Park Ji-won is a writer for The Korea Times who has been covering a wide range of topics from Korea’s culture to its politics. An avid journalism enthusiast to the core, Ji-won brings a thoughtful and unique perspective to every topic she covers. On weekends, you'll often find her contemplating life’s purpose on a yoga mat — with a cup of quality tea in hand. A native Korean speaker by birth and fluent in English through her work, she went to college in Japan and is learning Chinese and French — hoping to add Polish, Russian and Thai to the mix.
Historic Cecil Theater poised to close over safety issues
Cecil Theater / Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government
By Park Ji-won
By Park Ji-won
The Cecil Theater, founded in 1976 and owned by the Anglican Church of Korea, is facing closure again due to safety concerns.
The Seoul Theater Association, which has been running the historic theater since April 2018, issued a press release Wednesday announcing that it has decided to cease its operations there upon the request of the church and vacated the building as of Dec. 10.
“The Seoul Theater Association has been running the facility over the last three and a half years, but we practically ran the space for a year and seven months,” Ji Choon-sung, chairman of the association, said in the release.
“We aimed to house various theatrical works from many different art troupes to keep the theater's identity as a public facility and turned it in to a theater for children. But we found serious problems in the facility which we failed to solve, resulting in its closure.”
Previously, the theater's operation was suspended due to construction of a terrace on the roof of the building in January 2020, and starting in October 2020, electrical problems have been occurring on stage, the association revealed.
Established in 1976 on the grounds of the Seoul Anglican Cathedral in Jeong-dong, central Seoul, the Cecil Theater has been at the center of theater culture development. The place was used for as first venue of the Korean Theater Festival, now the Seoul Theater Festival, one of the largest of its kind in Korea. The declaration of the launch of the democracy movement in 1987 was made here.
The facility, designated a Seoul Future Heritage site in 2013, suffered financial difficulties in January 2018 and faced closure, but the Seoul City Government had a long-term lease and outsourced its operations. Since its launch, it has had more than five operators. The city government and the church failed to reach an agreement and terminated the contract on its operation as a theater.
The church reportedly claimed that it is not planning to demolish the building, and added that it terminated the contract because the city government declined to fix the aging building, despite having previously promised financial support. The church is still looking for a lessee who can also cover the costs for the renovations to the building.