La Jolla Playhouse Announces Cast and Creative Team for Hansol Jung's WILD GOOSE DREAMS

La Jolla Playhouse announces the cast and creative team for its world-premiere production of Wild Goose Dreams, by Hansol Jung, directed by Leigh Silverman, running September 5 - October 1 (press opening: Sunday, September 10) in the Mandell Weiss Forum.

The cast will feature Yunjin Kim (TV's Lost; Berkeley Rep's The Woman Warrior) as "Yoo Nanhee," James Kyson (TV's Heroes, Hawaii 5-0) as "Gook Minsung" and Francis Jue (Broadway's Pacific Overtures; Obie Award winner for Yellow Face) as "Father," along with Carolyn Agan (San Diego Musical Theatre's Ragtime) as "Woman/Chorus," Julian Cihi (Broadway's Doctor Zhivago) as "Man/Chorus," Rona Figueroa (Broadway's Miss Saigon) as "Wife/Chorus," Samantha Wang (DNA New Work Series' Akeelah and the Bee) as "Hyonjin/Chorus," and UC San Diego M.F.A. students DeLeon Dallas, Kyle Hester and Kimberly Monks as "Chorus."

The creative team includes Paul Castles, Composer; Jongbin Jung, Korean Music Composer; Charity Wicks, Music Supervisor; Yasmine Lee, Choreographer; Wilson Chin (Kill Local, Hollywood), Scenic Designer; Tony Award winner Linda Cho (Limelight, The Orphan of Zhao), Costume Designer; Keith Parham (Tribes), Lighting Designer; Joanna Lynne Staub, Sound Designer; Gabriel Greene, Dramaturg; and Melanie J. Lisby, Stage Manager.

"Hansol Jung's exquisite new play brings together two strangers bound by their shared loneliness in a hauntingly beautiful piece that shifts between the tangible and the ethereal, the literal and the metaphorical. Award-winning director Leigh Silverman makes her Playhouse debut mounting this brand new work with an extraordinary cast and creative team," said La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley.

In Wild Goose Dreams, a North Korean defector who has left her family behind and a lonely South Korean father start an unlikely online romance as they each attempt to allay their fears and alienation in this inventive, lyrical and darkly humorous piece.

Hansol Jung is a playwright and director from South Korea. Plays include Cardboard Piano (Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville); Among the Dead (Ma-Yi Theater Company); No More Sad Things (co-world premiere at Sideshow Theatre, Chicago and Boise Contemporary Theatre) and Wolf Play. Commissions from Playwrights Horizons, Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant with Ma-Yi Theatre and a translation of Romeo and Juliet for Play On! at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her work has been developed at the Royal Court (London), NYTW, Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, O'Neill Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab, Lark Play Development Center, Salt Lake Acting Company, Boston Court Theatre, Asia Society New York and Seven Devils Playwright Conference. She is the recipient of the 2016 P73 Playwright Fellowship at Page 73 Productions, Rita Goldberg Playwrights' Workshop Fellowship at the Lark, 2050 Fellowship at NYTW, MacDowell Colony Artist Residency and International Playwrights Residency at Royal Court. Her plays have received the Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award (Among the Dead), Honorable Mention from the 2014 Arch and Bruce Brown Playwriting Competition (Cardboard Piano), and was named 2014 finalist for the Ruby Prize (No More Sad Things). She has translated over thirty English musicals into Korean, including Evita, Dracula, Spamalot and The 25th Annual...Spelling Bee, while working on several award winning musical theatre productions as director, lyricist and translator in Seoul, South Korea. Ms. Jung holds a Playwriting M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama, and is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Theater Writers Lab.

