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Alright, these are really weird.
doing vocal exercises using her stomach muscles
doing a controlled tone exercise
Pop-pop-pa, ba-ba-ba, pop-pop-pa, ba-ba-ba,
Pop-pop-pa, ba-ba-ba, pop-pop-pa, ba-ba-ba
One of my acting mentors said,
you know, to have a sense of generosity
to any character you play, so figure out
what parts of your life you can lend to the character,
whether it's vulnerability, whether it's life experience.
I try to find those parallels first,
and then whatever I don't know,
I try to figure out a way into.
It's fun, you know, I mean,
I've been doing this for almost 20 years,
and so now, I'm gonna challenge myself,
like if I'm gonna play a CEO of a company,
why not call some folks downtown
and say can I come and interview you?
I mean, that's the best thing about theater
is just opening up worlds
that you wouldn't be exposed to otherwise.
You know, I think, I mean, playing Oberon
with Ten Thousand Things has been great
because I get to embrace being this,
laughs the king of the universe basically!
Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight
hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night with drooping fog!
It's just exploring different parts of life,
exploring different parts internally of yourself,
and every role changes you in the future.
I started out acting because it was just fun,
and now, as I get older, I think I'm an actor
just because I feel there's so many stories
that really need to be told.
My American name is Rachel Sun Mee Chomet.
My Korean name was Ahn Sun Mee.
I was 6 months old when I was
given up for adoption.
I didn't anticipate becoming a playwright,
but especially as an Asian American actor,
you tend towards writing
in order to create parts that are not written yet.
I feel passionate about telling stories
from the diversity of what it means to be American.
Sun Mee laughs
Well, there really is no information
about your birth family Rachel.
It says you were found in the City of Anyang
then you were sent to stay with foster mother in Seoul
for 6 months before you left for United States.
The most recent play that I've written is
How to Be a Korean Woman.
I felt a need to write this just to process my search
and reunion with my birth family.
What do I want to tell my birth mother?
I think about you and wonder why you gave me up.
I'd like to see you, and I hope you'll contact me
because I want to find you.
I always had this feeling that if I'd met my birth family,
some void would be filled about wanting to know who you are
and what your history was, and what I was shocked to find out
was that I still felt a void after I was reunited.
My acting story starts in Detroit Public Schools,
at Burton International Elementary.
That was my first exposure to theater,
and that was what I thought theater was--
it was a place to imagine.
I went to a performing arts high school,
and my favorite acting teachers said to me, you know Sun Mee,
you should prepare yourself because you're Asian,
to only play old people or character parts
because you will never be considered as a leading lady.
And I thought that was so depressing.
The Twin Cities is where I broke out of that mentality,
working with Mu Performing Arts.
If I hadn't developed at that theater company,
where Asian Americans were at the center,
I would have never been able to develop as a leading woman.
Having performed on stages throughout the U.S.
and after being in New York,
I knew I wanted to create my own work,
and I knew I wanted to have the time and support
and energy to be able to write.
And in the Twin Cities, your fellow artists and colleagues
value you, and not only want to work with you,
they want to see you thrive. That's what brought me back.
I think it's not only what brought me back to the Twin Cities,
it's what brought me back into who I am as an artist.
All my life I've imagined what this doorstep
where I was left looked like.
Here I am...
and this is all it is,
a metal door of a cement block apartment with no one home.
The process of translating the story of my search
and reunion with my birth family to the page was not easy,
and Zaraawar Mistry, my director, and dramaturg
was instrumental in that process.
He would tell me to just go away and write
and don't edit at all.
As a result, there would come pages and pages
of me just saying how confused I was.
You know, I would go on really on tirades sometimes,
just how upset I was at the Korean government,
about adoption being promoted
without any rights given to the birth mothers,
and he would say, That exists in the human story,
so let's just focus on the humanity
and your personal story. and let all of that come through.
I didn't trust him at first, honestly.
I said, But I really want to say this,
I really need to say this!
He said, You're saying it by just telling your story.
Suddenly I am being held and cuddled by my blood relatives.
My Umma holds both of my hands to her chest as she speaks.
She holds onto my thigh as we talk.
My grandmother pours her body into mine,
holding onto my arm, refusing to let go.
Somehow... my muscle memory remembers this feeling
and has been crawling back towards it all of my life.
So I've performed How to Be a Korean Woman
at Dreamland Arts in St. Paul, the Guthrie Theater.
I also performed it in Philadelphia
at Asian Arts Initiative.
I performed it in Seoul, Korea
at the International Korean
Adoptees Association's Conference
for about 300 Korean adoptees from 17 different countries.
The reaction from the adoptee community,
not only Korean adoptees,
but from the wider adoptee community, was overwhelming.
There are over 30,000 Asian adoptees in Minnesota,
which means everyone knows, is married to,
partnered with, or works with an adoptee.
I think though the show resonated for them
because for the first time, I think many of them
saw themselves reflected onstage.
My Umma is looking down at my hands and crying.
I just wish... we had the time...
lifetime.
You know, you can't change your story;
not everyone even wants to change their story,
although some do, but regardless,
you want to understand your own story.
I mean, the more you know who you are as a human being,
with your own biography,
the better you're going to be as an artist.
I don't want to waste any time, you know,
not because I want to get to a certain place,
but because there's so many ideas
and stories that I want to tell.