother unexpectedly dies, she must leave her family in New York and take her brother's ashes to Korea. Her husband doesn't want her to go, her children want to run away from home, and her parents just hope she returns before their time is up. I wanted to explore and write about a family in-between cultures, immigrant life, and the universality of dealing with family crisis, love and loss.

So what made you decide to write a piece about the traditional Korean family?

I originally intended to write a very specific, personal, family story, but conserving traditional Korean values was extremely important to my parents and that became a major theme in the play. At home, everything from speaking Korean, to cooking and eating Korean food, and practicing Confucian traditions, such as ancestor worshipping, were part of our family rituals. The funny thing is, my parents left Korea in 1980 and their understanding of Korean traditions is somewhat stuck in time. Korean traditions and values have greatly changed over the past 29 years and a lot of what I learned growing up is considered, by many of my Korean friends, as part of a completely, past generation by now.

That’s so funny ... my parents are from Poland and left in 1979 and I feel the same way about the way I’ve learned the Polish culture and traditions. So, were you raised in Korea or the US?

Actually, neither. I was born and raised in Santiago, Chile and studied in an American-International School. All the way through High School, I ping-ponged—in three languages!—from a Korean household, to an American school, and Chilean society. At first, it was very confusing, but while studying Dramatic Writing at NYU, I realized that my background was a great source of inspiration for my work. To this day, I think I continue writing plays as a way to understand how to live in-between such different cultures.

That seems so therapeutic! I’m sure you also put a piece of yourself in each character when writing a piece. What character do you see as a largest reflection of yourself?

The character of Young Jun is a thinly veiled stand-in for me in the play, though he's a mix of who I was years ago, and now. In the play, Young Jun is a recent high school graduate getting ready to study visual arts at Cooper Union. As the story unfolds, he decides to go to Korea to learn more about his heritage and roots. That's a similar decision to the one I made three and a half years ago, when I decided to relocate in Korea in search of my Korean identity. A lot of this play is based on what I've learned during that time, and similar to Young Jun's journey, his/my discoveries are turned into art in the end.

So then while in Korea you must have seen lots of fan dancing while delving into your culture. You use a Korean fan dancer as a great transitional instrument throughout the piece. What inspired her character?

There are so many ways I want to answer this question; I don't know where to start! First of all, I've always wanted to find a way, as a writer, to put down in words performances based on physical movements, so when I started flirting with the idea of scripting a Korean fan dance, I went with that and wrote very poetic descriptions of what eventually will be a choreography. But more inherent to the play, I asked myself whether there was a way to combine traditional Korean performances (which are usually physical, musical, but not always narrative), with performances based on characters, dialogue and storytelling. Through Jin Hee, the Korean fan dancer in the play, I tried to answer this question by making the Korean fan dance part of the play's action and to give the Korean fan dancer, a beautiful yet speechless performer, a name and story. To say more than that though, is to give away the ending of the play!

About DCT Green Room Series

DCT GREEN ROOM presents original works in development in a staged reading or workshop format by emerging and established playwrights. Its purpose is to provide a creative venue for playwrights to hear their work and foster a creative collaboration among artist directors and actors. Since 2005, The Green Room has presented over 100 artist playwrights, directors and actors including Tony Award Winner Marian Seldes; Laila Robins; Michael Cumpsty; Obie Award winner Ching Valdes-Aran; Drama Desk Winner Amy Warren; Theater, Film & Television Actress Susan Misner; NEA-honoree Cassandra Medley; Maxine Kern; Jamie Richards; Jordan Beswick; Carlos Armesto; Andrew Bergh; Steven Ditmyer; Jorshinelle Taleon-Sonza; Stuart Harris; Jason Tam; Cindy Cheung; Raul Aranas; Joe Byers; Robert Askins; Rona Figueroa; Linda Faigao-Hall; James McManus; Amy Hartman; Christine Toy Johnson; Kristine Reyes; Pearl Sun; Lydia Stryk; Sal Inzerillo; Rodney To; Victor Maog; May Adrales; Jessi Hill, among others.

SUGGESTED DONATION: $10. LIMITED SEATING. "First come, first serve" seating. For more information, please contact Martha Zamirski at 646-895-9161 or rsvp[at]diversecitytheater.org.

About Diverse City Theater Company

Diverse City Theater Co. Inc., is an independent not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization-run by artist playwrights, directors and actors - that focuses on promoting diversity and multiculturalism in the theater arts. Its mission is to commission, develop and produce powerful and though-provoking original plays that explore and examine diversity issues in our national culture, create multiculturally fluent theater audiences and advocate the non-traditional casting of actors.

Formed in 2003, Diverse City Theater Co., Inc. is based in New York City. For more information, visit the organization's website at www.diversecitytheater.org.