about

“Kyoung has turned out to be simply the most talented theater practitioner of his generation that I have had the good fortune to work with. His plays are deeply original, conceptually erudite, funny and truly moving. They have a special quality as a result of his total theatrical expertise. He is knowledgeable about everything that goes into a production, from the script to the music, and the movement – be it realistic, mimetic or dance – and design. And lo and behold he has also turned out to be an exceptional actor’s director – which few writers are. What is special about his ability is his multifaceted grasp of how writing, directing, design, music, choreography and acting combine to tell a story. This is rare in American theater today, which often concentrates on the specialization of each craft to the exclusion of all the others. He is a writer/director who is fine-tuned to do important work.” — Lee Breuer

Kyoung H. Park is a North Korean playwright/director, born and raised in Santiago, Chile, currently living in unceded territory of the Lenape, colonially referred to as Brooklyn, New York.

As Artistic Director of Kyoung's Pacific Beat, a peacemaking theater company, he has devised three full-length plays -- disOriented (“Kyoung’s most intensely personal play”—American Theatre Magazine), TALA ("an epic tale of the historical, hysterical, and personal" — New York Theater Review), PILLOWTALK (“very much of this moment”—The New York Times) -- and produced over 40 community-based, experimental projects including performances for new media. His work centers stories of (im)migration, queerness, trauma and the way these intersect in communities of color. He's published in Seven Contemporary Plays from the Korean Diaspora in the Americas by Duke University Press and he's been featured in ABC News/Univision, Lambda Literary, Howlround, The Brooklyn Rail and The Korea Times.

Kyoung's Pacific Beat has been a resident company at Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, The Tank, Bushwick Starr, Baryshnikov Arts Center, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, BRIC Arts Media, New Ohio Theater, and Performance Project @ University Settlement. Internationally, Kyoung has been artist-in-residence at Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral (Santiago, Chile), Augusto Boal's Centro do Teatro do Oprimido (Rio de Janeiro), Sanskriti Pratisthan (New Delhi), and the Royal Court Theater and Soho Writers' Hub (London).

Kyoung is recipient of numerous fellowships including the 2023 Rockwood Leadership Institute, 2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (Recommended Alternate), 2021 NYFA Incubator for Executive Leaders of Color, 2019-2020 Dramatist Guild Fellowship, 2018-2020 APAP Leadership Fellowship, 2018-2019 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellowship, 2017 Creative Mellon Fellowship, 2015-2017 Field Leadership Fund Fellowship, 2014 Target Margin Theater Inst. for Theater-Making Fellowship, and was named a 2010 UNESCO-Aschberg Laureate (Paris). He is a NYTW Usual Suspect, co-founder of The Sol Project (Obie Award), member of Ma-Yi Writer's Lab, alum of Ensemble Studio Theater's Youngblood (Obie Award) and was a 2004 Edward Albee Fellow.

Kyoung has received grants from the NEA, Ford Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Arvon Foundation (London), GK Foundation (South Korea), MAP Fund, Venturous Theater Fund, TCG Global Connections, Brooklyn Arts Council, Howard Gilman Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and has been a grant panelist for the NEA, TCG, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, ART/NY and NALAC. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University (Dean's Fellow), MA in International Politics from Kyung Hee University’s Graduate Institute for Peace Studies, and BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts (Founder's Day Award).

Kyoung lives in Brooklyn, New York with his husband, Daniel Lim, and rescue pitbull, She-Ra. He continues his self-education in Buddhism, having made his refuge vows with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India.

Photography by Beowulf Sheehan

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