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= Julia Cho = Julia Cho is a Korean American playwright, screenwriter, and producer. She has written 13 plays and of which five of them were at South Coast Repertory. Her work has toured around not only nationally, but also cities like Seoul, Korea. Cho’s writing was described as “quiet, charming, almost whimsical riffs on themes of assimilation and loss of identity” by Jesse Green in The New York Times.

Educational Background
Cho was born in Los Angeles, the United States in 1975. She received education at Amherst College, UC Berkeley, New York University, and Juilliard School. Some of her mentors include Marsha Norman, Christopher Durang, and David Henry Hwang. According to her interview with The Juilliard Journal, she self-identifies as American. When discussing her personal background in the interview, she mentioned that “For me to say that being of Korean origin influences my work is the same as saying being a woman or being American influences my writing.”

Depiction of Korean American Females
Julia Cho’s plays are described to make no explicit recognition or celebration of Korea, but rather naturally embedded in the stories by Mee Won Lee, Korean theatre studies professor at Korea National University of Arts. Her works specifically depict women influenced by the Korean diaspora. BFE, for instance, depicts a Korean American woman who had to endure through exorcized stereotypes about Asian women. Another example is Nora, the female protagonist of The Architecture of Loss, who immigrated to the United States following her marriage to an American soldier. 99 Histories illustrate the life of Eunice, former cello prodigy, struggling through depression and unsettlement in her family.

Aubergine
Aubergine (2017) is a play that explores the concept of Asian American identity through family and memory. She specifically states that “The play at its core is also just a play about life: about the things that we carry with us, the things that we eat, and why we eat the things we eat.” Discussion of food and identity in Aubergine incorporates the discussion of diaspora, which can be characterized by individuals’ experiences away from their homeland. Cho expands on the concept of 1.5 and second generations of Korean American immigrants throughout the play. She focuses on the discussion of identity issues through dramaturgically assigning roles that food serves in increasing accessibility of the conversation as a whole. Her writing explores themes that are universal in nature through “constructing different subjectivity” that evokes sympathy regardless of one’s identity. Julia Cho was one of the five playwrights whose works were performed as parts of “Korea Diaspora Season” in National Theater Company of Korea in Yongsan-Gu, Seoul.

Aubergine