American Hwangap

May 9–June 7, 2009
USAN.Y.C. Premiere
Min Suk Chun returns to the ex-wife and family he left 15 years ago in a West Texas suburb, to celebrate his “hwangap” – the Korean expression for the much-revered 60th birthday that marks rebirth. But what’s in store for his next life cycle, if it starts with no pants and a bottle of Jim Beam?
Meet the Artists

Lloyd Suh (Playwright) is also the author of The Children of Vonderly (Ma-Yi Theater Co.), Masha No Home (Ensemble Studio Theatre, East West Players), Happy End of the World (NEA/Arena Stage New Play Development grant), The Garden Variety, Great Wall Story, and several shorter plays, including Happy Birthday William Abernathy and Not All Korean Girls Can Fly (EST Marathon). His plays have been presented across the country at additional theaters and festivals including the Lark Play Development Center, Ojai Playwrights Conference, New York Stage & Film, McCarter Theatre Center, Stamford Center for the Arts, and others. He has received further grants and
commissions from the Jerome Foundation, South Coast Repertory, Theatre Communications Group, New York Foundation of the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Lilah Kan Red Socks Award from the National
Asian American Theatre Company and Pan Asian Rep in recognition of an artist's commitment to community service. He currently serves as Artistic Director of Second Generation and Co-Director of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the largest resident company of Asian American playwrights
ever assembled.

Trip Cullman (Director) Most recent credits include: The Rose Tattoo (Broadway, 2019), Choir Boy (Broadway, 2019) and Lobby Hero (Broadway, 2018). He previously directed Adam Bock's The Drunken City and Sarah Schulman's Manic Flight Reaction at Playwrights Horizons. Other New York credits include Adam Bock's Swimming in the Shallows, Leslye Headland's Bachelorette and Terrence McNally's Some Men (Second Stage); Lloyd Suh's American Hwangap, Robert Farquhar's Bad Jazz, Roland Schimmelpfennig's Arabian Night and Brooke Berman's Smashing (The Play Company); Gina Gionfriddo's US Drag (stageFARM); Bert V. Royal's Dog Sees God (The Century Center); Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Dark Matters (Rattlestick Theater); Jonathan Tolin's The Last Sunday in June (Century Center and Rattlestick Theater); Glen Berger's The Wooden Breeks (MCC Theater); Paul Weitz's Roulette (EST); Rinne Groff's Of a White Christmas (Clubbed Thumb); Gary Sunshine's Sweetness and Brooke Berman's Sam and Lucy (both at Summer Play Festival '04) and The Wau Wau Sisters (Ars Nova). Regional credits include the World Premiere of Lloyd Suh's American Hwangap (Magic Theatre), Six Degrees of Separation (Old Globe) the World Premiere of Richard Greenberg's The Injured Party at South Coast Rep, Keith Huff's A Steady Rain and The Petersons Project (both at New York Stage and Film), Lauren Weedman's Rash (The Empty Space, Seattle), John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation (The Old Globe, San Diego). Training: Yale School of Drama.

Michi Barall (Actor) Off-Broadway: An Oresteia (CSC), Hotel Cassiopeia (BAM), Queens Boulevard, A Few Stout Individuals (Signature Theatre), The Attic (The Play Company), Jump/Cut (Women’s Project), Carson McCullers (Women’s Project/Playwrights), Ivanov (NAATCO/Mint), Saved or Destroyed (Rattlestick), Sueno (MCC), Tartue (NYSF/Delacorte), Unwrap Your Candy (Vineyard), wAve, Middle Finger (Ma-Yi Theater). Regional: Arena, ATL, ART, Berkeley Rep, Brava!, Hartford Stage, Intiman, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf, McCarter, Portland Stage, Seattle Rep, Sundance, Williamstown. Film/Television credits: I Will Avenge You (opposite Giancarlo Esposito and Larry Pine), Personal Velocity, Pursuit of Happiness, and Welcome to Purgatory. Appearances on
ATWT, Cosby, Law and Order, New Amsterdam, Third Watch, and One Life to Live. AB from Stanford University, MFA from NYU. Michi is a student in the PhD program in Theatre at Columbia University.

