Plays Written by Jeesun Choi:
BUST
THE SEEKERS
LOST COAST
MANUKA
Synopses:
BUST – Sein fights for the leadership of her Model United Nations team. An economist gives one last lecture. Fish Grandma goes to the bank. Meanwhile, the global market teeters on the brink of collapse. BUST explores the money in our wallets, the illusions it buys, and the future it promises.
THE SEEKERS – Ilhan is a Somali high school student living in Minneapolis on the verge of deportation when she is visited by figures from far-flung places: the Arctic, European fringes, and an African refugee camp. They draw her into an unseen and forgotten world that exists just beyond reality and appeal to her for the sanctuary of their souls. When the letter from the immigration office arrives, Ilhan decides to pursue her own freedom. A poetic drama on displacement, environment, and freedom.
LOST COAST – In a coastal forest in northern California live Sheila, Pru, Angel, Gigi, Nara and Joon, isolated from society, quietly struggling in the shadows of a growingly oppressive world. When a wildfire burns down a nearby town, and a new person (Stephen) joins their commune, their lives start to unravel as the force of change pushes them to leave, confront their fears, and sacrifice the little they have. This seven-protagonist play explores what community and compassion mean in the face of irrevocable change.
MANUKA – Sungho flunks out of college and his business-savvy mother is worried. But his business-savvier father turns up out of nowhere with the greatest idea he’s ever had. This could be the answer to all of their prayers.
Bio:
I am a transnational Korean playwright, librettist and physical theatre artist. My plays move through diaspora, (im)migration, transnationalism to reveal the joy and agony of the human condition. Plays include BUST (Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab); Lost Coast ( Playwrights Realm’s Ink’d Festival, Nashville Rep’s Ingram New Works Festival, reading at New York Theatre Workshop); Manuka (EST/Youngblood Podcast); The Seekers (Bay Area Playwrights Festival, O’Neill NPC & Woodward International Playwriting Prize Semifinalist, Bushwick Starr Reading Series). I am currently the Writing Fellow at Playwrights Realm, Librettist Fellow at American Opera Project, Ingram Lab Playwright at Nashville Rep, a member of EST/Youngblood, and a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop. In 2020, I was awarded Artist of Exceptional Merit by Asian American Arts Alliance. MFA Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre, Dell’Arte International.