From Seoul to NYC to Edinburgh: Hyojin Park's solo performance moves audiences

Hyojin Park performs her solo show "Nina from Our Town Goes to NYC" / Courtesy of Hyojin Park

In “Nina from Our Town Goes to NYC,” playwright and actress Hyojin Park crafts a familiar premise with a fresh perspective: A young woman leaves the familiarity of Seoul for the unknowns of New York, hoping to carve out a life in the arts. While the storyline might echo traditional immigrant narratives, Park imbues the journey with emotional depth and critical self-reflection.

The solo performance follows Nina, a Korean woman determined to become an actress. She feels constrained by the rigid expectations of her home country and sees New York as a place where she can live more freely and pursue her career on her own terms. At first, Nina is enthralled by the promise of reinvention, believing her dreams are only possible far from home.

Rather than settle for the conventional “fish out of water” narrative arc, Park expands the frame. The play touches not only on the external challenges Nina faces — unspoken biases and assumptions about her ethnicity — but also on her own internal prejudices. In doing so, Park explores how the disorientation of migration can shape self-perception as much as it challenges one’s place in society.

“When I got accepted into the New School almost 10 years ago, there were not a lot of Korean actors or Korean American actors,” Park recalled, sharing her pride in that accomplishment and saying she “thought it would give her the same freeing feeling that the character also desires.”

Playwright and actor Hyojin Park / Courtesy of Hyojin Park

The limits placed on Nina’s aspirations echo Park’s early experiences in Korea as a young artist. “In Korea, people said I looked plain … or if you want to be an actor you have to lose a lot of weight.”

She also explained how hierarchy was used even in the arts in Korea. Older colleagues would often ostracize her and the advice she received would be questionable, such as being told to develop chemistry with a male counterpart, and even that it would be good to date them if it seemed they lacked chemistry onstage.

Once she was accepted into the Master of Arts program in the U.S., she was able to explore different roles, focus and strengthen skill sets, and learn different acting techniques. However, as much as she was able to develop, she received her first real glimpse of how strong biases can be. As a minority, especially in the theater world — at that time, and still now — people may view her personality or abilities according to a different set of biases that weren’t prevalent in Korea. At the time she thought, like many immigrants, it was her speaking ability or something else that was lacking. However, over time she learned of the prejudices that Asians face in the U.S., including the fact that they are rarely seen as the main character (“Maybe Happy Ending” being a rare recent exception in the theater world).

Though Park’s solo show is not strictly autobiographical, she explained that the play reflects many of the insights, reflections and lessons she learned on her journey from Seoul to New York.

The emotional truths, culture shock and tension, disillusionment and fulfillment, and questions of identity remain grounded in Park’s own migration story. Nina not only confronts the audience about the biases and discrimination she experiences, but prompts the audience to question their own biases as well.

As multicultural as Western countries like the U.S. are, racism and other forms of discrimination still prevail, and people who may be on the receiving end may also have their own biases too. Instead of shying away from things, the play encourages everyone to also explore and acknowledge their own biases.

“No one is safe from discrimination, and if we don’t actively question and try to eliminate the forces of prejudices and biases that lead to it, we ourselves or the people we care about can always be the subject of discrimination,” Park said.

With “Nina from Our Town Goes to NYC,” she offers not just another version of the immigrant experience, but a personal, layered portrayal of what it means to carry one’s dreams across borders.

“Nina from Our Town Goes to NYC” has already moved audiences at stagings in Seoul and New York, at the Korean Cultural Center. This week the play will reach a new set of international audiences with a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from Aug. 1-9 (local time).

Park herself is deeply touched and excited to be going to Edinburgh. “It is quite unbelievable,” she said.

A poster for "Nina from Our Town Goes to NYC" / Courtesy of Hyojin Park

After the festival, Park hopes to continue producing this play as well as other plays. She travels frequently back to Korea where she teaches classes to actors in Korean and offers one-on-one sessions for English actors. Recently she taught a workshop in Korean based on the Uta Hagen acting technique.

Visit Park’s website or follow @iamhyojinpark on Instagam to learn more about upcoming performances and classes.

Antonia Giordano is a freelance photographer and writer based in Seoul. An adoptee, Antonia deeply understands and connects with the issues surrounding adoption and post-adoption. Visit giordanoantonia.myportfolio.com and follow @antonia_creative_services on Instagram.