Hansol Jung
Playwright Bio
Hansol Jung was born in the Republic of Korea. She moved to South Africa and lived there for about 6 years in her early childhood. She fell in love with theater when she was an exchange student at New York University. Jung translated over thirty English musicals into Korean, and worked as translator, lyricist and assistant director in Korea. With her English literature background, she came back to the United States to study M.F.A in Directing for Musical Theatre at Penn State School of Theatre. Later, she pursued an M.F.A in Playwriting at Yale School of Drama and began her journey as a playwright. She has received commissions from Playwrights Horizons, and was awarded a grant from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation with Ma-Yi Theatre, and presented a translation of Romeo and Juliet for Play On! at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her work has been developed at the Royal Court (London), New York Theatre Workshop, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, O’Neill Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab, Lark Play Development Center, Salt Lake Acting Company, Boston Court Theatre, Bushwick Starr, Asia Society New York, and Seven Devils Playwright Conference. She is the recipient of the P73 Playwright Fellowship at Page 73 Productions, Rita Goldberg Playwrights’ Workshop Fellowship at the Lark, 2050 Fellowship at New York Theater Workshop, MacDowell Colony Artist Residency, and International Playwrights Residency at Royal Court (London). Her plays have received the Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award (Among the Dead), Honorable Mention from the 2014 Arch and Bruce Brown Playwriting Competition (Cardboard Piano), and was named 2014 finalist for the Ruby Prize (No More Sad Things). Jung is a member of the Ma-Yi Theatre Writers Lab. Recently, she has received the 2018 Whiting Awards with Nathan Alan Davis and Antoinette Nwandu.
Highlighted Play: Among the Dead
"Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave?" (Psalm 6:5, NIV)
1970s, 1950s, 1940s (90 minutes)
A hotel room in Seoul, South Korea, February 1975
Han River Bridge, 1950
The WWII battlegrounds of Myitkyina, Myanmar, 1944-1945
Luke Woods - Male. Early twenties. An American soldier.
Number Four - Female. Teens. Korean.
Ana Woods - Female. Thirty. Half Korean, American.
Jesus - As you will. Contemporary, weird, young, ancient. Chameleon.
Synopsis:
"Ana is a Korean American who travels to Seoul in 1975 to retrieve her recently deceased father’s ashes. Luke is a young American soldier fighting in the jungles of Myanmar in 1944. Number Four is the name of a Korean comfort woman camping out on a bridge in Seoul in 1950, waiting for the return of the young American soldier who fathered her daughter. Three separate time periods collide in a small hotel room in Korea, mediated by a shape-shifting Jesus who first shows up as a bellboy. Among the Dead is a dark comedy about a family broken apart by betrayed promises, and finding each other again through SPAM, journals, and Jesus." - from Samuel French edition
How can this play be used:
This play will be useful in learning about experiments on techniques and structures of playwriting in terms of time and space. Also, as a historical black comedy piece, it generates discussion topics on culture, tradition, and heritage of post-war generations and after. The use of comedy in the play might be discovered in a critical way as well. Finally, this play is helpful in having more roles for Asian actors.
Keywords: Parenting/Family, Politics, Religion, War, Asian-American Issues
Sample Audience & Activity
Setting: college classroom or community theatre
Subject: drama, theatre, acting, directing, design
Objective: Students will be able to make aesthetic choices on acting, directing, designing for a scene from Among the Dead, which describes three different time periods (1940's, 1950's, and 1970's) at the same time.
Activity: Actors, directors, and designers will collaborate to create plans on staging a scene which features three different stories in the play; 1) In Myanmar, 1940s (WWII), 2) In South Korea, 1950s (Korean War), and 3) In a hotel room, 1970s (the time of Park Chung-hee's military dictatorship in the Republic of Korea).
Discussion Questions
A. How have you engaged with the character “Jesus” in the story? What are your thoughts about the role of Jesus in this play?
This discussion will bring students’ personal reflections on the story and lead conversations on the comic features and roles of the play.
B. What are the different effects of using comedy in playwriting with a tragic historical motif?
This discussion will critically review on the use of comedy in the play with a historical motif, and also try to evaluate its ethical perspectives.
C. Is “Among the Dead” an American play, a Korean play, or an International play? Where is American/New York theatre headed today?
This discussion will provide time to think about the definitions, characteristics and visions of American/New York theatre today in a global context.
