For the first 18 years of my life, I told stories that weren’t my own. I grew up at the edge of the suburbs in a homogenous community of conservative, white, Christian Wisconsinites. As a queer, brown, sensitive, and creative child, I assimilated for self- preservation. I learned that I could keep myself out of danger if I told the story that I was straight, that I was studious, that I was subdued. And when I worked up the courage to act in shows in high school, the only offerings available were Shakespeare and musical theater, neither of which had my story anywhere in sight.

Then, during my freshman year at Fordham University, I took my first playwriting class. Writing plays in that class empowered me to tell my own story, and the act of writing to reclaim my story fuels me to this day. I am working on two full-length plays: No Man’s Land, which explores modern masculinity in America; and Are You There Truman Goetz-Harder?, which explores the construction of queer identity, sexuality, and desire. I am also working on a series of plays centered around my Korean-American ancestors and the century of American history we have witnessed.

I create theater that is queer, that is brown, that is millennial, that is cross-cultural. I create work where content and form are inseparable. I create work that demands artistic collaboration, which I believe to be the heart of theater-making. I believe artists have a responsibility to ask challenging questions. I also believe we have a responsibility to allow our audiences to search for answers themselves. I am a teaching artist who strives to create stories and opportunities for self-expression that I did not have as a young person.