Mia Katigbak (Actor) is the Artistic Producing Director and co-founder of NAATCO. She has acted extensively in New York City with Target Margin, Intar, New York Theatre Workshop, the Public Theater, Ma-Yi Theater, Women’s Project, Pan Asian Rep, New Federal Theater, Henry Street Settlement, and in several productions with NAATCO including the most recent world premiere of Leah’s Train by Karen Hartman. Other productions with NAATCO include Antigone (as Creon), Ivanov, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The House of Ber-
narda Alba, Village Wooing among many. Regionally she has acted at Berkeley Repertory Theater (CA), Swine Palace (LA), and the Guthrie (MN). In 2006, she and NAATCO were the recipients of the Rosetta LeNoire Award, given by Actors Equity Association in recognition of their “artistic contribution to the universality of the human experience in American theater.” She received New Dramatists’ Charles Bowden Actor Award in 2006 and the Distinguished Award for Artistic Excellence from Ma-Yi in 1999. She is on the Steering Committee of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (CAATA) and chairs its Strategic Planning Committee. She was one of the organizers of the First National Asian American Theater Festival in 2007 and will spearhead the Second Festival scheduled for the fall of 2009, along with Second Generation of NYC. She holds a B.A. from Barnard College and an M.A.
from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Peter Kim (Actor) is an accomplished actor and award-winning producer. As NAATCO’s creative producer, the company has received numerous awards and nominations. As an actor, he has originated roles in world and NYC premieres Off-Broadway and regionally. Film/TV include BROS, The Forty-Year-Old Version, The God Committee, Saturday Church, Margin Call, Sex and the City, Hackers, Chicago Med, Ugly Betty, and L&O: CI. Peter is the recipient of TCG’s 2020 Rising Leaders of Color grant, a Founding Member of AAPAC and holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Hoon Lee (Actor) Broadway: Pacic Overtures, Urinetown, Flower Drum Song. Off-Broadway/Regional: Hamlet (New York Shakespeare Festival), Yellow Face (Public Theater/Mark Taper Forum), SIDES: The Fear is Real... (Culture Project, P.S.122, Ma-Yi Theater), Children of Vonderly (Ma-YiTheater), American Hwangap (The Lark Play Development Center), The King & I (Papermill Playhouse). TV and Film: Fringe, The Unusuals, Sex and the City, Law & Order, We Own the Night (Universal), Saving Face (Sony Pictures). Interactive: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Midnight Club III. Awards: Theatre World Award, Drama League (nomination), TCG Fox Foundation Fellowship. He is a founding member of Mr. Miyagi’s Theatre Company and a graduate of Harvard University.

James Saito (Actor)was last seen onstage in NY at the Public Theater in Julia Cho’s Durango, for which he received an OBIE. He has been living in LA where he was a regular on ABC’s Eli Stone. Broadway: Golden Child, The King and I. Off-Broadway & Regional Theatres include: Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout, Vineyard, EST, Kennedy Center, Williamstown, Guthrie, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Rep, ACT, Ma-Yi, NAATCO, Singapore Rep, Arena Stage. Film & TV include: I Think I Love My Wife, Robot Stories, Pearl Harbor, The Thomas Crown Aair, Henry Fool, Home Alone 3, Devils Advocate, Die Hard 3, Blood & Orchids, To Be the Best, Third Watch, 100 Centre St., Sex and the City, Law and Order, New York Undercover, Star Trek Voyager, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Shredder).