Annotated Plays
Cardboard Piano
1990s, New Millennium/21st Century (105 minutes)
A township in Northern Uganda
Part I: New Year’s Eve 1999, Part II: Wedding Anniversary 2014
Chris - 16 in Part I, age 30 in Part II. Any Ethnicity, American
Adiel - 16, Acholi, Ugandan
Pika - 13, Acholi, nationality unspecified
Soldier - early 20s, Acholi, nationality unspecified
Paul - 27, Acholi, Ugandan, played by Soldier from Part I
Ruth - late 20s, Bugandan, Ugandan, played by Adiel from Part I
Francis - late teens to early 20s, Acholi, Ugandan. Played by Pika from Part I
Synopsis:
"Northern Uganda on the eve of the millennium: The daughter of American missionaries, Chris, and a local teenage girl, Adiel, steal into a darkened church to seal their love in a secret, makeshift wedding ceremony. But when the surrounding war zone encroaches on their fragile union, they cannot escape its reach. Confronting the religious and cultural roots of intolerance, Cardboard Piano explores violence and its aftermath, as well as the human capacity for hatred, forgiveness, and love." - from Samuel French edition
How can this play be used:
This play is composed with various issues and perspectives to address and communicate with society. Seeing from a teenager’s point of view, the story asks readers and audience to question themselves and engage the issues and communities within their lives. Since this play elicits different discussion topics, such as race, ethnicity, politics, sexuality and gender, it might be useful in socially engaging drama education for middle or high school class settings in regard to the mild adult themes in the story. This play also casts more African American actors.
Keywords: Adolescence, Black issues, Death, Friendship, LGBTQ+ issues, Love, Marriage, War
No More Sad Things
Contemporary, Present Day (75 minutes)
Ka’anapali Beach, Maui
Jessiee - Female, 32 years old
Kahekili - Male, 15 years old. A Hawaiian waterman.
Guidebook - a guide through things.
Synopsis:
"Jessiee catches a last-minute flight to Maui while recovering from her recent abortion. Kahekili who comes from a broken family finds her on the shores of Ka’anapali. Something strange and something familiar pulls them closer. They have sex on the beach. They are surprised. They spend the week together. But eventually Jessiee catches the flight back home to Akron, Ohio. Jessiee is thirty-two. Kahekili is fifteen." - from Samuel French edition
How can this play be used:
This play depicts women-centered romance while describing a sensitive/politicized issue on women’s lives. As Jung intended, the play might create rooms “for people to mourn the loss without having it be a political statement.” The play could have the main focuses on “losing things and then recovering and how to recover from that.” (https://www.americantheatre.org/2015/11/24/no-more-sadthings-a-tender-if-impossible-wish/) This play could also have multicultural casting with a strong role for leading woman.
Keywords: Aging, Love, Marriage
Comprehensive List of Plays
• Among the Dead / Ma-Yi Theatre Company
• Cardboard Piano / Humana Festival at Actors Theater of Louisville
• No More Sad Things / Co-world premiere at Sideshow Theatre and Boise Contemporary Theatre
• Wolf Play / Actors Rep
• Wild Goose Dreams / Co-produced by The Public Theater and La Jolla Playhouse
Additional Resources
Interviews
2018 Whiting Awards for Drama
Wild Goose Dreams at The Public
Bibliography
American Theatre Editors. (October, 2015). 6 Theatre Workers You Should Know. American Theatre. Retrieved from https://www.americantheatre.org/2015/10/30/6-theatre-workers-you-should-know/
Cohen, S. B. (1978). Comic Relief: Humor in Contemporary American Literature. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Jung, H. (2017). Among the Dead. New York, NY: Samuel French.
Jung, H. (2017). Cardboard Piano. New York, NY: Samuel French.
Jung, H. (2017). No More Sad Things. New York, NY: Samuel French.
Kim, Y. (June, 2012). An Introduction to Contemporary Korean Theatre in Critical Stages/Scènes critiques. The IATC Web Journal. Retrieved from http://www.critical-stages.org/6/an-introduction-to-contemporary-korean-theatre/
Kramer, E. (March, 2016). Violence, faith subject of Hansol Jung’s play. courier journal. Retrieved from https://www.courier-journal.com/story/entertainment/theater/humanafestival/2016/03/18/violence-faith-subject-hansol-jungs-play/81266630/
Lee, E. K. (2012). Seven Contemporary Plays from the Korean Diaspora in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Marcus, G. (2004). American Humor. New York, NY: New York Review Book.
Morreall, J. (2009). Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Saxon, T. (2011). American Theatre: History, Context, Form. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
Steinberg, G. (November, 2016). Among the Dead. Theatre Is Easy. Retrieved from http://www.theasy.com/Reviews/2016/A/amongthedead.php
Tran, D. (November, 2015). ‘No More Sad Things’? A Tender, If Impossible, Wish. American Theatre. Retrieved from https://www.americantheatre.org/2015/11/24/no-more-sad-things-a-tender-if-impossible-wish/
William, D. (1833). History of the American theatre. Volume 1. London, England. 425pp. 2 vols. Sabin Americana. Gale, Cengage Learning. New York University. Retrieved from 2018 http://galenet.galegroup.com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/servlet/Sabin af=RN&ae=CY3812950763&srchtp=a&ste=14
William, D., & Miller, T. L. (2010). A History of the American Theatre from Its Origins to 1832. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Among the Dead Title Photo Credit - https://www.pablopicasso.org/massacre-in-korea.jspCardboard Piano Title Photo Credit - https://goodformandspectacle.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/the-box-project/No More Sad Things Title Photo Credit - https://traveltips.usatoday.com/hotels-beaches-swimming-kauai-10415.html
Web page compiled by Whanhee Joy Oh (2018)