You are here

  •  

Kyoung H. Park participated in the Creative Fellowships Initiative in partnership with School of Drama.

 

KYOUNG H. PARK

Kyoung H. Park was born in Santiago, Chile and is the first Korean playwright from Latin America to be produced and published in the United States. He is author of Sex and Hunger, disOriented, Walkabout Yeolha, Tala, Pillowtalk and many short plays including Mina, which is published in Seven Contemporary Plays from the Korean Diaspora in the Americas by Duke University Press. Kyoung writes and directs his own work as Artistic Director of Kyoung’s Pacific Beat, a peacemaking theater company, based in Brooklyn, New York.

Currently, he is a Field Leadership Fund Fellow, founding member of The Sol Project, member of the Ma-Yi Theater Writer's Lab, New York Theater Workshop Usual Suspect, Soho Theatre's Writer's Hub, and serves in The Dramatist Guild’s Devised Theater Committee, Performance Project @ University Settlement Advisory Board, and Indie Theater Fund. Fellowships: Edward Albee Foundation, Theater of the Oppressed (Brazil), Target Margin Theater Inst. for Collaborative Theater-Making; grants: Arvon Foundation (UK), GK Foundation (South Korea), Foundation for Contemporary Arts, TCG Global Connections, Princess Grace Special Projects; 2010 UNESCO Aschberg-Laureate. MFA: Playwriting (Columbia University, Dean’s Fellow).

Visit Kyoung H. Park's website     

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Kyoung H. Park was in residence to develop PILLOWTALK, an intimate two-character drama centered around Sam and Buck, a newlywed interracial gay couple. Using inventive staging incorporating elements of ballet’s pas de deux, the play examines the evolving values of gay marriage to ask whether queer communities of color can truly celebrate marriage equality in times of #BlackLivesMatter. With support of the University of Washington's Theater and Dance department, Park conducted research on the dramaturgical structure of ballet's pas de deux, interviewed UW professors to gather research materials, and collaborated with undergraduate and graduate students to develop new choreographic language for performance.