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As part of the artist collective Seagull 1, Seagull 2, I produced a workshop presentation of Dead Korean Girl Comedy Show, co-written by Jennifer Park and Emily Jung, presented as part of Aluna Theatre’s 2025 CAMINOS Festival of New Works at Factory Theatre.
This dark absurdist comedy follows two Korean-Canadian women who die after accidentally falling into a construction pit in Queen’s Park, Toronto. They now have their ghost-selves to ponder the purgatory in bizarre spaces like Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill. Meanwhile, the fate of the two ghosts are being negotiated between The Canadian Bureau and the Korean Reaper.
This absurd, yet critical story jumps between comedy and drama, and is narrated by a mysterious “playwright” (inspired by traditional Korean storytellers, not the actual playwright), who intervenes, disrupts, and asks difficult questions.
Dead Korean Girl Comedy Show asks: How does “having an Asian woman’s body” put you at risk? Can we be liberated from violence when we no longer have bodies? Is there a comedy that exists within this liberation?
Creator
Emily Jung & Jennifer Park / Seagull 1, Seagull 2
Performers
April Park
Izzy Lee Bergman
Janice Jo Lee
Jay Kim
jonnie lombard
Michaela Jinyoung Jang
Monica Garrido Huerta
Paul Smith
Creative Team
Emily Jung & Jennifer Park, Co-writers
Beatriz Pizano, Director
María Escolán, Associate Director
Trevor Schwellnus, Lighting Designer
Jacob Lin, Sound Designer
Julia Kim, Costume/Wardrobe Designer
Amanda Lin, Stage Manager
Josh Marchesini, Producer
Shanae Sodhi, Producer
Gabby Noga, Associate Producer
This is the inaugural production for Seagull 1 Seagull 2. Supported by Toronto Arts Council with funding from the City of Toronto. Development support of Dead Korean Girl Comedy Show has been received from Aluna Theatre through the 2025 CAMINOS Festival, rice & beans theatre’s inaugural Polyphonic Multilingual Theatre Residency, and the Ontario Arts Council’s Recommender Grants via Nightwood Theatre and Toronto Fringe in 2022. Further support for development by Living Hyphen, Korean Culture Centre (Ottawa) and Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre.
AT FACTORY THEATRE
TORONTO
04-10-2025