Hannah and the Dread Gazebo
Directed by Terri McMahon
This production is underwritten by Jane and Steve Ballback. Direction is underwritten by the Risser family. The actors are partially underwritten by Oregon Community Foundation.
Synopsis
Inside the FedEx box are two things: a 100% bona-fide-heart’s-desire-level wish and a suicide note. Hannah tracks the package back to Korea, where her grandmother recently jumped from the roof of the Sunrise Dewdrop Apartment City for Senior Living onto the wrong side of the Demilitarized Zone. They’ll need North Korea’s permission to retrieve the body, but Kim Jong Il just kicked the bucket, and things in the DMZ are even stranger than they seem.
Playwright Perspective
I’m really fascinated by the spiritual cost of success and change—it’s such a common immigrant story…what do we shed to navigate more smoothly in a new world—as individuals, as nations, or through generations? South Korea became an industrialized nation in less than half a century; in many ways it’s a model of “successful,” American- style capitalism (in all the complicated shadings of that idea). Korea also has the highest suicide rate in the developed world, and those two facts sit side by side in uncomfortable resonance.
Also, I like funny plays. Always the funny, please. Especially when talking about the tough stuff.
Who
| Hannah | Sue Jean Kim |
| Mother | Jeanne Sakata |
| Father | C.S. Lee |
| Voice/Grandmother/Mrs. Lee/Old Man in Coat/Official/Nurse/Mr. Kwon/ Kim Jong Il/ Grandmother Tiger |
Paul Juhn |
| Dang | Moses Villarama |
| Girl | Annie Yim |
| Stage directions | Rachel Kostrna |
Jiehae Park’s plays include peerless (Yale Rep premiere, upcoming at Primary Stages), Hannah and the Dread Gazebo (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Here We Are Here (Sundance, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, Princess Grace WIP @ Baryshnikov Arts Center), The Aves (Alley All-New, McCarter Spotlight Festival), contributions to Wondrous Strange (Humana/ATL), and the book for the upcoming musical Kill the Boyband.
Development: Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab, the Public’s Emerging Writers Group, p73, Playwrights Horizons, CTG Writers Workshop, Atlantic, PlayCo, Old Globe, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, Ojai Conference, BAPF, and the amazing Ma-Yi Writers Lab.
Awards: Leah Ryan, Princess Grace, Weissberger, ANPF Women’s Invitational.
Commissions: Playwrights Horizons, Yale Rep, Geffen, OSF, MTC/Sloan.
Residencies: MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, McCarter/Sallie B. Goodman.
As a performer, she most recently appeared in Celine Song’s ENDLINGS (NYTW, ART), and Ripe Time/Naomi Iizuka’s adaption of Murakami’s SLEEP (BAM Next Wave, Yale Rep).
TV writing: Marvel’s RUNAWAYS; currently developing a new show with Diana Son for Tomorrow Studios/Apple.
She is a NYTW Usual Suspect, Lincoln Center Theater New Writer in Residence, former Hodder Fellow, current New Dramatist, and 2019-20 Tow Playwright-in-Residence at Primary Stages. BA, Amherst; MFA, UCSD.
Terri McMahon is a veteran actor of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; her 23 seasons there included 19 Shakespeare productions in a wide range of roles. Terri has directed and adapted OSF School Visit Program touring performances and has both acted and directed multiple times in OSF’s Black Swan Lab for new play development.
Favorite projects include “Sweetly Writ” at the Hult Center in Eugene, Oregon, a collaboration between OSF and the University of Oregon to celebrate their Shakespeare First Folio Exhibition; and a collaboration Terri devised and directed for Eugene Symphony’s 50-piece orchestra and three actors, combining Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and Prokofiev’s music of the same name.
Other directing credits include Othello (Island Shakespeare Company); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival); Macbeth (Arabian Shakespeare Festival); and recently Ashland New Plays Festival’s 2018 readings of Cold Spring.
Terri has a BFA from the University of Southern California and recently completed the Lincoln Center Theater Directing Lab.
She’s performed as an actor for the ANPF Play4Keeps Podcast.
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