Leigh Silverman is a two-time Obie Award winner, directed the Encores! and Broadway productions of Violet and earned a Tony Award nomination. Other Broadway credits include David Henry Hwang's Chinglish, Lisa Kron's Well, as well as Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party for Encores!. Over thirty world premieres including: All the Ways to Say I Love You (MCC); Tumacho (Clubbed Thumb); The Way We Get By (Second Stage); American Hero (Second Stage and Williamstown Theatre Festival); Kung Fu (Signature Theatre); The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Playwrights Horizons); No Place to Go (Public Theater); The Madrid (MTC); Golden Child (Signature Theatre); In The Wake (Center Theatre Group/Berkeley Rep and Public Theater, Obie Award, Lortel nomination); Go Back to Where You Are (Playwrights Horizons, Obie Award); From Up Here (MTC, Drama Desk nomination); Yellow Face (Pulitzer finalist, Center Theatre Group/Public Theater); Coraline (MCC/True Love); Hunting and Gathering (Primary Stages); Oedipus at Palm Springs (NYTW); Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons/Seattle Rep); Well (Public Theater/Huntington Theatre/ACT).

Carolyn Agan (Woman/Chorus) won the 2016 Craig Noel Award for Ragtime at San Diego Musical Theatre. Other credits include the national tour of The Phantom Tollbooth, Olive in The 25th Annual...Spelling Bee, Belle in A Christmas Carol ('10-'15), Freedom's Song, 1776, LiberTy Smith and Parade (Ford's Theatre), Hello, Dolly! (Signature/Ford's Theatre), Two Gents: A Rock Opera (Shakespeare Theatre), Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors (Olney Theatre), Aldonza in Man of La Mancha, Bold Girls, The Hostage (Keegan Theatre). Ms. Agan serves as Director of Education at San Diego Musical Theatre and is an associated teaching artist with La Jolla Playhouse and The Old Globe.

Julian Cihi (Man/Chorus) has appeared on Broadway in Doctor Zhivago and Off-Broadway as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet at Classic Stage Company. Other credits include The Importance of Being Earnest; A Month in the Country (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Roger in RENT; Orlando in As You Like It (Toho Productions; Japan), directed by Michael Mayer. TV: The Mysteries of Laura (NBC); Mr. Robot (USA); High Maintenance (HBO); Gypsy (Netflix). Born and raised in Tokyo and currently living in New York City, Mr. Cihi earned his B.A. from Brown University and M.F.A. from NYU Tisch Graduate Acting.

DeLeon Dallas (Chorus) is a third-year M.F.A. actor at UC San Diego, where credits include La Bete, Native Son, Streamers, Strange Men, Damascus. Regional: Honky (San Diego Repertory); Brothers Size (Ubuntu). Film credits: Honky (PBS). He holds a B.A. in Sports Management from Concordia University, Nebraska. He was also chosen for the summer 2017 Guthrie Experience for actors in training. Mr. Dallas collaborated closely with the Guthrie Theater and other actors in his class from different training programs to devise a new works called Incurable: A Fool's Tale.

Rona Figueroa (Wife/Chorus) appeared on Broadway as Kim in Miss Saigon, Eponine in Les Miserables, as well as in Nine and Lennon. Off-Broadway credits include Daisy in Dogeaters (Public Theater) and Grusha in Caucasian Chalk Circle (Vineyard Theater). Regional: Lady Thiang in The King and I (Chicago Lyric Opera), Misaki in I Sing the Rising Sea (Virginia Stage Company), Mimi in Rent (Vermont Theater), Luciana in Boys From Syracuse (Center Stage), Mary Magdelene in Jesus Christ Superstar (NSMT) and We Will Rock You (Vegas). Film/TV credits: Dragonheart, A New Beginning, Slow Jam King, Mysteries of Laura, Eye Candy, Gossip Girl, Royal Pains. Rock band: Quasilulu, albums on iTunes.