Erik Flatmo (Set Designer) New York: Iphigenia and Other Daughters, by Ellen McLaughlin, directed by Rebecca Guy (Barnard College); Saint Scarlet,, directed by Chris Messina (W.E.T.); Blood Wedding (Columbia School of the Arts); Paris Commune (The Civilians); Spring Awakening (Prospect Theatre Company); After the Show (Drama League New Directors/New Works). Regional: L'Enfant et Les Sortileges (Music Academy of the West); Betty's Summer Vacation, directed by Douglas Hughes (Yale Repertory Theatre); Our Town (Yale School of Drama). Education: BA, Columbia University; MFA, Yale School of Drama. Mr. Flatmo teaches set design at Barnard College.

Paul Whitaker (Lighting Designer) New York Credits: Manic Flight Reaction, BFE (Playwright’s Horizons), Tight Embrace. Kissing Fidel (Intar), Swimming in the Shallows (Second Stage Theater), Guinea Pig Solo (The Public Theater/ Labyrinth Theater Co.), Assisted Loving (MCC), Get What You Need (The Atlantic),  The Last Sunday in June (Off-Broadway-Century Center, Rattlestick Productions), The Penetration Play (13P), Sam and Lucy, Kid Simple, Sweetness, Colorado (Summer Play Festival NYC), Of a White Christmas, Madame Killer (Clubbed Thumb), Smashing (The Play Co).  Regional: Hartford Stage, The Long Wharf Theater, Yale Repertory Theater, Southern Rep, and others. B.A., Macalester College,  MFA, Yale School of Drama.

Junghyun Georgia Lee (Costume Designer) is a Korean born NYC based designer. She designed for Audible Theatre, the Atlantic Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Ma-Yi, Public, Soho Rep, The Play Co., Alley Theatre, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Alliance and Syracuse Stage. She was nominated for Outstanding Set Design for Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord. MFA, Yale School of Drama. junghyungeorgialeedesign.com

Fitz Patton (Sound Design) Broadway: Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound, Charles Busch and Julie Halston, Back on Broadway, As Long As
We Both Shall Laugh. O-Broadway: Boy’s Life, 50 Words, This Is How It Goes, Fran’s Bed, Manic Flight Reaction, Modern Orthodox, A Soldier’s Play, Barbra’s Wedding, The Voysey Inheritance, Trip to Bountiful, Dirty Tricks, Guinea Pig Solo, Matt and Ben, The Butter and Egg Man and A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop. Regional: Travels of Angelica, Crime and Punishment,
Cincinnati Playhouse; The Seagull, The Crucible, Great Lakes Theater Festival; Brendan, Huntington Theatre Company; What is the Cause of Thunder, Beyond Therapy, Blithe Spirit, Williamstown Theatre Festival; Third, Some Men, Nerds, Philadelphia Theatre Company; Things of Dry Hours, Pittsburgh Public Theater; Dallas Theater Center, American Conservatory Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, The Acting Company, New York Stage and Film, Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, The Magic, PTTP, Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati. Orchestrations: The Araboolies of Liberty Street, Imagination Stage. Original Musical: Cinderella, published by Theatrical Rights Worldwide. Opera: Kunju Cowboy. Adjunct Professor of Design: Columbia University/Barnard College.

Those moments of anger prove that no matter how much a playwright loves his characters, sending them to unhappy places can be the most thrilling thing for an audience to watch.”
–The New York Times

Everything about this production, written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Trip Cullman, is well oiled and professional…
–The New Yorker

Director Trip Cullman’s well-calibrated staging deftly navigates the naturalistic and the fantastical qualities of the high-stakes reconciliation Suh has conceived.
–Time Out

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Written by

Lloyd Suh

Directed by

Trip Cullman

Featuring

Michi Barall Mia Katigbak Peter Kim Hoon Lee James Saito

Set Design

Erik Flatmo

Costume Design

Junghyun Georgia Lee

Lighting Design

Paul Whitaker

Sound Design

Fitz Patton

Production Stage Manager

Jenn McNeil

Production Manager

Gregg Bellon/Production Consolidated

Venue

The Wild Project 195 East 3rd Street New York, NY