Kyle Hester's (Chorus) regional credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet (Santa Cruz Shakespeare); Annie Get Your Gun (Dutch Apple Theatre); The Jazz Funeral of Stella Brooks (Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival). LA: Macbeth (Harold Clurman Lab Theatre); Twelfth Night (LA New Court Theatre); Henry VI, Part 1 (The Production Company). UC San Diego: Strange Men, Streamers, Native Son, Angels in America: Perestroika, Go. Please. Go., La Bête. Film: Praxis, Finale. TV: The Temp Agency. Training: M.F.A. from UCSD (2018), B.F.A. from NYU Tisch.

Francis Jue (Father) was featured in La Jolla Playhouse's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. On Broadway he has appeared in Pacific Overtures, Thoroughly Modern Millie and M. Butterfly. Favorite theatre credits include Yellow Face (Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards; Drama Desk and Drama League Award nominations), In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (AriZoni Award), Miss Saigon (Elliot Norton Award), Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Drama-Logue Award), Cabaret (Bay Area Critics Circle Award), Falsettoland, tokyo fish story, Kung Fu, King of the Yees and Paper Dolls. Film and TV credits include Joyful Noise, and recurring roles on Madam Secretary and Law & Order: SVU.

Yunjin Kim (Yoo Nanhee) has appeared on the popular television series Lost, Two Sisters and Mistresses. Her theater credits include Yachiyo in Ballad of Yachiyo at Seattle Repertory Theatre; Fa Mu Lan in The Woman Warrior at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Diana in Junk Bonds at Capital Repertory Company, Jing Mei Woo in The Joy Luck Club at Long Wharf Theatre and Huoy in The Survivor at Actor's Theatre of Louisville. Her Korean film and TV credits include Shiri, The Legend of Gingko, Rush! (Japanese film), Iron Palm, Yesterday, Ardor, Diary of June, Seven Days, Harmony, Heartbeat, The Neighbors, Ode to My Father, House of the Disappeared, Beautiful Vacation, Wedding Dress, With Love.

James Kyson's (Gook Minsung) theater credits include Blood (The Complex); Hair (Knightsbridge). His television appearances include: Preacher, Elementary, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, Sleepy Hollow, NCIS: LA, Justified, Hawaii 5-0, and series regular on Heroes. He also voiced the History Channel's WWII in HD, Ken Burns' National Parks, Adventure Time and HBO's Animals. His film credits include Walk to Vegas, Shutter.

Kimberly Monks (Chorus) is a third-year M.F.A. actor at UC San Diego, where credits include: La Bete, Native Son, Taming of the Shrew, Are You There and Damascus. She received a B.A. in Religion: Youth Leadership from Vanguard University of Southern California. Ms. Monks was also chosen for the summer 2017 Guthrie Experience for actors in training. She collaborated closely with the Guthrie Theater and other actors from different training programs to devise a new works called Incurable: A Fool's Tale.

Samantha Wang (Hyonjin/Chorus) appeared in the Playhouse's DNA New Work Series reading of Akeelah and the Bee. Other credits include: Vanessa in In the Heights (UC San Diego), Betty-Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and Underworld Voice in The Odyssey (The Old Globe), Emma in Lego Friends Live Holiday Show (Legoland California), Sara Crewe in A Little Princess (San Diego Junior Theatre). Ms. Wang is currently working towards a B.A. in Political Science: Public Law and a B.A. in Communications at the University of California, San Diego.

The Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is internationally-renowned for creating some of the most exciting and adventurous work in American theatre, through its new play development initiatives, its innovative Without Walls series, artist commissions and residencies. Currently led by Artistic Director and 2017 Tony Award winner Christopher Ashley and Managing Director Michael S. Rosenberg, the Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, and reborn in 1983 under the artistic leadership of Des McAnuff. La Jolla Playhouse has had 28 productions transfer to Broadway, garnering 38 Tony Awards, among them the currently-running, Tony Award-nominated hit Come From Away, along with Jersey Boys, Memphis, The Who's Tommy, Big River, as well as Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays and the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, both fostered as part of the Playhouse's Page To Stage Program. LaJollaPlayhouse.org.

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